| Casting a Net on Troubled
Waters
By Andrew Curry
Special to the Washington
Post
January 14, 1999, District
Weekly
Rita Davis was
sound asleep, recovering from a bad case of food poisoning, when God woke
her up and told her to turn on the evening news, she said.
"He said--not
in an audible voice, but one deep down in my spirit--to turn on the television.
I happened to have the remote right there. Channel 9 was doing a Good News
story about the Fishing School, and I was very impressed by what I saw
and heard," said Davis, a longtime community activist and second-generation
Washingtonian.
A few days later
she called Tom Lewis, founder of the Fishing School, a youth program in
a row house on Wylie Street in Northeast. Lewis had opened the school nine
years earlier, naming it for a passage in the Bible, (Matthew 4:19) when
Jesus tells soon-to-be apostles Peter and Andrew, both fishermen, to "follow
me and I will make you fishers of men." It was August 1995, and Davis had
decided to give her family's 100-year-old house at Meade and 48th streets
NE in Deanwood to Lewis. He decided to open a second Fishing School site.
Unoccupied since
1987, Davis's house had fallen into disrepair and was becoming too expensive
for her to maintain. "At first I leased the house to him for 50 years.
Then I decided to just donate the house. It was my grandmother's, and it's
just a blessing for me that it's going to help the community."
Davis's generosity
started a 2 1/2-year struggle by Lewis and others to get the dilapidated
house ready for use. During that time, Lewis said he often turned to God
for support as he has struggled to overcome a daunting array of permit
requirements, building complications and unforeseen repairs. But it was
an earthly alliance of volunteers, charities and local craftsmen that finally
got the project done. And since the school's Nov. 21 opening, neighborhood
children have been coming every day for hours of tutoring, games, song,
prayer and loving attention.
Spearheading
the work were volunteers from the International Monetary Fund, an agency
better known for massive aid projects in developing nations. Despite $70,000
in IMF funding and additional help from Washington Aware, a group of young
professionals from the D.C. area, creating a second Fishing School in Deanwood
was a huge task.
"When we first
saw it, it was a neglected house--completely dilapidated. I was amazed
when I looked at it and saw the derelict state it was in," said Juanita
Roushdy, an IMF staff member who headed the volunteer effort. "I said to
Tom, 'Why don't you just give me the keys to this project? Don't you worry
about the
funds.' "
Volunteers worked
weekends to gut the interior, fix the wiring and plumbing, shore up the
sagging foundation, paint and put up new drywall. They also had help from
enthusiastic neighborhood children.
"From the time
we started, we had kids crawling all over us. They were so eager to help,"
Roushdy said. "They were there all the time. They loved tearing things
down."
Working with
the neighborhood boys and girls was a rewarding experience for the volunteers,
who soon began doing more than just construction work. When a local pizza
restaurant refused to send a delivery driver to the Deanwood address, Lewis
and the volunteers started loading the children in the Fishing School's
van and taking them out to lunch and movies. They also worked with neighbors
to clear out a vacant, overgrown lot across the street from the house that
Roushdy said had become a haven for drug dealers.
As the project
dragged on, simple work suitable for children and unskilled volunteers
dried up. Donations paid for electricians and plumbers to install needed
fixtures, including sophisticated wiring that would later make creating
a computer lab possible. But when Lewis began the complex process of getting
the building's improvements approved by authorities, he ran headlong into
the District's bureaucracy.
"It's been one
obstacle after another as far as building permits, occupation permits,
zoning permits--we got no understanding whatsoever from those offices.
It shouldn't be that way, especially when you're doing the government a
. . . service," Roushdy said. "They were doing stupid, idiotic, bureaucratic
things. They
wouldn't help [Lewis] an
inch."
Lewis added,
"I had some thoughts wishing I hadn't started it because things got so
bad. I had always expected if we do our work right and behave ourselves,
God will make it happen."
The Fishing
School finally was given a temporary certificate of occupancy that will
last until April. Inspectors told Lewis the school needs to add a multipurpose
room and a separate bathroom for staff members, something Lewis has no
money for.
For now, though,
the school is finally, exuberantly open. With a new coat of white paint
on the outside and brightly colored paper fish covering the walls inside,
the house has something for all the children who crowd in from the surrounding
Deanwood neighborhood and nearby Lincoln Heights.
Upstairs there
is a computer lab where middle-school students work on homework, and downstairs
a crowd of 5- and 6-year-olds sing and play games. There's a small kitchen
where the children get a hot meal every day, and the staff uses the house
to meet with parents and guardians about nutrition. Its effect on the children,
who bubble with enthusiasm and curiosity, is unmistakable.
"I've been coming
since they first started," said Jamar Tillman, 15, a Fairmount Heights
Middle School student who lives next door to the Fishing School and was
one of the children who helped volunteers repair the building. "My grandmother
asked me if I wanted to do something good instead of being on the streets.
I think I'll be helping out as long as I'm in the neighborhood."
For Lewis, a
retired D.C. police officer who was once Officer Friendly at Roper Junior
High school just up the street, the battle to open a second location was
worth it.
"A lot of our
children are broken, even if they don't know it. This is an opportunity
to make people whole," Lewis said. Using the Biblical tale of Lazarus,
raised from the dead by Jesus, to illustrate his vision, Lewis explained:
"Over here in Lincoln Heights it's like a tomb. Dead people breathe, walk,
but aren't going anyplace. The reason is stones--the stones of poverty,
drug abuse, illiteracy, alcoholism. The Fishing School is trying to roll
those stones away." |
