Greater Harrisburg's Community Magazine
Happy [Long] Weekend!
Weather-permitting, we’ll be in the pool, at the BBQ, and dancing with friends (the latter, weather doesn’t matter!). We hope you have a wonderful and relaxing weekend, too — and if relaxing doesn’t cut it, well, see below.
N. 2nd Street in Harrisburg
Last year, more than 100 Harrisburg residents came together to hear about preliminary plans to convert N. 2nd Street to two-way traffic.
Now, city planners are back with some firmer ideas.
On July 18, the city and its consultants will present concept plans to return much of N. 2nd Street, between Forster and Division streets, to two-way traffic. The road has been a three-lane, one-way mini-highway since the 1950s.
According to the city, residents will have the opportunity to ask questions and suggest refinements to the alternatives before the final design is drafted.
“We honestly don’t know which design we’re going to go with,” said city Engineer Wayne Martin. “So, we need the public input.”
Martin said that the city will present two major design choices, though some elements could be interchangeable based on public feedback.
The city, Martin said, hopes to begin some work on the $6 million project next year. However, the majority of the work probably will take place in 2021, due to an expected, lengthy state permitting process for signalized intersections.
Also, the city plans to begin soon on related improvements to several other streets, including Forster Street, to facilitate the flow of traffic once N. 2nd goes two-way in Midtown and Uptown.
One thing that residents won’t see is angled parking along 2nd Street, an option that was discussed during the public first meeting in November. According to Martin, angled parking was nixed because it took up more space on the street but didn’t yield any additional parking spaces.
Martin said he hopes that a consensus emerges following the July 18 meeting.
“We hope there will be overwhelming support for one design or the other,” he said.
Harrisburg’s two-way 2nd Street public meeting will take place on July 18, 6 to 8 p.m., at HACC Midtown 2, 1500 N. 3rd St., Harrisburg.
Harrisburg school district receiver Dr. Janet Samuels with Dr. John George, the district’s newly hired financial recovery plan service director.
In his famous book, “On the Road,” author Jack Kerouac, having spent a night on a bench in the train station and then run out of town, famously decried Harrisburg as, “Cursed city!”
That thought beat through my brain as I read the latest missive to the cursed— “Harrisburg City School District: Agreed Upon Procedures and Technical Consulting Report”—otherwise known as the state Department of Education’s financial audit, which was released today.
For the past decade, the city of Harrisburg has been pulling itself out of the financial crater following former Mayor Steve Reed’s 28 years in office. And now this.
But at least Reed got maybe $500 million of value from the $1 billion in debt he piled onto the city’s credit card. A terrible return, for sure, but it’s hard to discern what exactly Harrisburg and its children got from nine years of Superintendent Sybil Knight-Burney and her crew.
Oh, actually, it’s not. It’s in the report:
I could go on and on, but perhaps you should just read the report by the consultant, Wessel & Co., for yourself. Harrisburg City SD – AUP and Consulting Report 2016-2018
This, of course, is just the latest horrible district news, building upon years of poor student achievement, large and small scandals, a lack of transparency and accountability, and, now, missing computers and financial data.
Sigh.
In 2011, the commonwealth of Pennsylvania placed the city government into receivership, which, though we didn’t know it at the time, ended up being the first step in restoring Harrisburg to relative financial health.
In comparison, the school district’s fiscal situation, while very bad, is actually not as terrible as the city’s was—to the extent that “not bankrupt” is an improvement.
Like the city, though, the district will need to rebuild its top leadership, its financial and management systems and the public confidence—no small order. Of course, it has the extra responsibility of providing a decent education for Harrisburg’s children, which is supposed to be its core mission.
In 2014, Harrisburg emerged from state receivership still shaky, but it allowed the city to set the stage for more responsible leadership, which, thankfully, arrived. Here’s hoping that, after a three-year receivership, we’ll be able to say the same for the Harrisburg school district—that it pushed reset, stabilized and rebounded.
Then, perhaps finally and forever, Harrisburg can shake off Kerouac’s term, “cursed city.”
Lawrance Binda is editor-in-chief of TheBurg.
Harrisburg City Council on Tuesday night
Harrisburg City Council had a fine plan on Tuesday night to tie up some loose ends and then clock out for seven weeks for summer recess.
It didn’t work out that way.
Instead, council members will need to return to work at least twice over their summer break or risk losing millions of dollars in federal housing money that funds everything from low-income home repairs to at-risk youth programs to paying off a federal loan.
The city blamed the change of plan on the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which issued its notice of funding to Harrisburg on June 10, several months later than usual.
The late notice gives the city just two months to scramble to work with a new technical consultant, determine allocations, hold a public hearing, have a month-long public comment period and finalize its ordinances, all before a mid-August deadline.
“We are under a crunch that is substantial,” said Mayor Eric Papenfuse.
The city now must prepare three ordinances by Friday, including one for the popular Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program.
The city uses this grant, which, in recent years has totaled about $2 million, for city-run housing rehabilitation projects, to help support social service groups and, in recent years, to help pay off the outstanding federal debt associated with the disastrous Capitol View Commerce Center project.
The Friday deadline is necessary so that the city has enough time to properly advertise the meeting for Tuesday evening, when both the action plan will be introduced and a mandated public hearing will be held.
A 30-day comment period will follow, leaving council with just days to meet again on Aug. 6, pass a final ordinance and send it to HUD to make the federal agency’s deadline.
“It’s an all-hands on deck situation,” said city Solicitor Neil Grover.
Papenfuse is holding out some hope that HUD may extend the deadline, but said that the city can’t count on that.
“We’d be asking you to come back twice during your recess,” he told council. “If the federal government would extend the deadline, then you wouldn’t have to come back in August.”
Tuesday’s lengthy, three-hour meeting was marked by periods of bickering between the administration and some council members, especially over the process for re-appointing finance director Bruce Weber to his position.
Council members objected that they needed to act immediately on Weber’s appointment, as his 120-day period serving as “acting” director, following an administrative restructuring, was expiring. After heated exchanges between Papenfuse and several council members, the appointment was approved by a 6-1 vote.
However, in the case of the CDBG funds, both the administration and City Council were on the same page, agreeing that HUD deserved the blame.
“A lot of this is coming down from the federal government,” said Councilman Westburn Majors. “We are acting as expeditiously as possible on this HUD CDBG funding.”
Dr. John George speaks to the press as Harrisburg school district receiver Dr. Janet Samuels looks on.
The Harrisburg school district recovery team needs to reconstruct much of the district’s key financial data, as critical financial records have gone missing and existing data can’t be trusted, officials said today.
Dr. John J. George, the financial recovery plan service director, said that numerous computers containing key financial data are missing from the district’s financial office. In addition, those records were not backed up, as they should have been, resulting in substantial information gaps, he said.
“I know that the records are missing,” said George, following a press conference that introduced key members of receiver Dr. Janet Samuels’ new leadership team. “I don’t know why they’re missing or how they’re missing.”
The missing computers were only discovered yesterday, the first day on the job for the team, George said. Samuels dismissed the district’s top officials, including former Superintendent Sybil Knight-Burney, effective Sunday, June 30.
George declined to say whether law enforcement had been contacted, nor would he say exactly what types of records are missing, other than that they are “certain key financial records.”
But he did say that the missing records pose a significant problem trying to understand the district’s current financial state.
“These are financial records that are important to the operation of the Harrisburg school district and that seem to be no longer there,” said George, who is the executive director of the Montgomery County Intermediate Unit, one of 29 “intermediate units” that offer educational services to local school districts.
The Harrisburg school district uses a web-based financial management software system called eFinance. However, the missing records also were not included in that system, George said.
Moreover, George said that he had little confidence in the accuracy of the data that is in the system.
“We have to rebuild the financial system immediately,” he said. “Right now, we have little confidence in any of the dollar figures available to us. That’s not a good position to be in.”
George said that his team will need to go through the district’s paperwork, “piece by piece and redo those systems.” He estimated that about 10,000 account codes will need to be examined.
“So, we have to go through account code by account code and make sure that expenditures are being properly coded and revenue is being properly recorded so that we have a baseline,” he said. “Our initial analysis, and we’re 24 hours into this right now, is that there are already significant errors in the accounting procedures.”
Under Samuels, the Harrisburg district has entered into a three-year contract with the Montgomery County Intermediate Unit (MCIU) to provide a host of services to the district.
For the most part, team members are replacing the former top district administrators, including the superintendent, the business manager and the human resources manager. Samuels said that the $1.4 million contract with MCIU is $600,000 less than the district was paying the in-house personnel who held those jobs.
Samuels today said that she decided to hire MCIU because of her past experience with George. She credits him for helping to stabilize the finances and improve the operations of the Reading School District.
“This district deserves highly competent, highly credentialed and qualified individuals, and that is exactly what exists within Dr. George,” she said.
George will remain with MCIU and will not be compensated by the Harrisburg district. Chris Celmer, the assistant superintendent for the Reading district, will lead the team on a daily basis as Harrisburg’s chief operating officer.
Like George, Samuels described the current state of the district financially and operationally as woeful.
“Very intentionally, it was looking at some of the failures here in the school district, some of the mismanagement that has taken place over a period of time here in the school district and really determining and deciding what could be done about it,” she said. “The time is now, and we look forward to making a difference.”
George said that, besides the financial aspect, the recovery team will assess the quality of personnel and strive for academic progress.
“It’s going to take time,” he said. “Our contract is for three years. I believe that we can make systemic change in three years.”
“We have no more time to waste,” Samuels said.
Debra Hervitz (and her book) in front of the state Capitol building.
While working as a teacher and reading specialist in the Harrisburg school district, Debra Hervitz discovered that many children didn’t know where they lived.
When she asked the kids if they knew their addresses, some only knew the street name, others didn’t know anything at all.
“A lot of teachers are trying to hold on to [teaching basic knowledge],” she said. “But because of the state testing and everything, they’re so worried. So, basic types of things like their home address [aren’t taught.]”
Without the district on her side, Hervitz decided to take matters into her own hands. Hervitz, nicknamed “Ms. Read,” is now the author of the “Where I Live,” a series of books that teaches Pennsylvania students about where they live. To date, Hervitz has published two versions of the book: “Where I Live: Harrisburg, Pennsylvania” and “Where I Live: Pennsylvania.”
Both books start out with the solar system, outlining the names of the nine planets plus the sun. They then zero in on our planet, Earth, and its features such as the oceans, continents and countries.
The books then travel down to Pennsylvania. Hervitz describes the municipalities and counties that are in Pennsylvania. In her Harrisburg book, she goes more in-depth with some of the staples of the city such as the Capitol building and the State Museum.
“[Education] is something I am passionate about,” she said. “ It’s not like I’m an expert on geography. It’s just that I know that children need this.”
The first draft of “Where I Live” was actually created in 1998 by Hervitz and her daughter. At the time, Hervitz was teaching first grade English at Silver Academy and her daughter happened to be in the class. Hervitz wanted to incorporate geography into her curriculum, so she had her students create a “Where I Live” book for them to take home and read to their families. Since Hervitz taught her daughter, she was able to keep her book.
Nearly two decades later, Hervitz published her new version of “Where I Live,” with the help of the American Literacy Corp., local literary activist Floyd Stokes and illustrator Sheena Hisiro.
Since then, the retired teacher has read her book in classrooms across Harrisburg. She even had students set up a “geography bee,” with groups of teachers asking students geography questions based on her book.
Both books also have interactive sections for the kids to draw their neighborhood, sing a song, learn fun facts about Pennsylvania and more.
Hervitz hopes her books not only educate students on where they live but encourage teachers to teach students basic knowledge, such as their addresses.
“There are still a lot of good [teachers] out there,” she said. “When I walk into a classroom, and I see a globe by a teacher’s desk and not up on the shelf, I know it is a good teacher because they’re reading, their writing, their talking, and they’re pointing to that globe.”
To purchase your copy of “Where I Live,” visit elearningsource.com or contact Hervitz at [email protected].
Harrisburg school district Receiver Janet Samuels speaks to the press.
The weekend is upon us once again, but it can’t start until we sum up another heavy workweek of news around Harrisburg.
“Art of the State” opened at the State Museum of Pennsylvania, giving our art reviewer a chance to check out the annual juried exhibit dedicated to PA artists. Also, find out who won the awards.
Bethesda Mission received Harrisburg City Council approval for its proposal to demolish the historic Shamrock Fire Station and build a new addition to its community center on Herr Street. Click here for the details.
Capital Region Water unveiled its plan to begin imposing a stormwater fee for system upgrades and greening initiatives. CRW officials stressed its necessity, but not everyone was happy about it. For all the details, click here and here.
D&H Distributing is making a major commitment to help out our region’s children. Find out what this company, one of our area’s largest yet little known, is up to. Click here for the details.
Harrisburg swore in nine new police officers and gave commendations for bravery to both officers and civilians. Separately, a city hall ceremony honored Capt. Gabriel Olivera, a long-time officer who is retiring from the force.
Harrisburg School District again offered a bounty of news, as the district’s new court-appointed receiver cleaned house of the old administration, including the embattled superintendent, and announced that she would bring in a new team. Our editor added his own commentary.
Harrisburg University has attracted students from all over the world to attend its annual AI Bootcamp. Click here for the details.
July 4 Food Truck Festival and Fireworks will return for another year on Thursday. We have all the patriotic details from the mayor’s announcement.
Keyzus was our featured musician for the week as we wrapped up our series in honor of African American Music Appreciation Month.
Lt. Gov. John Fetterman opened the pool at his Fort Indiantown Gap mansion to groups and organizations, and Harrisburg schoolchildren were the first ones to make use of it.
Rockhill Trolley Museum is a nice day trip to view (and ride in) historic trolleys from around central PA, says our writer.
Rock climbing has become a popular sport in recent years, and there are numerous walls to scale around the Harrisburg area. Click here to read our feature story.
Sara Bozich punches your ticket for a fun weekend with her weekly roundup of things to do around the Harrisburg area.
TheBurg distributed our July issue to more than 500 locations in seven counties around central PA and posted all the content to our website. This month, we have a focus on pets, in addition to our usual wealth of community news and features.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has awarded Harrisburg a $300,000 grant to help clean up old, polluted industrial sites known as brownfields. Click here for the details.
Do you receive TheBurg Daily, our daily digest of news and events? If not, subscribe here!
Harrisburg Mayor Eric Papenfuse today introduced the city’s July 4 celebration in Riverfront Park.
It’s almost that time of the year when Riverfront Park is filled with music, food and, of course, fireworks.
Starting at 3 p.m. on Thursday, the banks of the Susquehanna River will become home to more than 40 food trucks, bands, vendors and more for the annual July 4th Food Truck Festival.
“We are ready here in the city for our annual Fourth of July Food Truck Festival and Fireworks,” said Mayor Eric Papenfuse. “It is, as always, a one-day, free event, and we are expecting at least 35,000 visitors for this amazing event.”
Food favorites such as Soul Burrito, Artisan Pizza, Potato Coop and Mad Dash are returning this year, as well as the always-popular Farm Show milkshakes. New this year are Cactus Blue Mexican, selling tacos, chimichangas, nachos and other favorites, Marsico’s A Taste of Italy and Bananarama with frozen, organic banana whip sundaes.
For the first time, the festival will hosts a wine garden next to Kunkel Plaza. Guests can enjoy wine from five wineries including 5 Schmucks Winery, Winery at Hunters Valley and J&P Winery. There will also be acoustic music played by Keith Goldstein and Alex Alegria in the garden.
Four music acts will perform on the live music stage near the Market Street Bridge between 3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. This year’s lineup includes Shrimp Ryan’s Jig Band, Justin Angelo Band, Lost Love Horizon and Time Bomb. The Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra is also returning to the festival. At 7:30 p.m., the orchestra will perform in Reservoir Park’s band shell.
“It’s a phenomenal concert, completely free,” said Devan Drabik, director of Explore HBG. “And the view of the fireworks [at Reservoir Park] is phenomenal. So, we encourage you to check that out, too.”
The Kid’s Zone will be packed with many activities for children, including free face painting, arts and crafts and balloon art. Staring at 5 p.m., kids will also get the chance to take photos with Wonder Woman and Captain America.
Fireworks will begin at 9:15 p.m. and last for around 30 minutes. According to Scott Elliott, director of communications for the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency, 1,000 firework shells are expected to launch during the show.
Street parking will be free for the day. Parking is $5 for those who wish to park on City Island and $10 at the Market Street Garage from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Recycle Bicycle will have a free stand for those riding their bikes to the event.
Guest will also get to experience the newly cemented lower river walk, a $500,000 project that started a few months ago. Though the walk is not 100-percent finished, Papenfuse stated that the area right across from City Island is available for people to sit and watch the fireworks.
Attendees can also grab hold of a “foodie guide” to plan out their festival experience.
“We’re hoping for wonderful weather. We know we’ll have an incredible family-friendly day,” Papenfuse said. “I hope you can all come and join us on Thursday, July 4, to celebrate Independence Day in our great capital city.”
The July 4th Food Truck Festival is Thursday, July 4, from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. in Riverfront Park, Harrisburg, with fireworks following. For more information, visit harrisburgpa.gov/july4th.
Dr. Janet Samuels, the Harrisburg school district’s receiver, second from left, listens to a question during last night’s meeting.
Last night, the Harrisburg school district’s newly appointed receiver showed that she wasn’t messing around.
Dr. Janet Samuels fired most of the district’s top leadership, including the superintendent, the solicitor, the business manager and the high school principal.
In a show of force, she ripped out the old system by the roots and is bringing in a team of turnaround experts, who will largely run the district for the next three years.
In response to the news, several area social media pages broke out in what can only be described as delight.
And that, to me, tells the truest story of what has become of the Harrisburg school district.
Sure, residents aren’t happy about the district’s academic performance, which remains subpar, or by a second straight year of tax hikes, approved last night.
But, more than anything, Harrisburg residents generally welcomed the extreme solution of state receivership and, now, the wholesale replacement of the district’s leadership, because they felt powerless, with no other recourse.
They had lost all confidence in the district’s administrators to do almost anything competently or to make decisions that didn’t seem profoundly self-serving.
That’s the real reason why, last month, Harrisburg voters did an alt-control-delete on the school board, throwing out all the incumbents on the ballot in favor of candidates who promised transparency, accountability and competence.
I found it striking that, during the many debates preceding the school board election, the challenging candidates talked about openness, character and capability at least as much as curriculum and achievement. Taxes almost never came up, either from the moderator or from the floor.
Residents were looking to be saved from a district leadership that, to them, had spun out of control—that couldn’t seem to do anything right, that didn’t seem to care, that appeared devoted primarily to its own preservation and that wasn’t being held accountable by a supine majority on the school board.
That’s why Harrisburg voters flipped the board and why they then pleaded for the state to take over. It seemed a radical solution, but seemingly the only way to force change.
In fact, the wisdom of the voters was on display last night, when two board members who supported the old regime petulantly stomped out halfway through the meeting—loudly, dramatically departing before Samuels unveiled the district’s new direction to the public.
So—here’s to a new beginning for the Harrisburg school district.
May last night’s meeting be the first step towards transparency (no more abuse of executive sessions), competence (no more hiring debacles and budget shocks), civility (no more arrogance and disrespect) and accountability (no more excuses). And, please, please, no more drama.
To her credit, Samuels last night took a big step in the right direction, striking a respectful and open tone throughout the meeting.
Perhaps, now, we can get back to focusing like a laser on caring for and educating Harrisburg’s children, which should be the only priority of the public school system.
Lawrance Binda is editor-in-chief of TheBurg.
Rosemary Loncar, Lynn Stitt and Kelly Lick of Steelton Community Cats.
Pop quiz for cat and dog owners. How much did you spend on pet food this month?
You’re not sure? I thought so. You put it in the cart, went to checkout, and pulled out your credit card. If manufacturers were to bump up the price per can by one measly penny, you’d pay it without a second thought—especially if each penny could finally solve the U.S. pet overpopulation problem.
That’s the hope of five local women. They created a nonprofit called PennyFix and are trying to convince pet food manufacturers to add a penny to the price of every can of pet food sold in America. Proceeds would finance free spays and neuters.
Easier said than done, of course, but it’s a deceptively simple solution to a complex problem.
“A penny is probably not going to be noticed by most people,” said Lynn Stitt, PennyFix founder and animal activist for 40 years. “Even if they do notice it, I think some of them would smile because they know they could someday look out their window and not see something starving in their backyard.”
The overpopulation numbers are breathtaking, and not in a good way:
Stitt remembers when building more shelters seemed to resolve the problem of stray cats and dogs. Today, more shelters aren’t the answer because they don’t create more homes, she said from the Grantville-area cat hospice she founded in 1980, The Best Little Cat House in PA.
The creation of no-kill shelters sounds good to the public, but “to the animal world, that’s not so good. It simply means they quit taking when they have a full house.”
So, animal lovers turn into hoarders, overwhelmed by animals they can’t care for. Or the hard-hearted dump their animals on city streets and country roads.
The cost of spaying and neutering is a barrier for many.
“Some vets will charge $300 just to neuter a male cat, and people aren’t doing it,” Stitt said. “Then they let the cats go because they begin to spray.”
The elements converge in a perfect storm of pet overpopulation. In the animal welfare community, said Stitt, “We’re sinking. We have come to a head. Everyone’s clamoring to get that dollar, and the money’s not coming in the way it was.”
Ideal Idea
Stitt and her fellow animal lovers recognize that all cats and dogs, whether in permanent homes, feral, stray or sheltered, need to be spayed and neutered.
A bit of brainstorming yielded an idea addressing the root of the problem. Add one penny to the cost of every can of pet food, and every dog or cat in the United States could be neutered or spayed for free, with distemper and rabies shots thrown in for good measure.
“It’s not going to cost pet food manufacturers anything,” said Stitt. “Basically, it’s going to be the animal people taking care of the animal problem.”
PennyFix would serve as a passthrough, channeling funds to clinics, veterinarians, shelters, cat colony caretakers and spaymobiles.
It’s hard to say exactly how many procedures a bunch of pennies can buy, because costs vary geographically, and dogs are more complicated than cats.
“In some areas of the country, for $25, they’ll do a cat from soup to nuts,” Stitt said, laughing when she realized her unintended pun.
Stitt sees a cascading effect from PennyFix.
Many clinics have the capacity to conduct additional procedures, but scarce funding means empty time slots. Shelters could make pets more adoptable by offering free spay/neutering. Trappers would trap even more animals, knowing that the fix would not be on their dimes. Colonies of cats could be fixed at the same time, addressing the soft underbelly of trap-neuter-return, or TNR—that cats breed like, well, rabbits, and even a single mating pair can quickly rebuild the local population.
PennyFix is “an ideal idea,” said Steelton Community Cats volunteer Rosemary Loncar of Swatara Township. The kitty spay/neutering organization operates from an old bank in downtown Steelton. With Dr. Diane Ford of Vetting Zoo in Palmyra at the operating table, the organization has spayed and neutered some 8,000 cats over nine years.
“When you talk about a thousand cats being spayed and neutered, the numbers are exponential, when you think that each one of those female ferals would have three litters a year,” said Loncar.
A recent $1,000 grant from PennyFix, raised through donations, has helped Steelton Community Cats fix 30 cats and counting, easing the financial burden for those who couldn’t afford the procedure.
“It’s helping people who want to help and get this done,” Loncar said. “Seventy-five to 80 percent of the people are probably elderly. They’re on a fixed income. They see this animal, and they pity this animal. They want to help it.”
With universal spay/neutering, kindhearted souls could continue to feed their colonies, Loncar said.
“Over a period of time, these cats will die natural deaths,” she said.
Keep It Going
Stitt sees PennyFix as a Mothers Against Drunk Driving moment for the animal welfare community. MADD’s founders saw a problem and had enough.
“They formed something,” she said. “They did something.”
PennyFix is gaining traction. Two board members attended the global 2019 Petfood Forum, making contacts at the industry’s biggest event. Catster magazine is running a story. More organizations are getting $1,000 grants.
If one pet food manufacturer among the big four (Mars, Colgate-Palmolive, Procter and Gamble and Nestlé) joins in, the others will follow. That, at least, is the hope.
PennyFix is about getting ahead of the problem, assuring that animals aren’t born in difficult conditions, not to mention among rampant abuse, said Loncar. PennyFix in full gear would be “an amazing effort to stop overpopulation.”
“Every volunteer organization that is in TNR, we’re all in need of money to continue what we’re doing,” she said. “If something like PennyFix is there, it means we can spay and neuter more cats and make ourselves available to more people.”
At age 67, Stitt sees a problem that has grown worse since she cleaned shelter cages as a teen.
“Every animal we helped along the way was important, but in the scheme of things, we’re not touching what’s out there,” she said.
She admits to her group being “five women who don’t know too much about this.” Then again, she once told her minister, Noah didn’t know how to build an ark.
To which her minister replied, “If Plan A didn’t work, there are 25 more letters. Keep it going.”
To learn more about PennyFix, visit www.pennyfix.org or call 717-469-2540.
