UPDATE:
Yesterday I posted about Urban Ventures and the Colin
Powell Youth Center endorsing a Prayer Day for the
anti-gay Bachmann amendment. Today I get this from
Art Erickson, CEO and President of Urban Ventures.
--- Art Erickson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Non-Political Position of Urban Ventures and Colin
> Powell Youth
> Leadership Center
>
> We recently received notification that the Urban
> Ventures and Colin
> Powell Youth Leadership Center names were listed in
> a document entitled
> "A Declaration and a Call" that appeared on the
> Midwest Chaplains web
> site. The inclusion of our name was done without
> our approval and a
> retraction is forthcoming.
>
> Urban Ventures is a non-political organization that
> does not take
> positions regarding public policy issues. Our
> legislative focus is
> State Bonding and the Colin Powell Youth Leadership
> Center's single
> measurable goal is to help underprivileged youth
> graduate from high
> school and go onto some form of post-secondary
> education.
>
> Underprivileged youth need our assistance and the
> Colin Powell Youth
> Leadership Center is a strategy that is intended to
> help.
>
> We seek your continued support on behalf of the
> 13,000 youth that live
> within one-mile of our site and the 25,000 youth
> that will use the
> Center on an annual basis. The Colin Powell Center
> will serve kids that
> live in Minneapolis, St. Paul and many of the
> Western Suburbs. It will
> be open to all kids.
>
> We value your endorsement and hope that you will
> look favorably toward
> our $6.35M state bonding requests.
>
> Art Erickson
> Duane
> Coleman
> CEO & President,
> Vice
> President, Development
> Urban Ventures Leadership Foundation
> Colin Powell Youth
> Leadership Center
6.35 Million for Urban Ventures?????? This seems like
a bad use of taxpayer money.
I called Dan Hall at Midwest Chaplains, and he also
told me that including the Urban Ventures and Colin
Powell name on this prayer for the Bachmann amendment.
This was signed by Art Erickson and John Turnipseed in
January 2005.
It's a good first step for Urban Ventures to state on
the record that their programs are open to all
children. They did not state publically that they will
not coerce kids into participating in prayer in order
to participate in sports.
Urban Ventures has a history of not respecting parents
who don't agree with their religion. This is from a
post to the Minneapolis Issues list by David Piehl:
My former neighbor, Jane Strauss, sent her
children to an Urban Ventures summer program some
years ago that was funded in part by the neighborhood.
Jane's summary of the program was "it was supposed to
be recreational activities for the kids, instead they
fed my kids ham and cheese and talked about Jesus!"
Rather inappropriate given the fact that Jane is an
observant Jew, and was raising her children as such. I
wonder if Urban Ventures plans to include the
increasing number of Somalian children, most of whom
are muslim, in their program?
Another post by Liz Greenbaum describes a similar
situation:
When parents are signing their children up for
classes - soccer, swimming, art classes, dance, music
lessons - no one should have to "check out" an
organization to see if they have a hidden agenda. They
are exactly what is expected - soccer, swimming, art
etc. and nothing more. If Urban Ventures were on the
up and up about this, they wouldn't have taken the
kids to the far corner of the field away from parents'
ears to do this. They intentionally hid what they were
doing, and believe me, had no intention of cluing the
adults into their subversive agenda. If you want to
know how it went I can get you in touch with the
parent who experienced this - they tried to stop her
from going over to see what her daughter was talking
about. Personally, I find this extremely disturbing
that a parent would be blamed for not checking it out
thoroughly enough.
*************************
Developing . . .
Eva Young
Near North
Minneapolis
Blogs:
http://lloydletta.blogspot.com
http://www.outletradio.com
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