Loughton was laid off 41/2 years ago from the heating and air-conditioning industry that provided him a living for more than two decades. But he came to the center hopeful. After applying for job after job after job, perhaps hundreds of jobs, Loughton, who holds an associate's degree in mechanical engineering, finally scored an interview, scheduled for the following day. He came to print his recommendation letters and continue his search. "In case that doesn't work out," he said.
He clicked on a listing, a pizza shop in need of a manager.
The technological resource of the center's nine flat-screen computers represents the pride and promise of a partnership among the CDC, which provides the staff; Temple University, which donated the computers; and the Philly Rising Collaborative, an initiative run out of the Managing Director's Office, which coordinated the effort. The goal of Philly Rising is to pour services into high-crime areas in the hope of raising people's quality of life. Help ranges from tearing down abandoned and crumbling homes to setting up job-training centers, like the one in Frankford, to be maintained by the community.
City programs can come and go, said Assistant Managing Director John Farrell, who heads Philly Rising. "But if you as a concerned citizen are determined to take your block back, that's what's going to last," he added.
Philly Rising began two years ago as a pilot in the North Philadelphia neighborhood of Hartranft. Successes there include reopening the neighborhood pool, "a tremendous victory," said Farrell, "because it had been a symbol to the community that they had been forgotten." There is now a Police Athletic League at the local elementary school, and a computer center that offers job training.
