Organizer

Emanuel "Manny" Ortiz, 63, a longtime advocate and political organizer in Philadelphia's Puerto Rican community, died Friday, March 8, at Pennsylvania Hospital of complications following heart surgery. For two decades, Mr. Ortiz served as executive director of the Hispanic educational organization ASPIRA Inc. of Pennsylvania. He also was a founder of Taller Puertorriqueño, a group for activists and artists. He served as deputy mayor under Mayor Ed Rendell. He was a key supporter for former City Councilman Angel Ortiz and the coalition that elected Mayor W. Wilson Goode.

There are 55 children at the residential treatment center where Derrick, 11, lives. He is protective of the younger ones and will crouch down to their level to talk, and take their hands and help them look for things they have lost. If they fall off their bikes, he'll run to brush them off and make them laugh. He likes to be helpful in many ways. He's a good organizer. When he picks up toys, he'll put dolls in one place and little cars in another. And he keeps his room clean. Derrick has made the honor roll in his special-education classes; they are taught at about a fourth-grade level.

Joseph C. Nettleton, 83, who helped organize the meat cutters union in the Philadelphia-Camden area in 1939 and served in numerous capacities before retiring in 1978, died Monday in Farmington Hills, Mich., where he had lived since 1989. A Camden native, Mr. Nettleton was a city councilman there from 1966 to 1975. He was a longtime member of the Camden City Planning Board, serving eight years as chairman. He also served on the city's Zoning Board of Adjustment and the Citizens' Advisory Board to the Camden City Board of Education.

Omjasisa Kentu, born Louis K. Kearney, 52, a relentless advocate for the political empowerment of African Americans, died of a stroke Friday at Albert Einstein Medical Center. "Kentu was a passionate man who loved Philadelphia and his community," former Mayor W. Wilson Goode Sr. said Tuesday, and who worked hard, Goode added, to help the people of his native North Philadelphia. Mr. Kentu's future may have been forged on a crisp fall day in November 1967, when he was beaten by police while participating in a demonstration outside Philadelphia School District headquarters.

Sam Nocella Sr., a retired vice president of the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers of America and a member of the labor movement for more than a half-century, died Thursday. He was 82 and lived in Southampton, Bucks County. When Nocella retired in 1982, he also was manager of the Baltimore Region's Joint Board. He was recognized as one of the earliest in the textile industry to warn of the increasing danger to the domestic economy of foreign imports and was considered a pioneer in bringing about fringe benefits, including day care for working mothers.

Alfred Junior "Al" Jiles, an organizer for Local 56 of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, died Sunday of a heart attack. He was 58 and lived in Wyndmoor, Montgomery County. Jiles had been an organizer for the union for more than 20 years. Educated in the Ardmore, Okla., public schools, he was a 1958 graduate of the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. Deborah Jiles, one of his daughters, said her father was highly regarded in the union and the community.

Riders in cycling's Tour of Galicia in Spain refused to contest yesterday's stage as a sign of respect to a race organizer who died after crashing his motorcycle while trying to warn riders of an obstacle. Jesus Presa, 40, died yesterday of head injuries sustained after colliding Tuesday with Italian rider Denis Zanette. Zanette suffered minor injuries. After riding most of today's 190-kilometer stage at normal speed, the riders consulted organizers and decided to cross the finish line without the traditional sprint for victory.

Services have been set for Emanuel "Manny" Ortiz, 63, a longtime advocate and political organizer in Philadelphia's Puerto Rican community, who died Friday, March 8, at Pennsylvania Hospital of complications following heart surgery. For two decades, Mr. Ortiz served as executive director of the Hispanic educational organization ASPIRA Inc. of Pennsylvania. He also was a founder of Taller Puertorriqueño, a group for activists and artists, and served as deputy mayor under Mayor Ed Rendell.

Shafik Asante, 49, a community activist and organizer, died at Graduate Hospital on Friday after a long fight with bone cancer. Mr. Asante, also known as Shafik Abu-Tahir, was born in West Philadelphia. His grandfather, Emmanuel Wyatt, was the president and cofounder of the Haddington Leadership Organization, an organization that Mr. Asante later chaired. Mr. Asante attended West Philadelphia High School, Wilberforce College in Ohio, the Philadelphia College of the Bible, and Antioch University.

Rose F. Staub, 101, a longtime resident of the city's Lawndale section who moved South more than 40 years ago to pursue an often-dangerous career as a union organizer, died Sunday in a St. Petersburg, Fla., nursing home. While raising a son and daughter with her husband, Charles E. Staub, Mrs. Staub began a job as a seamstress in a Nicetown textile mill. Appalled by working conditions there, she became a union business agent, said her grandson, Charles E. Staub 2d. In the early 1950s, after her husband's death, she moved to Florida, eventually settling in Tampa.

J ULIE EBNER, 46, of 11th Street near Green in North Philly, owns Juju Salon & Spa in Queen Village. The Temple grad started a small, organic hair salon in 2005. Four years later, she launched a website offering all-natural, plant-based products. Ebner, a divorcee, has two daughters, ages 9 and 11 . Q: How did you come up with the idea for the business? A: I was a paralegal and also worked in salons. I felt like the environment in most salons was toxic. The interiors were boring and not what a stylist wanted.

Following a concerted effort by New Jersey's Motor Vehicle Commission to ask every customer about organ donation, the number of registered donors in the state shot up last year. The number of people who registered as donors at MVC offices rose from 626,857 in 2011 to 713,702 in 2012, up 14 percent. In total, the number of registered donors in New Jersey went up by 4.5 percent during that time period to 2.4 million. The numbers were highlighted Thursday at a news conference at Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center in Camden, which performs organ transplants.

Several news organizations led by Bloomberg News are protesting the exclusion of the news media from a two-day conference sponsored by the Nutter administration to stimulate investor interest in the city's municipal bonds. The Inquirer has joined the protest, signing a letter to Nutter that criticizes the city for refusing to let reporters attend the conference, scheduled to begin Thursday at the Comcast Center. "In our view, when the City of Philadelphia speaks to investors about the issuance of public bonds and the city's fiscal condition, that's important public business," Inquirer editor William K. Marimow said.

With the coming of spring, thoughts turn to yard sales - those events in which one set of Americans buys the stuff another set no longer wants for more or less than the retail price. Other than some buying tips - make sure you have enough room to store your new acquisitions, and confirm that your spouse is on board with it - I have nothing to say about hosting. So I'll defer to the folks at First Alert, who appear to know how to do this correctly. Time it right. Many neighborhoods schedule an annual date for all homes and neighbors to participate and will promote the date on your behalf.

A gunshot victim whose kidneys, pancreas, heart and liver were transplanted into four recipients transmitted an uncommon parasite to several of them, health officials reported Thursday, suggesting that new screening guidelines may be needed. The infection apparently involved patients at Temple University Hospital and Geisinger Medical Center in central Pennsylvania. The parasite, Strongyloides stercoralis , is found mainly in and around the tropics, and no national guidelines recommend screening donors, according to the investigation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Nearly two years after teachers at a charter school in Northwest Philadelphia expressed interest in forming a union, they will get a chance to vote later this month. And, in what union officials said will be a first for a charter school in Pennsylvania, New Media's union election will be overseen by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) instead of Pennsylvania's state labor board. At the request of the charter school, the national board took jurisdiction of New Media's election as a result of a recent NLRB decision that said the Chicago Mathematics & Science Academy Charter School was not a public school.

Two Pennsylvania charter school organizations on Tuesday criticized the Democratic chairman of the House Education Committee's report that catalogs instances of fraud and mismanagement at charter schools across the state. State Rep. James R. Roebuck (D., Phila.) said his review of selected charters' operations supports the need for legislation he has introduced to reform the state's charter laws by strengthening oversight and accountability and reexamining how they are funded. Pennsylvania Families for Public Cyber Schools said Roebuck presented a one-sided view of the state's 16 cyber charters, which provide online instruction to students in their homes.

MIRANDA BARTHMUS was munching on some brunch at Sabrina's Cafe in the Italian Market last spring when something unexpected arrived at her table: a side of serendipity. Barthmus and some colleagues from the Bethesda Project, a nonprofit agency on South Street near 16th that helps feed and shelter area homeless folks, had attracted the attention of Robert DeAbreu, the owner of Sabrina's. "We were celebrating, because we had just had our best fundraiser," said Barthmus, Bethesda's director of development.

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput has decided to allow girls to play football in Philadelphia's Catholic Youth Organization league next season, rejecting the recommendation of a panel he directed to review the league's policy banning them. That rule was subject to scrutiny this winter after Caroline Pla, 11, of Doylestown, was told by the archdiocese that she would not be allowed to play next fall. She played the 2011 and 2012 seasons due to an oversight. Caroline, who started an online petition in December urging the archdiocese to reconsider the rule, said she was surrounded by an elated cluster of classmates, friends, and neighbors when she learned the news from her mother after school.

Services have been set for Emanuel "Manny" Ortiz, 63, a longtime advocate and political organizer in Philadelphia's Puerto Rican community, who died Friday, March 8, at Pennsylvania Hospital of complications following heart surgery. For two decades, Mr. Ortiz served as executive director of the Hispanic educational organization ASPIRA Inc. of Pennsylvania. He also was a founder of Taller Puertorriqueño, a group for activists and artists, and served as deputy mayor under Mayor Ed Rendell.