Camden Kids Take Peace to Street
Marching at the front of a boisterous parade of city children, Cirilo Cuevas raised his voice to join in loud chants: "No more violence! No more drugs!"
But the words weren't just slogans for the 10-year-old student from Molina Elementary School. They were a plea to end the harsh conditions that confront many youngsters here.
"I see fighting . . . and I hear gunshots," said Cirilo, who lives in the Ablett Village public-housing complex in East Camden. "I see people that sell drugs, and I'm only walking to the store."
Cirilo was among some 300 children who marched Friday afternoon from the North Camden school to the downtown Walt Whitman Center for the Arts.
"We're walking for peace," said Julio Alfonzo, 11, another Molina School student.
Children in the march -- from the Molina and Cooper Poynt elementary schools -- were participants in New Jersey After 3, a statewide after-school program for students from kindergarten through fifth grade. The program helps extend children's education and keeps them busy in the after-school hours that are a prime period for juvenile crime, said Shannon Boehmer, an New Jersey After 3 spokesperson.
The march was dedicated to Jamarr Cruz, a Molina School student who died March 31 from injuries suffered in an assault in his home. Jamarr, 9, attended Molina School and at one time took part in New Jersey After 3, said Shani Johnson, the program's site coordinator.
Vincent Williams, 26, the live-in boyfriend of Jamarr's mother, has been charged with the boy's murder.
Julio Alfonzo, a former classmate of the slain youth, carried a large sign that read "Jamarr Lives." The dead youth's aunt, Dominique Monroe of Camden, displayed his photograph at the front of the procession.
"I appreciate it a whole lot," she said of the march.
The students' walk, part of a worldwide youth-service observance, came after weeks of lessons that focused on issues like self esteem and conflict resolution, said Johnson.
"We even had a fashion show, and some of them modeled in trashy clothes to say, "I'm still good even with all that,' " she said.
The march moved first through an urban landscape of modest homes, abandoned buildings and trash-strewn lots in North Camden. Some residents looked out from behind wrought-iron bars that covered windows and porches.
After a few blocks, the youngsters walked under the Benjamin Franklin Bridge and emerged into the orderly, institutional setting of the Rutgers-Camden campus.
"You just made a powerful move in the city of Camden: You walked for peace," Johnson told the youths during a ceremony at the arts center. Don't just let it be for today."
Reach Jim Walsh at (856) 486-2646 or jwalsh@courierpostonline.com
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