Highlighting a Hero
Father Mychal Judge (1933-2001), chaplain
of the New York Fire Department, was one of the nearly 3000 killed on 9/11. His death certificate was
numbered one-the first official death in the terrorist attack. The Franciscan friar was almost a legend among NYFD firefighters, a man who spent his years tending both physically and spiritually to the sick, injured, and the families of the fallen.
Some 3,017 people died in New York, at the Pentagon and in a farm field in western Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001, all were heroes in their own way.
Wally Bryan and Challenge House
"A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. A city is only as strong as its weakest neighborhood."
When former mayor Wally Bryan left his house on Alumni Avenue in June 2004, and moved to a small apartment at the corner of East 18th and McKee streets, he didn't have to travel far. By car, the distance is 1.3 miles. But what separates the two neighborhoods -- race, culture, economics and history -- is much greater. And that is why Bryan moved to Hopkinsville's innercity.
"I should have done this a long time ago," said Bryan, who was mayor from 1990 through 1998. "This is my dream. This is my life now."
Wally Bryan created Challenge House, with the primary goal to link the lives of children and adults living in the inner-city with the lives of men and women of resource. Without daily interaction, from men and women who have achieved a measure of success in their lives, most inner city residents will not have a sustainable support system to help them improve their neighborhood and lifestyle. The mostly dilapidated houses are acquired and renovated with a variety of volunteer and paid labor. Challenge Houses are inner-city houses occupied by people who could be school principals, work-force development managers or neighborhood chaplains. They live among the poor, and offer faith, hope, education, and job training.
"We locate our lives among the poor, and offer hospitality to all. I have lived among the poor for over 5 years now, and they have helped me much more than I have helped them"
Wally Bryan
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