A new gourmet supermarket is planned in Melrose.

Owner says shoppers will pay more, but will eat healthier

An entrepreneur is set to bring a gourmet market to Melrose, hoping to take a bite out of fast food culture with healthier alternatives.

Developer DeVon Prioleau says the Fresca Gourmet Market he is planning to open in the new Boricua Village complex on E. 161^st St. and Third Ave. will help provide the community with the same access to high-quality food more affluent parts of the city have long enjoyed.

“The Bronx can ill afford another liquor store or sneaker store,” Prioleau said.  “I want to give people other options.”

Prioleau, 29, said the  supermarket will be “reminiscent of a Fifth Avenue store rather than a Third Avenue deli.”

In 2008 the Department of City Planning conducted a citywide “Supermarket Shortage” study, in which it identified the South Bronx as one of four underserved high-density population centers severely lacking in fresh food venues. Over a quarter of all adults said they don’t eat any fruits or vegetables on any given day, according to a follow-up study released in November.

That report – called “FoodWorks” and issued by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn – cited the lack of healthy options, coupled with rising prices for nutritious foods and steadily low prices for unhealthy alternatives, as factors contributing to soaring rates of diabetes and other diseases caused by poor eating habits.

The report recommends increasing financial and zoning incentives for grocery stores that open in underserved communities, as part of the city’s Food Retail Expansion to Support Health (FRESH) project.

Over 13 percent of South Bronx residents suffered from diabetes in 2009, and 70 percent of its adults were considered overweight or obese, according to a report released by the city’s Department of Health. But according to a report issued that same year by the Bronx District Public Health Office, 40 percent of respondents said it was difficult to find fresh and affordable produce in the area.

May May Leung, who teaches public health at Hunter College, said chronic illnesses like diabetes and obesity can be reduced by making nutritious food affordable and easily accessible for the city’s lower-income residents.

“Modifying the environment is an important component” to help people change their eating habits, she said.

Prioleau, a Bronx native, says he saw a business opportunity in his “untapped and unexposed” home borough, combined with financial incentives for increasing the availability of fresh, nutritious food through the FRESH program.

He says he has secured nearly a million dollars already, through loans from private sources, as well as from the city.

The young entrepreneur says South Bronx residents regularly put up with “ghetto fabulous supermarkets with bread that’s a day old and food that’s expiring,” and adds that while the neighborhood will benefit from higher-quality food, he has no choice but to pass higher costs on to customers. He said prices will be 50 cents to a dollar per item higher than what local shoppers are accustomed to paying.

Mercy Cruz, 41, has lived in the neighborhood for 22 years.  “Food here is spoiled and old.  It’s just not good,” she said.   Cruz would welcome the new supermarket in Melrose, but said she worried low-income families “might have a problem with higher prices,” then added, “sometimes you have to pay a little extra to get better quality.”

Raymond Arias, 50, who has been selling fruits and vegetables from a nearby stand for the last five years, doesn’t think his small operation will be impacted by the new gourmet market. “Maybe I can go work for them,” he said, laughing.

Prioleau says he is going through the certification process so the market can accept food stamps, and added the store will carry over 4,000 products that reflect the tastes of the area’s diverse ethnic groups. In addition, he says other services, such as cooking classes, will be offered.

Fresca Gourmet Market is slated to open its doors later this year,  and Prioleau would like to see three more stores open in the next five years.

“The wheels are in motion,” he said.

From December through April, those who subscribe to the farm share program will get monthly deliveries, making Corbin Hill the first year-round supplier of local produce with a specific emphasis on low-income neighborhoods in New York City.

Full price for a winter share is $240 for the five-month season. Corbin Hill also offers a special subsidized price of $150 for the Winter Farm Share to those eligible for SNAP benefits.

Each month the program will deliver 15-20 pounds of root vegetables and hearty greens that do not need to be refrigerated to local drop-off points.

The produce comes from Corbin Hill Road Farm and several others in Schoharie County, 40 miles west of Albany.

This summer more than 500 participants in the South Bronx and Harlem received weekly deliveries of fruit and vegetables.

In addition to providing fresh, wholesome food, the project is also dedicated to fostering a relationship between rural farming communities and urban neighborhoods. In August, when Hurricane Irene devastated farms and towns in upstate New York, Corbin Hill shareholders collected donations for storm victims.

In the future, Corbin Hill plans to create an upstate-downstate exchange program for young people.

Applications may be picked up and filled out at WHEDco, 50 E. 168th Street or The Point Community Development Corp., 940 Garrison Avenue or be submitted by visiting http://www.corbinhillfarm.com/join.html.

Photo by Tim Hetherington/Magnum Photos. This photo is one of a series taken by the late Tim Hetherington as part of an exhibition at the Bronx Documentary Center on Courtlandt Ave.

Gallery shows work of photographer killed in Libya

The inaugural exhibition at the new Bronx Documentary Center on Courtlandt Avenue highlights the final works of a major talent whose life came to a tragic end thousands of miles away – while its founders reflect on the tribute they’ve built for their fallen friend.

Visions: Tim Hetherington is a stirring collection of 16 never-before-seen photographs taken during the conflict in Libya by the late photojournalist who was killed while covering the uprising last spring.

Along with the pictures – including the final image he ever captured – the exhibit includes a multimedia installation with video clips of Hetherington discussing his life’s work.

“People felt excited and we feel we got it right,” said Project Director Danielle Jackson.

“The idea was to have Tim live on,” said Michael Kamber, Heatherington’s close friend, colleague and founder of the new Center.  “To see kids learning and watching videos of Tim, he is.”

The center was initially conceived by award-winning photojournalists Kamber and Hetherington, whose ambition it was to forge a nonprofit educational center and gallery dedicated to the support of documentary projects from around the world.

But their goal went beyond showcasing projects that highlight the intersection of art, ideas and journalism.  Hetherington felt the space was a perfect opportunity to provide the underserved population in the South Bronx with access to documentary projects, along with events and programs for all ages.

“Tim was all about reaching nontraditional audiences,” Kamber explained.

Marty Rogers grew up in the neighborhood and recalled when the site was a candy store in his youth.  He attended the center’s opening and stopped by a few days later to collect promotional flyers to spread the word.

“It’s fabulous and a great resource,” he said.  “They have a message and the skills to help people form ideas about the world.  I’m telling people they have to swing by.  These guys are for real.”

The new venue is a welcome addition that will expose young people from the neighborhood to an art form they have would otherwise have no access to, say the project’s facilitators.

“For many kids, their only exposure to photography is taking pictures for Facebook,” Jackson said.

Hetherington’s final images are being used as a catalyst to educate local youth about basic photography principles and encourage critical thinking, interpretation and discussion about the conflicts he covered around the world.

Kamber first showed Hetherington the ground floor location in January soon after he purchased the recently renovated historical landmark building adorned with ornate white trimmings and a steep mansard roof.  But before Hetherington had a chance to work alongside Kamber on the center, he was killed in Misurata on April 20, 2011.

“When he died we knew we had to do it,” Kamber said. “For a lot of us it was about working out our grief.”

Ideas started to take shape mere weeks after Hetherington’s death.  A dedicated team of volunteers was behind design and construction efforts, supporting their cause primarily “out of our pockets,” Kamber said.

“It was such an amazing effort by so many people,” said Jackson.

Kamber said four soldiers featured in Hetherington’s Academy Award-nominated film “Restrepo” came to New York and helped build the hanging displays for the photographs.  They all shared pizza, beer and stories on the floor of the new venue that evening.

Hetherington’s parents visited the center and helped paint the walls just days before Visions opened.  Kamber said they have also donated Hetherington’s library of books, flap jacket and helmet.

Small donations and fundraising have also helped with the launch, and Jackson said A Kickstarter.com campaign was planned for the coming weeks.  One group that is providing financial assistance for Visions is the Committee to Protect Journalists – one of three organizations designated to receive donations in Hetherington’s honor.

“It’s a strong means to showcase what journalism is about, the risks it entails and the understanding it engenders,” said Gypsy Guillén Kaiser, the director of advocacy and communications for the organization.

Melrose resident Elina Taft said she was moved by Hetherington’s photographs .

“We take life for granted,” she said while looking at an image of two young Libyan boys and an older man holding explosives.  She said she planned to return soon with her 21-year-old son.

“I’m hoping it enlightens and empowers people to learn more about the world, she said. “Not just for the kids, but also adults.”

 Visions: Tim Hetherington is scheduled to run through December 2.

Photo by Giovanny Fausto Pinto Friends from Villa Cuerno on Brook Ave in Melrose.

On a late summer evening a crowd of fifty-and-sixty-something Latinos and Latinas gathered to unwind over drinks, cards, and dominoes.

Nearby, under a tree made to resemble a palm tree, a DJ spun classic salsa with a few reggaeton songs mixed in. A vendor prepared alcapurrias, a Puerto Rican delicacy made from fried smashed yucca or green bananas filled with seasoned meat, along with other cuchefritos, or fried appetizers.

All around, new construction projects were going up, including a towering silver complex with new condos. In their shadows, the 55-and-over crowd had come to relax.

What seemed like a scene out of a flourishing Florida retirement community was in fact the intersection of Brook Avenue between 156^th and 157^th in Melrose.

The men and women who gather here call their sliver of sidewalk Villa Cuerno, translated as “village of horns.”The name harks back to a steamy past, the details of which vary depending whose interpretation you hear.

“I come here every weekend,” said 63-year-old Jose Santoviey as he sat with four friends on a makeshift wooden bench.“In Puerto Rico you go out into the streets to socialize and enjoy. It feels like Puerto Rico here.”

The loose-knit group of friends, which still numbers about 30, has been kicking back at this street corner on spring and summer weekends for decades, but now finds its longevity threatened by the heated local housing boom.

Long before the Melrose Court Condos were built in the mid 1990’s, the space the buildings now occupy was an empty dirt lot, recalled Altagracia Ozuna, 40, the group’s youngest member. Residents had built shacks and stores on the lot in the early ’80′s and dubbed the small shantytown Villa Alegre, or happy village.

Players from local softball teams and other residents started coming to Villa Alegre to drink and listen to live Latin music back then. Even Latin jazz legend Eddie Palmieri once graced a makeshift stage on the field, recalledOzuna.

But the happy village’s reputation soured. Members of the softball teams would get drunk. There were frequent trysts in an outhouse on the grounds. Soon Villa Alegre became Villa Cuerno, cuerno referring to devil’s horns in colloquial Spanish.

The fire department came and condemned Villa Cuerno. The pejorative name stuck. But the group stayed together, moving around frequently before settling back near their original spot.

Many recall the glory days of Villa Cuerno when the party would last until 3 a.m.

While the rendezvous have diminished, there is still plenty of flirting among the group members, many of whom are grandma’s and grandpa’s. Some walk with the aid of canes.

Grandchildren of regulars occasionally come to visit, but young people are not a part of Villa Cuerno.

“There’s no young people because they fight, do drugs, they bullshit. Here we are about family,” said Santoviey angrily. “Here we relax. We talk about family, about Puerto Rico.”

In recent years the group has kept a low profile, but Villa Cuerno regulars worry that tenants from the newly built Via Verde and Procida Houses complexes will want them out.

“This is the last year,” said one woman.

Azuna suggested they could merge with the nearby community garden Rincon Criollo, and use their base as a future hangout but, Rincon’s founder Jose “Chema” Soto worries about clashing objectives.

“We are a garden culture, fruits and plants. Over there they sell beer. That’s a place of business. I just don’t want that in here,” said Soto.

While there is a sense that this my be Villa Cuerno’s last year in its current location, some, like 63-year-old Edwin Ayala, remain defiant.

“While we are still alive we will be here. This was and is my life,” said Ayala. “This is where I left my wife and this is where she left me.”

The change comes a day after widespread reports that a Bronx grand jury had begun voting indictments in the ticket fixing scandal that has implicated officers and their union delegates, who allegedly made traffic tickets go away for favored people.

The investigation began in the 40th Precinct in December 2008 when police began looking into the relationship of an officer in the precinct to a local drug gang. Wiretaps caught the officer talking about fixing tickets, and the police and Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson launched a wide-reaching probe.

The NYPD tabbed Deputy Inspector Christopher J. McCormack, A 38-year-old Bronx native, as the precinct’s new leader on Tuesday, Sept. 27. McCormack had been serving at the 20th precinct in Chelsea.

Nikas referred questions to the Police Department’s Deputy Commissioner for Public Information, whose office did not respond to a telephone call and email. The New York Post reported that Nikas had asked to be transferred to be able to spend more time with his family.

As recently as two weeks ago, at the monthly Police Community Council meeting, Nikas spoke about how excited he was about the upcoming school year.

Roy Richter, president of the Captains Endowment Association, the union that represents NYPD brass from the rank of captain on up said there was no link between the unfolding scandal and Nikas’s departure. He said precinct commanders often work 100 hours a week and Nikas left for personal reasons.

According to press reports, as many as two dozen officers and union officials are likely to be indicted for fixing tickets and hundreds more will be disciplined by the Police Department.

“It’s unfortunate the Bronx D.A. has taken two and a half years with this investigation,” Richter said. “I think it minimizes the incredible commitment that being a precinct commander takes. It takes an incredible toll not only on him but on his family.”

The new commander has worked stints in three other Bronx precincts, including one for a special operations unit in Soundview. The day after receiving word he would be taking the helm in the 40th Precinct, he addressed the community board’s monthly meeting. Addressing the recent increase in stabbings and shootings, he acknowledged, “There are some concerns here,” and added “It’s not about locking people up, it’s about stopping crime.”

Event organizers Danny Barber (left) and P.O. Irizarry (right) talking with a local resident at National Night Out on Crime (photo credit: Flonia Telegrafi)

Advocates and police partner at Night Out Against Crime

By Kathy Conkwright

conkwright@motthavenherald.com

The first time Angel Irizarry and Danny Barber met one another six years ago, they butted heads.

”I didn’t really like Danny,” said Irizarry, the community affairs officer for PSA-7, the  NYPD branch assigned to patrol public housing complexes in Melrose.

“I’m not sure why. I think we were just coming from two different positions,” he said, recalling their first tense exchange at a local meeting between community and police.

So he thought at the time.

Barber, an outspoken tenant advocate from the Andrew Jackson Houses in Melrose, had his own less-than-flattering opinion of anyone in a blue uniform with an NYPD badge at the time. To him, Irizarry was no different than the others.

Now close friends, Barber and Irizarry joined forces to organize National Night Out on Crime, an annual event held to strengthen police-community partnerships. This year’s Night Out was held at the Andrew Jackson Homes on Aug. 2nd.

Serving up free food, drink, music, a large Spiderman contraption for kids and the spectacle of police officers break dancing, Barber and Irizarry hoped to help thaw relations between residents of Mott Haven and Melrose and local law enforcement.

Although they represent different sides of the community, Barber and Irizarry have tried to bridge the growing divide between cops and residents by getting the two to talk to one another.

“For some reason we’ve lost that connection,” Irizarry said, “especially here in the South Bronx where there’s a real  ‘us against them’ mentality.”

“We do have officers who get crazy and overreact,” said Barber’s brother, event organizer Russell Alston. “But we also have young men, young women and old men who give police a hard time. It goes both ways.”

Irizarry takes rookies on a tour of the neighborhood when they join the department, to meet shop owners, clergy, elected officials and local organizers – all in an effort to learn the neighborhood and forge bonds.

Irizarry’s path to policing started in an unlikely place. He grew up five blocks from Yankee Stadium, and began his career as a community organizer working for a non-profit organization in Highbridge.  By the age of 21 he was coordinating an anti-violence program in the Dinkins administration.

“I didn’t have opportunities. I didn’t have a father,” he said. “I understand that state of confusion and no sense of direction.”

Captain Erik Hernandez, Executive Officer for PSA-7, line dancing with residents

“I want the community to see that we are people, not just robots,” Captain Erik Hernandez, Executive Officer for PSA-7, explained after finishing an impressive round of line dancing alongside community members and police officers.

“A lot of times, he said, “we are just seen as law enforcement and not helping people. I want them to see the human side of crime reduction.”

While flipping hundreds of burgers for residents and police at National Night Out, a soaked towel covering his head to block the smoke and sweat, Alston pointed out that the event gives police a chance to meet people on neutral ground and learn who lives in the neighborhood.

“It makes me feel safer,” said an Andrew Jackson Houses resident named Gerri, “because any other time when the police are around I don’t feel that safe. We really need this to bring the community together.”

But one young man who wouldn’t give his name said the once-a-year outdoor event didn’t change his mind about police. “This is just one day,” he said. “Tomorrow they’ll be back at it the same way.”

“We won’t be here dancing, kids won’t be jumping,” Hernandez responded, admitting that it’s impossible for the police to have a great relationship with the community every day. “There is crime and it is a necessity to enforce the law. Our biggest challenge is to keep this momentum going after today.”

The day before the event there was a homicide just down the street, he pointed out.

“Violent crime happens every day,” Hernandez said, “particularly in this neighborhood.  Sometimes people can feel helpless. We hope this event can give them a sense of hope.”

The complex at Concourse Village that houses four schools will be more carefully monitored for contaminants.

Parents and community leaders have won a victory in a long-running debate over environmental hazards in the Mott Haven school campus at Concourse Village near E. 153 Street.

The court ordered the School Construction Authority to conduct a new environmental review of plans to monitor the four new schools in the Mott Haven school campus to insure that toxic chemicals covered up in building the schools and its athletic field will not poison future generations of students. Those plans must be open to public scrutiny.

In the July 7 decision, the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court sided unanimously with a lower court’s 2008 decision that found the city had violated state environmental law by building the Mott Haven complex without including the long-term monitoring plan in its environmental impact statement.

The schools were built on a former rail yard, contaminated with mercury, lead, benzene and tetrachloroethylene, a chemical used to clean metal. Former industrial sites are called “brownfields,” and are cleaned up under a state program, so the city contended that it had followed state guidelines.

A group of parents and local residents comprising the Bronx Committee for Toxic Free Schools filed the lawsuit against the city in 2007 to stop construction of the complex. They argued the cleanup should have been more carefully evaluated. Later that year the City Council unanimously approved the plan to build, but on the condition that a more thorough evaluation be conducted.

While they failed to stop the schools from being built, they hailed the court ruling for establishing a precedent that the city will have to follow in the future.

We are thrilled by this decision,” said Jane Maisel, a public school teacher and member of the committee for toxic free schools, in a statement released by New York Lawyers For The Public Interest, which brought the suit along with the law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges.

The Department of Education simply cannot approve a contaminated school site without a comprehensive plan to protect children from the contamination,” Maisel continued.

But although parents may be elated that the courts have ruled in their favor for the second time in three years, the city may still decide to appeal the ruling to the state’s highest court.

In an emailed statement, Carrie Noteboom, senior counsel for the city’s law department, said the city will go ahead with the court’s recommendations.

The School Construction Authority “has already completed a thorough cleanup and implemented a state approved monitoring plan,” Noteboom said. “The Court decided that this plan should undergo additional public review, and SCA is prepared to do that.”

The Mott Haven store is headquarters for games.

On a recent Friday evening, Jaquell McQueen and Shawn Kelly met up at a store in Melrose to unwind from the stresses of the work week by fighting a battle to the death.

They were at Collectibles by Armada, a store that specializes in comics, manga, action figures and games to play Yu-gi-oh, the Japanese trading card game based on a comic book and cartoon of the same name. The cards represent monsters, spells and traps, and the goal is to use them to subdue the opponent.

Before they started the match, Kelly carefully rolled out his lucky suede playmate, obtained as a tournament prize, while McQueen set up a new deck of cards to practice with. When it was time to start they rolled a six-sided die to decide who was going first. Kelly won the toss. They wished each other good luck and began the Duel.

Collectibles by Armada serves as a clubhouse for people as old as McQueen, 24, and Kelly, 26 and as young as 10- or 11. Street slang and card game jargon competed with the sounds of Hip-Hop radio station Hot 97 as players of all shapes and sizes came together.

As the match wore on, with McQueen’s winged beast cards were proving ineffective against Kelly’s gladiator warrior cards, friends walked over to watch, bumping fists as salutes.

The two men traded tales of their girlfriends’ jealousy of the store. “Oh she was, like, ‘You playing the game too much, putting it before me,’” said McQueen.

“I just told my girl, ‘Would you rather me be out smoking, drinking, getting in trouble?’” responded Kelly, a regular who has been coming to the store since it first opened three years ago.

Collectibles by Armada is the invention of Rob Armada, who opened his store on Third Avenue in June 2008. The shop is lined with collectible toys old and new, including Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots, a Scarface doll and countless action figures. It stocks the latest comics and just-released packs of trading cards as well as rare toys, some valued at thousands of dollars.

“We have a Batmobile that’s worth $1,500, and that Spiderman hanging from the ceiling is worth about $3,000-$4,000, said Armada, pointing to his treasures. The Spiderman outfit “was a replica a theater got during the first Spiderman movie,” Amarda said. “The suit is built to fit Tobey Maguire.”

Armada, who was born and raised in the Bronx, says he was impressed with the way the Melrose neighborhood has changed for the better. He points to the new apartment buildings nearby and the opening of the clothing store Forman Mills as examples.

The store offers memberships for $15 a month, which gives customers access to tournaments, in-house storage bins to hold cards and a place to play after school. The store also holds events for Pokémon Cards and Magic the Gathering.

More than 300 people have signed up for memberships. Armada says part of his success is making kids feel at home and treating them like family.

“Rob is an awesome dude–mad respect,” said McQueen of Armada.

About a year ago, an 11-year-old member underwent open heart surgery. The youngster had no health insurance. Armada placed a box in his shop with the boy’s picture and asked customers for donations. The drive raised $1,000. In addition, young customers donated Yu-gi-oh cards.

Armada contends that schools need to incorporate activities that interest children, such as Yu-gi-oh, into their lesson plans.

“We have to educate kids in things they like,” he said. “They say kids can’t read and do math, but they know how play a card game with elements of both,” he pointed out.

In the future Armada would like to partner with a non-profit to provide computer graphic arts classes at the store.

Basheen Soto, 29, from Castle Hill, also known as KYO, is the local registered Yu-gi-oh judge, security guy, and jack-of-all-trades at the shop. He said the store means the difference between peace and trouble for some young people.

“Some of these kids here could have been out selling drugs now,” he said. “Instead they are here playing.”

Teachers Michelle DeFranco (left) and Theresa Stillwell browsing Donors Choose projects in the cramped office they share at Hostos-Lincoln Academy.

More teachers turn to public to ask for donations

When Michelle DeFranco, a teacher at Hostos-Lincoln Academy in Melrose, needs something for her classroom, she takes matters into her own hands.

“This is our supply room,” DeFranco said, gesturing at her cramped office, packed with school supplies and equipment. They didn’t come from the city Department of Education, they came from an on-line appeal for help.

“This is our printer; that’s from Donors Choose,” said DeFranco, pointing at an item in the small office she shares with her colleague Theresa Stillwell.  “She has a copy machine from Donors Choose, and I have a copy machine in my classroom from Donors Choose.  That’s her laptop—Donors Choose.  All these print cartridges are from Donors Choose, all this paper here.”

The city has cut the money it provides to teachers for classroom necessities in half, and is likely to tighten its belt further, now that the state’s elected officials have agreed to a new budget that shaves more than a billion dollars from school aid.

More and more, teachers like DeFranco, especially those who serve children in low-income communities, are turning to the public to ask for cash.

Since its founding in 2000, Donors Choose has given teachers in the Bronx—and across the country—a way to go outside the school system to get crucial tools and supplies.  Teachers post “projects” on DonorsChoose.org, seeking funding for a wide range of items ranging from the expensive—like new computers—to the exceedingly modest.  The headline of one South Bronx request reads: “OOP – Out of Paper.”

Once a request is posted, individuals and organizations can view the projects and choose to contribute to those they find important.

Increasingly New York teachers are taking notice.  According to the Donors Choose, requests from the Bronx have shot up from around 1,400 in 2007, to about 2,400 in 2010.  If the rate of requests keeps its current pace, the number of projects seeking funding in the Bronx this year will easily break 3,000.

In the last decade, more than 25,000 Donors Choose projects in New York City have been completed, with almost 3,000 coming from the South Bronx.

Teachers like DeFranco say that Donors Choose helps them keep their classrooms stocked while shielding their students from the squeeze of budgetary constraints.

“We don’t wait to feel any budget cuts,” said DeFranco.  “We just do what need to do for our kids and our classroom.”

DeFranco credits her office-mate with inspiring her to use Donors Choose.  An English teacher, Stillwell began to ask for donations in an effort to interest her students in reading.

“I started getting tons of books, and other teachers would see all these piles of boxes from Barnes & Noble and they would be like, ‘Oh, where’d you get all these books?’” Stillwell recalled.  “And I said, ‘Donors Choose!’”

Stillwell says she started buying her students books because nobody else would.

“There’s only one Barnes & Noble in the Bronx, in Co-Op City,” said Stillwell.  “It’s nowhere near here.  So the kids have to go all the way to Manhattan.  There’s nobody that’s going to take them.  They’re very reluctant to go to the library, whether because it’s unsafe or they go home right after school.  A lot of kids have to stay home.  I’m their only source of books, so I try to get as many as possible, all the time.”

Donations have also allowed Stillwell to do more creative projects with her classes.

“We do this project every year where they make their own poetry books,” she said.  “I got them these really nice books, and I got them this really nice paper to decorate it, and that gets them really involved in the project, and they’re more invested.”

The poetry books have become a favorite of her students.

“Every year some of my seniors still have the books, and they talk about it, and they peek their heads in when the kids are doing it,” said Stillwell.  “But I would never be able to buy all that stuff myself.  Never.”

According to Dr. Nicholas Michelli, an expert in educational policy who teaches post-graduate classes on education at the CUNY Graduate Center, the stakes of underfunding schools go beyond cuts to gym and art class.

“One of the consequences of not funding schools adequately is what we commonly call the drop-out problem, but I’m not sure that’s the right word, because kids are pushed out sometimes,” said Michelli.  “If a student leaves schools, they are four times more likely to be incarcerated; their income will be lower; they’re more likely to go on welfare.”

Starving school budgets is also “unconscionable,” Michelli says, “because of the high stakes that are involved with our teachers today, because the standards they’re held to are among the highest they’ve ever been.”

Putting teachers “under that kind of pressure without providing the right kind of resources,” he continued—“I don’t know if I could stay in teaching if I were in that kind of position.”

The Department of Education lists Donors Choose on its website, and Barbara Morgan, a department spokeswoman called it “a great resource for our teachers and our schools.”

According to Morgan, the department does not factor the existence of Donors Choose into its budgetary discussions, but the department didn’t comment on what the site’s popularity with teachers says about the city’s policies and priorities.

Jeffrey Beer, a colleague of Michele DeFranco, uses Donors Choose because, he says, official channels are just too convoluted.

Does Beer think the popularity of Donors Choose represents a failure on the part of the Department of Education?

“Absolutely,” he said.

The organization’s board locked its executive director Yolanda Gonzalez out amid accusations that she used funds improperly while laying off longtime workers.

Long time board member Jessica Clemente is acting as volunteer interim executive director.

Another non-profit group, the South Bronx Action Group, which helps local residents with landlord/tenant disputes and other social services, also has its offices in Nos Quedamos’ building, and has begun operating again after the shutdown. The group relocated its operations to 754 Melrose Ave last year when their landlord raised the rent on their Mott Haven space.

The president of Nos Quedamos’ board, Gilberto Rivera, who is also one of its founding members, sent a letter of resignation to local organizations in November of last year, accusing Gonzalez of “favoritism,” “nepotism,” and “no accurate financial reports.”

Rivera said he has withdrawn his resignation. He declined to comment on the dispute.

People familiar with the dispute, all of whom declined to be identified, described the situation as a classic falling out when a charismatic founder leaves the organization in the hands of a successor.

Founded by Gonzalez’s mother Yolanda Garcia in 1992, Nos Quedamos has played a leading role in the revival of the Melrose neighborhood. It has built or is managing thousands of apartments for low- or moderate-income residents. Its most recent project is El Jardin de Seline, a 12-story building on East 158th Street and Melrose Avenue for low-income residents. Twenty percent of the 84 apartments are set aside for families that had been living in homeless shelters.

The most recent tax filings available from the IRS, filed in March 2010 and covering the 12 months from July 2008 to June 2009, show a substantial drop in revenue, from nearly $800,000 to $625,000.