Tour of Paterson’s Northside & Library

I had the opportunity to show The Unitarian Society of Ridgewood around Paterson's Northside neighborhood a few weeks ago. The Unitarians has always played a part at my current place of employment, CAMP YDP. They have been involved since 2004 offering funding, support and most importantly their time to students at CAMP. They were interested in learning more about the neighborhood they donate to and I took this learning experience to highlight pride in the Northside such as Habitat for Humanity's revitalization efforts and share some of the area's of need that lay in the Northside, such as the library that has been closed since Sandy. For example, the Northside alone has 3 middle schools within a 3 block radius, all of which is served by a displaced library now in a small room. The library hours are Monday to Thursday, 1-4pm leaving little or no time for students. This has been the case since Hurricane Sandy left the Northside library under water and with little funds to get the building up and running, it has been relocated to a small, 2 computer room in Christopher Hope Community Center. These are a few things we need to work towards as a community to bring back to our neighbor hoods, Paterson as a whole only has 3 libraries as a whole which is vastly underserved. I would like to thank the Unitarians for not only providing support but taking the time and making the effort to learn about communities outside of their own.