{"id":9558,"date":"2022-09-30T23:15:06","date_gmt":"2022-10-01T03:15:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/?page_id=9558"},"modified":"2022-10-01T15:48:09","modified_gmt":"2022-10-01T19:48:09","slug":"forty-good-neighbors-yvonne-thompson-friend","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/?page_id=9558","title":{"rendered":"Forty Good Neighbors: Yvonne Thompson-Friend"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yvonne Thompson-Friend<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Yvonne Thompson-Friend\u2019s whole life and work has been devoted to public service. She worked in the state legislature for many years and now designs workforce initiatives for Greater Philadelphia First. She has been selected as a Good Neighbor for her work in Mt. Airy. But her previous political experience has helped make her so effective a leader in our community.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yvonne has long been an advocated for equity in education. But, as she says, \u201cwhen I became a mother, it became real personal.\u201d For the past four years, Yvonne has been one of the leaders of the Henry Home and School Association. As one of the district representatives of the Henry Home and School Association, Yvonne was an important advocate for the school with city and state governments. In the last year, Yvonne has helped the school get through what she calls a period of \u201cturmoil.\u201d \u201cFolks saw me as a person who could build bridges. So I was approached to serve as chairman of a transition team and then leader of a movement to bring in a new principal.\u201d\u00a0 Her neighbors say that \u201cher ability to remain focused on the needs of the kids and articulate those needs\u201d lead to election as President of the Home and School Association. As President, she hopes to \u201creach out to businesses and the community to make Henry much more a part of the community.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Yvonne is also the leader of the 6600 block of Wayne Avenue, which she was instrumental in organizing. She says, \u201cWe organized around issues as simple as tree maintenance. We had several trees fall across the street with some near-fatalities. I found out that there was a program for maintaining those trees. But we were not getting the dollars mostly because neighbors weren\u2019t aware of what was available. When I contacted Councilman Michael Nutter and some other people downtown, he said, \u2018Yvonne I an trying to get some legislation through, maybe you can help us.\u2019 So I went and petitioned the neighbors and we provided a statement of support as some other groups did. A million dollars added to the tree maintenance program in the city.\u201d Now everyone on the block relies on her. \u201cWe had a block party because the kids knocked on my door and said, \u2018Miss Yvonne, aren\u2019t you the organizer person? We want a day in which the street is blocked off and we can play in the street. Can\u2019t you do that?\u2019\u201d \u201cSo we organized a block party.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Yvonne loves Mt. Airy. But, compared to the small town she grew up in, she says, \u201cIt is not always easy to get people involved.\u201d \u201cI am from the State College area. There everyone is involved in just about everything you do. There are only 2000 people in the town. Here people are a bit more reticent to come out. They expect that someone else will take care of it. You have to knock on doors, send letters, make phone calls and then you have to do it again. It is not that people don\u2019t care but they are so busy living their lives. For us, with the block association, I had to touch on things that weren\u2019t so global that had to do with everyday living to get them to organize. Once you get people involved, people think \u2018hey, we can get this accomplished.\u201d People then get more involved. But, as Yvonne says, \u201cit is hard work and you have to put a lot into it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Yvonne likes her work. But, of her community efforts she says, \u201cI do this because this is what I love.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yvonne Thompson-Friend Yvonne Thompson-Friend\u2019s whole life and work has been devoted to public service. She worked in the state legislature for many years and now designs workforce initiatives for Greater Philadelphia First. She has been selected as a Good Neighbor for her work in Mt. Airy. But her previous political experience has helped make her so effective a leader in our community. Yvonne has long been an advocated for equity in education. But, as she says, \u201cwhen I became a mother, it became real personal.\u201d For the past four years, Yvonne has been one of the leaders of the Henry Home and School Association. As one of the district representatives of the Henry Home and School Association, Yvonne was an important advocate for the school with city and state governments. In the last year, Yvonne has helped the school get through what she calls a period of \u201cturmoil.\u201d \u201cFolks saw\u2026 Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1896,"featured_media":0,"parent":9450,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P35YuU-2ua","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9558"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1896"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9558"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9637,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9558\/revisions\/9637"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}