Together with organizers from the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), he helped start East Brooklyn Congregations, a powerful citizens group that built thousands of Nehemiah homes and transformed one of New York’s toughest neighborhoods. Penta learned organizing in the 1980s in his native Brooklyn, NY. What sparked the organizing effort was Leo Penta, a 52-year-old Roman Catholic priest, university professor and veteran community organizer. The citizens and their organizer are members of Organizing Schoeneweide (OS), a remarkable experiment in applying six decades of American community organizing practice in a new and different context. The issue is the proposed relocation of a public technical college – with its thousands of jobs and students – to a distressed neighborhood called Schoeneweide. Yet, in this case, the citizens are speaking German and the politicians they are lobbying are members of the Berlin Parliament. The scene – a small “action” in community organizing terms – is replayed daily across the U.S. Afterwards they caucus with their organizer and compare notes: It’s looking good, but several key committee meetings lie ahead that could derail the project yet again. A vote on the annual budget is expected in the next several weeks and they want to know if a key project in their neighborhood is to be included. In a foyer outside an elegant legislative chamber, a group of citizens is pigeonholing their local politicians.
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