While he insisted on the cloak of anonymity, his words came through in searing candor.

"If you go out there thinking you can't be touched ... you will be touched."

He did allow that he is 19 years old. His neighborhood is too dangerous for him to speak openly, he said, a sentiment viscerally attested to by the wreath that stood on the sidewalk a few paces away.

At that spot, near the corner of McDonald Avenue and Third Street, 54-year-old Manuel Lopez was beaten to death by two teenagers in broad daylight on Jan. 19.

As the young man spoke under a gray sky and light drizzle, area religious leaders were going door-to-door during their Feb. 27 peace march against violence.

No one is above the perils of neighborhood violence, he said.

“If you go out there thinking that you are number one and you can’t be touched, you will be touched,” he said, using the common street slang for being hit with gunfire.

The curbside memorial to a man beaten to death weeks before on the sidewalk near the interview.

The rest of the gray areas in Mark Wassberg’s memory are colored in by the images on his camera’s flip screen.

He waited on a dark street that night, sitting in his ‘66 Chevy Pickup, ear tuned to the squawks of his police scanner. Waiting for action. The next take in his reel.

But this time he needed no directions. The action came to him.

“It was just like pow, pow, pow, pow, maybe like 10 shots real fast, like automatic,” Wassberg said in a frantic staccato that suggested the event moments before, instead of nearly 5 years ago. “I ducked down real fast man in my truck, I was really scared that time.”

Wassberg has been gathering images from Richmond crime scenes since 2005.

Minutes later, police raced past, and Wassberg tailed them to the scene at Sixth Street and Chanslor Avenue.

“I got there, man, and he was already gone,” Wassberg said of the shooter. He didn’t have the victim’s name, but described him as in his mid-20s. “He was laying in the street and his mom was already out there crying. I got footage of everything.”

On Tuesday, the unemployed auto mechanic was in the streets again, this time showing his macabre footage under a gleaming lampost in the parking lot of a North Richmond Walgreen’s.

Wassberg, 53, is a Richmond High School graduate, class of 1975. He still has that ‘66 Chevy, but mechanical and financial setbacks mean it now serves as his home more than his mode of transportation. He scrapes together cash by gathering recyclables.

Wassberg sees himself as Richmond’s prodigal-son-to-be, a self-taught documentary filmmaker who hopes to parlay his unvarnished street reels into Hollywood fame.

“This is history, man, I’m the only one that’s doing this,” said Wassberg, who is stocky and hyperkinetic, with a heavy tuft of gray-flecked, curly brown hair. “I could make millions.”

Wassberg seems relatively uninterested in more subtle storytelling techniques for portraying his town. He talks in terms of images and shock value, not the usual Hollywood themes of struggle, redemption and rebirth. Introspection can be done better by someone else, he suggests in a roundabout way (“I don’t know why this stuff happens?”). To hear Wassberg tell it, Richmond’s streets are gripped in grim chaos, a nihilistic dystopia teetering on the edge of collapse.

Cinema vérité unfettered by nuance.

“It’s an adrenaline rush, yeah,” he blurted while fast-forwarding through footage, fishing for the next ghastly scene. “I love to be where the action’s at.”

Fiddling with his hand-held video camera and a slew of tapes he shoulders around in a dingy backpack, Wassberg reveals stark images of bodies and yellow police tape, the scenes soaked in the reds and blues of streaking police-siren lights. It’s the jolting immediacy of a television news flash, again and again. The ethos of the streets, writ large and one-dimensional, in glaring shades. He estimates he has more than 10 hours of “quality footage.”

“I just need to get at a steady work station, work with Final Cut Pro,” he said, referring to the popular movie-making computer software.

Most of the footage was captured during late-night forays with a police scanner and video camera. Wassberg said he’s been on a few ride-alongs with local police, but the department won’t give him any more access.

Wassberg knows his curbside, siren-chasing reportage blurs the line between unsparing realism and unfeeling sensationalism.

“I’m a filmmaker, and this stuff is off the hook,” he said.

Meanwhile, Richmond residents and leaders struggle to keep violence at bay. Last year, 47 homicides were recorded in the city.

Wassberg said he is nearly finished gathering video, and wants to focus on the editing process. On Saturday he plans to film a local march against violence, an event prompted by a Feb. 14 shooting in a local church.

“I just roamed 24-7,” he said. “And I got what nobody else got.”

They talked about his humble consistency. They praised his willingness to tell not the prurient or provacative, but the plain, positive yarns and personal stories unfolding all over Richmond - stories that may otherwise go overlooked.

Whitmore, a longtime newspaperman and current publisher of the Richmond Globe, said that’s the role he relishes most.

“Providing the positive news on all the good people and organizations in the city of Richmond,” Whitmore said. “That’s what I’m most proud of.”

Whitmore, 60, was honored at Tuesday’s City Council meeting for being recently named president of the West Coast Black Publishers Association. The association includes prominent black press organizations in six Western states.

The Council awarded Whitmore a certificate of recognition and hailed him as an integral figure in the community, particularly during a time when trimmed news media staffs in the Bay Area often result in reduced coverage of smaller communities.

During a public comment period praising Whitmore, several residents alluded to the few stories not focused on crime, a dearth they said would be more pronounced without Whitmore’s Richmond Globe.

Richmond has one of the highest homicide rates in California, a fact that some believe results in disproportionate media coverage of local crime.

Mayor Gayle McLaughlin said the city was grateful that it had the Globe, which she called a voice for the positive in Richmond.

Councilwoman Ludmyrna Lopez said Whitmore is “not only a publisher, he’s a community leader.”

Resident Jackie Thompson told a little tale of her own that she said exemplified Whitmore’s role.

It was more than two years ago, Thompson said, when a young woman confined to a wheelchair, as the result of being struck by an impaired driver, came to a City Council meeting to speak about the dangers of drunk driving.

“I called Vern, and he dropped what he was doing and he came and took her photo,” Thompson said.

Not long after, the wheelchair-bound woman died.

“But it meant so much to her,” to be featured in the Globe, Thompson said. “(Whitmore) did an admirable thing.”

Whitmore worked at the West County Times newspaper from 1981-88, he said. Later, he worked for the Oakland Post, a paper aimed at black readership.

Since 2004, he has been publisher of the Globe Newspaper Group. He said his paper serves a crucial function.

“Richmond is truly a misunderstood community,” Whitmore said. “A lot more good happens in Richmond than is portrayed in the mainstream media.”

At the outset of City Council business Tuesday, Booze stood beaming before about 200 of his fellow citizens, his young granddaughter at his side.

The longtime community leader was honored along with three other living local legends, all hailed by the mayor as tireless drivers of “positive social change.”

Lillie Mae Jones, Rev. Phil Lawson, Eula Averhart and Booze received proclamations for demonstrating “past and on-going commitment to positive social change.” The recognitions came as part of the city’s Black History Month observances.

But less than an hour after receiving the honor, Booze had set the plaque aside and strode to the lectern for some tough talk.

He was already back into the role he’s played for decades: The no-nonsense firebrand guarding his conception of the public virtue. This time he delivered a tongue-lashing to council members he said were neglecting the city’s south side in favor of pumping public money downtown and in a Point Richmond pool.

Booze addresses the crowd with his granddaughter.

Moments later, his voice softened, he said he will always be engaged with public business.

“I haven’t missed a council meeting in 18 years,” Booze said.

Each of the four longtime local leaders were praised for their dedication to the city and its people, particularly the impoverished black residents that have made up a significant portion of the city’s population during the post-WWII economic and industrial decline.

Richmond’s population is about 36 percent black, according to the U.S. Census, giving it one of the highest proportion black populations in California.

Mayor Gayle McLaghlin read the individual accolades for each honoree before embracing them and handing them a framed certificate.

Booze, who currently serves as vice chair for the Recreation Department in addition to his roles as grassroots organizer and hawk-like council-watcher, wasn’t the only honoree to affirm a reputation for blunt speech.

Jones sat in her wheelchair during the ceremony, her face impassive as McLaughlin ticked off examples of her work in Richmond over the years.

Eula Averhart left, with Mayor Gayle McLaughlin.

Jones led successful efforts to convert former railroad property into the Richmond Greenway, creating a community garden and art display at Harbor Way and Macdonald Ave. and founded the CYCLE organization that trains and mentors at-risk youths, McLaughlin said.

Then the mayor handed over the microphone.

“I demand that the city reopen the (police) substation in the Iron Triangle,” Jones said loudly, adding that she has been a local resident for more than 70 years. “I want that done right away!”

The crowd cheered approval, but no councilmember directly addressed the issue. The substation, located in the city’s poorest and most crime-addled neighborhood, was closed years ago in a cost-cutting measure.

Averhart said few words, but her history of service earned her the proclamation. She has been active in the community for more than 50 years, and was instrumental in the early ‘80s launch of Richmond’s Community Development Commission and has headed neighborhood councils, McLaughlin said.

Rev. Lawson awaits his proclamation from McLaughlin.

Rev. Phil Lawson was honored for his work with Richmond’s poor through his ministry at Easter Hill United Methodist Church, and leadership in the Greater Richmond Interfaith Program and other organizations, McLaughlin said.

After the ceremony, Lawson, a soft-spoken man with long gray hair, chatted with residents outside council chambers. Asked of what work he was most proud, he cited the work he and others did to establish the nation’s highest living wage ordinance in 2001, and negotiating with state leaders to forgive about $4 million in debts owed by the local school district.

“We were very successful in those two projects,” Lawson said. “And they did good for many people.”

His name is Leroy. He wears a luscious purple shirt open at the collar, better to show the pendant hanging from his neck. His smile is slight, conveying a sense of benevolent knowledge. The knowledge comes from above, because Leroy is a towering figure. His book, probably a leather-bound Bible, hangs cradled in his left hand, its heavy pages draped open.

Butterflies seem to dance from its pages.

This is how you’ll find Leroy, no matter the time, as his huge figure and sweet visage are the product of a collage of rich colors painted on the wall at McDonald Avenue and Ninth Street, just west of downtown.

But he’s not just a painting, not just the grandest character on a huge public mural on the wall painted last year by youths from an Oakland nonprofit group. Leroy is real.

“Hang around long enough, and you’ll see him,” said Steven Carlisle, who owns the building adorned with the images. “Leroy is around here all the time.”

Another character in the public mural.

Carlisle said he agreed to his building being painted because it was a good activity for the kids and could tell a native story about a city rich in characters. Some, like Leroy, are based on real people.

Others, like the little girl with white, dangling braids reminiscent of a young Venus Williams, are like most fictional characters: Not a specific person, but a composite of reality.

The kite-sized butterflies? Well, Carlisle confesses to not being sure exactly what those mean.

“It’s just a beautiful work of art for our city,” he said. “I look at it every day.”

Carlisle, a longtime resident who waxed poetic about the days when native son and former Major League player Willie McGee was the talk of the town, said he’s hoping to sell his building soon.

“But I hope the painting lasts longer than I do,” he said.

“Come on, hurry up,” his opponents yelled, hassling their friend.

“These guys yell at me all the time, like typical Italians. They don’t care if I can’t see,” Fantin said as he explained his eye condition that results in poor vision. “If I’d known I was going to live this long, I would’ve taken better care of myself.”

His eyesight may be fading, but his wits are fully functional, he proved as he explained the card game Pedro.

“It’s a simple little game, because it has to be simple for Italians,” the Italian-American man said, once again poking fun at his nationality.

Fantin has been a member of Richmond’s Galileo Club for 16 years. And that was nothing compared to his comrades sitting around the table.

Jimmie Rampoldi has been a member for 64 years. He’s 88. The Richmond native has especially enjoyed visiting the club since his wife died two years ago.

“We have good food here and camaraderie, you know,” he said.

Food and friends are not all the Galileo Club offers its 325-plus members, which includes the women’s auxiliary (the female part of the club). The expansive red, orange and yellow building on the corner of Virgina Avenue and 23^rd Street has a ballroom, two fully-stocked bars, a dining hall, a kitchen and bocce ball courts. It used to have slot machines, too.

“People love the building,” said Joe Ursini, 61, who grew up two blocks from the club and is now its president.

The building, which is rented out for weddings, banquets and other events, has been home to the Galileo Club since its inception almost 80 years ago. There are about a dozen active Italian clubs in the East Bay, all belonging to the Italian American Federation.

“Clubs are competitive, but a good kind of competitive,” Ursini said. “They brag about, our sauce be better than their sauce.”

“We always provide a good pasta,” he said. And it’s always served in big bowls, Italian family style.

The Galileo Club has members ranging from their mid-20s to mid-90s. Some families have third and fourth generation Italian Americans as members.

“What’s really sad is you don’t hear the language a lot,” Ursini said, adding that many members were not born in Italy.

“A lot of guys were born in California, but they love wine,” he said. “They love the vino.”

Wine and pasta are often served at club events, which include holiday parties, bereavement get-togethers, and the most raucous event, the monthly men’s night to celebrate recent birthdays.

“That’s the bread and butter,” Ursini said.

Member Don Diani volunteered his time recently to prepare for this month’s famous – or infamous – men’s night at the Galileo Club. Diani is 77.

“I’m the youngest guy here with this group,” he said, looking at the men playing their weekly card game.

“And the meanest,” 81-year-old Frank Pericoli chimed in, adding that his own Italian last name translates in English to “danger.”

Between jokes, Diani headed back to the kitchen to receive a shipment of raviolis for this month’s men’s night. The club ordered nearly a box of pasta for every man. And raviolis are only the first course, followed by roast chicken, not to mention salad, dessert and wine.

Diani used to be the club’s president and still takes on other jobs. His wife is the president of the women’s auxiliary. But however rewarding the responsibilities may be, Diani admits his tasks aren’t always a breeze. He organizes the seating for the men’s nights. This month, 232 men reserved a chair.

“This guy don’t want to sit with him because he stinks. He don’t want to sit next to him because he eats too much,” Diani said. “You ever hear what they say about men? Once an adult, twice a child.”

What Troughton, a Cushman & Wakefield senior director, does have is a letter that shows he met with four council members and city officials about Point Molate in November 2002. Council members Nat Bates and Jim Rogers attended the meeting along with former council members Richard Griffin and Mindell Penn, according to the city’s letter, which Troughton showed Richmond Confidential.

When reached by phone, Rogers wouldn’t comment on the meeting and alleged agreement. He said he’s been advised by the city attorney not to discuss it.

“It’s a matter that is potentially involving litigation,” he said.

Troughton claims that during this meeting, which four of the then-nine council members attended, the city agreed to pay a $1.5 million finder’s fee if he could convince the Guidiville Band to open a casino at Point Molate.

Administrative Chief Janet Schneider said she didn’t know anything about the deal, but she also said she didn’t start working for the city until several years after the meeting.

“I’m not aware of any involvement with Cushman & Wakefield,” she said. “There’s certainly no documents to that effect that I’m aware of.”

Troughton has worked on many Indian casino projects in the Bay area, and he said that he was already engaged with the Guidiville Band in their search for land to develop.

After taking the city’s offer, Troughton said he attended tribal meetings to promote Point Molate. He said he was also the first person to take the tribe to see the land.

“My only mistake was trusting [the City of Richmond],” said Troughton. “In my mind they owe my company the money.”

But council member Tom Butt said that Troughton has no claim to the money without a written contract.

“It’s a figment of his imagination,” said Butt. “If there’s no contract, there’s no fee. … If they think the city owes them money for this, I think they’re dreaming.”

Fitz spent most of his childhood in Iowa, and lived in Kansas for a couple years during high school. He moved to the Bay Area in 1970, a few years after he first came to do work as an interior decorator installing blinds and nameplates on seamans’ quarters on Treasure Island and officers’ quarters on Yerba Buena Island. He’s lived in Berkeley and Richmond since then.

“I fell in love with this part of the country and said I was going to come back,” he said.

Around 1940, Fitz came across a short clip of a newspaper article in his parents’ scrapbook about a colony for former slaves from Texas established in Coffeyville, Kansas, but he didn’t think much of it and turned the page. It wasn’t until around 1998 that he happened to be in Kansas and someone mentioned something to him about a house still standing from the original colony. He remembered the article he’d seen and went to the local library and courthouse and started piecing the history together.

A number of slave colonies were founded in Kansas after emancipation, when former slaves, mostly from Texas and Louisiana, were stuck in de facto share-cropping situations and migrated to Kansas to improve their lives. They became known as the “Exodusters.” Fitz’s great-grandparents, Alfred and Sally Teal, were among one of these groups, along with their son, Fitz’s grandfather, who was born into slavery.

Through his research, Fitz discovered that his ancestors had traveled to Kansas in covered wagons, which conjured an image he hadn’t thought of before. “I didn’t believe it because I didn’t realize from my school that blacks rode in covered wagons also. It just never dawned on me!”

A white Quaker named Daniel Votaw bought the land that would become the Votaw Colony, and sold 16-acre sections of it to the Exodusters for $100 a plot, which could be paid off over time. The Votaw Colony inhabitants attempted to grow cotton on their land to support themselves, but after a few years it became clear that they didn’t have enough land to make a profit from the crop. Then in 1895 a devastating flood damaged the colony enough that it couldn’t bounce back, and that marked the beginning of the end. Most people moved out around 1900, and the last person, Martha Coleman, left in 1915. Of the 26 former slave colonies in Kansas, only one — the Nicodemus colony — still has inhabitants. Five families live there today.

Fitz founded the Votaw Colony Museum in 2004, largely as a way to be able to receive donations for the work he was doing uncovering information about the colony and tracking down descendants. The museum is virtual right now, but he’s working on moving it into a physical space in Coffeyville. He has six volunteers spread around the country who help with the work, and he’s received three grants so far.

“When I pass, if I don’t record this, my children will know nothing,” Fitz said.

Reconnecting people is one of Fitz’s main goals in the project. The museum hosts a conference each year in Kansas to bring together all the descendants of colony inhabitants and the people who were involved with helping set up the colony. Through Fitz’s project, people have discovered countless new relatives and in one case, even connected a pair of brothers who hadn’t known each other. He said if he weren’t doing this work, he doesn’t think it’s likely that anyone else would have unearthed the information.

Fitz guesses that his parents and grandparents didn’t tell him about the colony because they didn’t want to burden the younger generations. “The great majority of them had such a hard life in slavery that they did not want their children to know how hard the life was and how bitter it was,” he said. He says he doesn’t feel a bitterness from what he’s discovered, though, only a fascination for learning about his ancestors and the people around them.

Fitz urges anybody who thinks they may be a descendant of a colony member, or is simply interested in the project, to contact him. You can find contact information for the Votaw Colony Museum here.

“Some of my good friends told me in so many words, ‘You will fail,’” Manhart recalled, hearing only gloomy predictions: “‘Richmond does not have the type of clientele that will want and appreciate the high level of coffee you’re producing.’”

There was the problem of appealing to the general Richmond clientele, and then there was the problem of the economy.

Manhart had barely opened the coffee shop when the national economy plummeted into the worst downturn since the Great Depression — a downturn that has hit small businesses particularly hard.

Last year, more than 400,000 small businesses (establishments with fewer than 100 employees) shut down in just the first quarter, eliminating more than one million jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But two years after opening, Catahoula Coffee (named after Manhart’s favorite dog breed) is still brewing.

Manhart says that’s because coffee is “an affordable luxury,” and that in times of economic hardship, a community-gathering place — like a coffee shop — becomes even more sought-after.

“I’ve had people that have been laid off, people who have lost their homes and been through a lot of trauma … and they still come in and get a cup of coffee,” Manhart said.

Manhart’s cynical friends questioned the ethics of enticing Richmond’s hard-pressed blue-collar locals to drink custom-roasted lattes at $3 a serving.

But Manhart says the Catahoula clientele has been a revelation, dispelling some widely-held notions not only about who drinks gourmet espresso, but about who makes up Richmond’s population in general.

He said he was at first surprised to see landscapers and mechanics among his regulars, but perhaps even more surprised to see a large number of local artist and musician-types — the kind he said you’d expect to see in San Francisco or Berkeley coffee shops, but not Richmond.

Manhart has lived in Richmond since 1999, when he bought a house in the North & East neighborhood and took over a Merry Maids franchise, which includes the property next door to Catahoula.

And although he’s enthusiastic about the amenities of his adopted neighborhood — affordable real estate, easy access to Interstate 80, Bay views from the hills — he says Richmond’s reputation for crime and blight still keeps many East Bay locals from venturing north of El Cerrito.

But, Manhart said, that reputation might change if more entrepreneurs were willing to make an investment on the San Pablo Avenue corridor of North & East. He points to the commercial development of Temescal — a rough-turned-hip neighborhood in North Oakland — as a potential success model for North & East.

“That area was a dump 10 years ago. I remember I used to drive through it really fast because of that,” Manhart said of driving along Telegraph Avenue, the neighborhood’s main artery.  “It started only with a couple of shops and it’s really blossomed.”

Manhart envisions better schools and the razing of abandoned buildings as prerequisites to improve Richmond’s quality of life, but also, he muses, wouldn’t it be nice to have a pizza joint nearby where you can get a Racer Five and a good salad? Maybe he’d even open it himself.

“I’m never opposed to doing anything,” he said, “but I’ve got my hands full now.”

After journeys up and down both coasts of the country, Becnel landed almost 12 years ago as the executive director of Neighborhood House of North Richmond, a nonprofit organization that provides a variety of social service programs aimed at helping Richmond residents improve their lives and community.

“I’m privileged, truly privileged to work at Neighborhood House, in Richmond, doing this kind of work every day. It is so fulfilling,” Becnel said.

While Becnel herself wasn’t drawn into gang life growing up, she did spend her childhood in poor West Philadelphia, and moved to LA’s troubled South Central neighborhood when she was 13. She compares those areas to parts of Richmond, and said her background helped her to relate to people in Richmond even though she was initially an outsider.

“I felt like I wasn’t from this community, but I was of this community,” she said of working in Richmond in the early days.

Much of Becnel’s inspiration for her work comes from a close relationship with Stanley Tookie Williams, one of the co-founders of the Los Angeles gang the Crips. Williams was convicted in 1979 of murdering four people, though he maintained his innocence until he was executed in San Quentin prison in 2005. While in prison, Williams renounced violence and with the help of Becnel, produced a book series aimed at keeping children out of gangs. Becnel’s relationship with Neighborhood House began when she started volunteering with the organization and distributing these books to schools in the area. This all came about, however, because she started hanging out with gangsters in LA.

In 1992, Becnel was living in Pasadena, and Los Angeles and the country were attempting to make sense of the April riots in response to the Rodney King trial. Essence Magazine asked Becnel to research and write an article about black youth gangs and violence. Also around this time, the rival Crips and Bloods gangs were attempting to form the first truce in the gangs’ roughly 20 year histories, and Becnel thought that story was a good place for her assignment to start. She managed to befriend members of both gangs and persuaded them to let her be a fly on their wall all day long for about a year and a half. What she saw and heard became too big for an article, and she decided to start working on a book about the gangs.

“I saw it as an important element of contemporary urban American history,” Becnel said of the story. “It was not being even covered as a serious topic — it was being covered as this one little slice.”

Her research for the book led her to Williams, and she began writing to him at San Quentin, requesting an interview. He put her through six months of letter-writing before he allowed her to come visit in person, and then the first few visits consisted of more interrogating of Becnel than vice versa. She finally broke through to him when she let her patience crack a tiny bit and told him to make a decision to talk to her one way or the other.

“We ultimately became friends and I became an advocate and co-author and editor, and so then I saw him as a big teddy bear — big almost-three-hundred-pound teddy bear — but not in the beginning,” Becnel said.

While Williams indirectly inspired a lot of Becnel’s work at Neighborhood House and by association, the children that come in contact with it, on one occasion while he was still alive he directly touched the life of one Richmond kid in particular. Becnel arranged for a boy to visit Williams who she said everyone else had given up on. In the past, Williams had instructed her to bring him the “irredeemables” – kids who no one knew how to save – because that’s what he once was. The boy’s visit with Williams at San Quentin proved to have the desired effect, and he ended up turning his life around.

When Williams was executed in 2005, Becnel attended and called it “the most horrific experience” of her life. She said it appeared that he was being tortured to death due to a botching of the process of lethal injection. Her disappointment with the criminal justice system was one reason she cited that inspired her to run for governor against Schwarzenegger in 2006. She ran as a Democrat and spent an estimated 40 to 50 thousand dollars on the campaign. She was beaten by Steve Westley and Phil Angelides, whose campaigns spent millions, though came out ahead of five other candidates in the Democratic primaries.

For now, Becnel’s focus is entirely on Neighborhood House. Her plan for the future is to launch “social entrepreneur” projects that generate revenue for the organization while continuing to provide a service to the community of some kind. The first will be a cafe at Neighborhood House’s office on San Pablo Avenue, scheduled to open sometime in February. The cafe will be staffed by people from Neighborhood House programs and the Richmond community. The economic downturn has meant a severe cut to Neighborhood House’s funding, and Becnel doesn’t want to see the organization in that position again.

“We see that the work still needs to be done, and so how do I make sure that Neighborhood House is recession-proof in the future?” she said.

She hopes the cafe will be the first of many such projects, tacking entrepreneurship onto her long list of careers.