Atlantic City's children will stand up for themselves at Wednesday's City Council meeting, according to a group saying the city's youth need to be heard.
Steve Young, local head of the National Action Network, claims that the city is not taking children into account even when it plans for them.
Most recently was the closing of the Multicultural Community Center, started by Latoya Dunston.
https://breakingac.com/funeral-attempts-to-save-center-helping-atlantic-citys-youth/
The building at 820 N. New York Ave. more than 3,800 breakfasts and lunches to kids during 10 weeks, Dunston said. The center began with the AC Xclusive Drill Team, but grew to include basketball, cultural dance, music and media, drill team and drum line.
But parties they used as fundraisers to keep the center open received complaints, Dunston said. Not from neighbors or police, but from city leaders, she claims.
Dunston said what those writing letters to the owners didn't know was that they received copies.
She is not yet ready to release them, but promised that the truth will come out, starting with Wednesday's council meeting.
Now, Dunston said her kids have no where to go. Some are trying to get into the Boys and Girls Club, but are on a waiting list.
"We don't have a community center," Young said. "You're not going to just throw our children out on the street."
Dunston said the center was bringing people together: police came to work with the kids, Stockton University donated projectors and they even got an oven anonymously donated. Even factions from warring neighborhoods were able to attend events without problems, she said.
"When they say we, as a community, we can when you give us something positive to do," she said.
The group — without children — met Monday outside Brown's Park to get the word out and ask that adults attend the meeting to stand beside the children as they stand up for themselves.
