Community Visions

Founded in 1975, Community Mental Health and Mental Retardation Services (COMHAR) helps people of all ages and cultures in the community who have developmental disabilities, mental health concerns, physical limitations and other challenges. Though this video focuses on a COMHAR branch serving three North Philadelphia neighborhoods, COMHAR provides assistance at home and a broad array of services at multiple COMHAR locations throughout Greater Philadelphia and lower Montgomery County.

Sharon Mullally began her career with 10 years in staff positions at broadcast television stations in Philadelphia and Baltimore. Since leaving the commercial broadcast industry to pursue documentary work, Sharon has edited several national PBS programs for WHYY-TV 12 in Philadelphia, including The Dinosaurs!, Furniture on the Mend, and Remember When. For her editorial work on Yearbook--The Class of '65, produced by Fox Philadelphia, she received an Emmy Award in 1996. Recent editorial work includes I Witness, a one-hour documentary on the anti-abortion violence in Pensacola, Our Food Our Future, a look at community food projects, and Daring to Resist, a beautiful and compelling portrait of three young women who resisted the Holocaust. All three of these programs have been shown on public television.

As Producer/Director, Sharon has just completed Rufus Jones: A Luminous Life, a documentary on a visionary American Quaker. She has also completed New Voices, a documentary on women moving from welfare to work; Peace Theater and Building a Peaceful Community, teaching self-respect and conflict resolution skills to children; Walk With Me, Sisters (winner of the Silver Apple Award from the National Educational Media Network), for women with HIV; and Connecting the Pieces: A City's Response to the AIDS Quilt. Sharon has also maintained an active role as an instructor, teaching media literacy to middle school children in Philadelphia. She has taught editing classes at Scribe Video Center.

The idea for Princeton University's Princeton Atelier was sparked by novelist and Professor Toni Morrison's experiences collaborating on a song cycle, Honey and Rue, commissioned by Carnegie Hall for opera star Kathleen Battle. That project brought her together with André Previn who scored the music for the piece. In the Atelier program, Professor Morrison tries to capture the same excitement this collaborative experience offered her. The Atelier brings together on campus guest artists from different media for an intensive, in-residence collaborative effort with each other and Princeton's faculty and students. The focus of the Atelier is on the process of creating a work of art rather than on the finished product, and guest artists bring to campus an idea they want to create, explore, and develop. The "SOKS - Save Our Kids " videotape was produced in an Atelier directed by Louis Massiah and facilitated by Princeton students.

The "SOKS" program works to further community identification and provide high quality mentoring, recreation, and learning opportunities for young males in the Witherspoon area of Princeton, New Jersey.

Centro Pedro Claver Inc. is a community based non profit organization, named after the patron saint of slaves, St. Pedro Claver, and founded by Father David Ungerleider. It was an outgrowth of work by the volunteer-run civil rights organization, the Puerto Rican Alliance, and activists from Franklinville's North Philadelphia community. With the eventual demise of the Puerto Rican Alliance in 1981, El Centro took on a recognized leadership role in the Latino community. Today Centro Pedro Claver's many programs work with neighborhood residents to radically change and contribute to the overall stability, vitality and untapped wealth of the Franklinville community

<"http://www.peoplewithaids.org">We the People Living with AIDS of the Delaware Valley is the only Philadelphia-based organization created and run by people living with HIV disease and AIDS. This organization serves as the major link to the larger medical and social services for the growing number of people with HIV/AIDS, many of whom are disenfranchised because of their own behavior or because of discrimination based on race, mental illness, substance abuse, income status, sexual preferences, lifestyles, etc. We The People does this by offering practical support services that our target population tells us that they need: diagnostic and medical services, meals, clothing, social connections, peer and professional substance abuse and mental health counseling and referrals, culturally appropriate HIV/AIDS risk reduction education, referrals to other services, and now a housing and recovery house.

Janet Williams works as a digital video artist and graphic designer in the Philadelphia area.

Cindy Wong has been a production facilitator for other Scribe projects including Face to Face and To the Point.

Hispanic Family Center of Southern New Jersey (HFCSNJ) is a United Way agency based in Camden, New Jersey. For over 30 years, HFCSJ has worked to provide the region's Hispanic community with a broad range of culturally relevant social services and advocacy programs that promote and encourage empowerment and self-sufficiency.

Project Facilitator Dave Kluft is an independent film producer and the founder and director of the NEXTFRAME, the University Film and Video Association's touring showcase of international student film and video.

A staffer with HFCSNJ at the time she served as the video's project coordinator, today Marangeli Mejia-Rabell is the executive director of the Hunting Park Community Development Corporation in Philadelphia.