43
Warren activist targets safety for small children
Photo
Roderick Lewis Jr. of Warren stands on the edge of a run-down park on Burton Street Southeast where he and others have been working recently to clean up. Lewis, 21, has been donating hundreds of dollars each year to a school-supplies giveaway and been involved in other community projects.
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
It’s clear that Roderick Lewis Jr. has concern for his 1-year-old cousin and other children on Burton Street Southeast.
As Lewis, 21, stood talking to a reporter in front of his cousin’s house, he kept a close eye on Damillonn Crenshaw, especially when cars came past, sometimes going too fast for a residential street.
“People try to get to the junk yard before it closes with junk on their truck,” Lewis said, referring to a nearby business and explaining why he thinks people sometimes go too fast on the road between state Route 169 and Niles-Warren Road.
Lewis, who lives on Warren’s West Side but regularly visits his cousins on Burton Street, noted that many children live on the street, and he’s seen close calls with vehicles and children, such as children racing for balls that go into the street.
Lewis thinks a sign warning drivers of children at play would help, but his bigger goal is to see a playground on Burton Street restored and fenced in so children can play in greater safety.
A large paved lot on the north side of Burton shows the remnants of a park from about 15 years ago — steel poles that used to have basketball hoops on them. The asphalt has cracks where grass is growing through. The park is owned by Warren Interfaith Community Action Committee, which also ran the Thomas Community Center on Burton Street until recent years.
A garbage container on the former playground is filled, tree limbs and two tires are piled up to be taken away — the results of cleanups Lewis and other volunteers have done over the past month.
“I want to fence it in so they [children] can run around,” said Lewis, known in Warren for several community-service projects he’s organized.
One of them is an annual giveaway of school supplies to Warren children each August for the past five years at a nearby community center on Route 169. Lewis spent about $500 of his own money each year for the project.
Doug Franklin, Warren safety-service director and mayor-elect, said he’s known Lewis for several years.
“For his age, he’s pretty mature, and he’s obviously concerned with the community,” Franklin said. “He’s a delight to be around. He gets things done.”
Lewis, who works at a Warren fast-food restaurant, has “always provided for himself,” Franklin noted.
In 2009, Lewis was honored by a local newspaper and the American Red Cross as a “Community Star” for his community work during his senior year at Warren Harding High School.
Franklin said he agrees that Burton Street has a lot of children, partly because of the number of young families that moved in after new housing was constructed there about 10 years ago.
“It’s worth saving,” Franklin said of the park. “It’s in a neighborhood that sorely needs it.”
Burton is one street from Brier Street, where a baseball-bat assault took place July 21, 2010, that caused a serious brain injury to 15-year-old Verdarell Lowery.
The incident involved many other teens, including two others who were convicted in Trumbull County Juvenile Court for their role on the melee.
Anyone willing to participate in the Burton Street project call Lewis at 330-475-6499. Walter Turner Sr., president of the interfaith committee, says the organization backs Lewis’ project and will be adding him to its board of directors.