Talk Bronx New York

Bronx Residents To Receive Free Financial Advice

The city launched a pilot program Thursday aiming to provide free financial advice to low income Bronx residents as part of the mayor’s fight against poverty.

The Financial Empowerment Center in Melrose, Bronx offers free one-on-one financial counseling and coaching to low-income residents.

The move comes as a new city-conducted study finds low- and even middle-income residents are using cash checking centers instead of banks because the fees are lower.

“Generally speaking, you’re probably better with one of the larger full-service organizations, and I think the cash checking centers are providing competition to the banks, and that’s good if you believe in capitalism,” said Mayor Michael Bloomberg. “That’s what will keep the fees lower and perhaps out of this some of the banks will lower their fees.”

City officials are also putting together an online directory of low-cost and free financial counseling services available across the city.

For more information, call 311 or visit www.nyc.gov.

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A Bronx Tree Honors a Slain Journalist

The untimely death of the journalist Tim Russert has been the subject of much commentary and reflections, especially on television in the past week. The unsolved murder of another journalist, Bradley Will, nearly two years ago never received such saturation coverage.

A recently planted apple tree in a South Bronx park is perhaps the only memorial in the city to Mr. Will, a video journalist based in New York, who was shot dead in Mexico in October, 2006, while covering anti-government protests. His killers, who may have been captured on his tape, have not yet been brought to justice.

This is not new in Mexico, which has earned the distinction of being among the 10 worst countries when it comes to impunity for the murders of journalists, according to a recent survey by the Committee to Protect Journalists. In fact, narco-fueled violence has made that country among the world’s most dangerous for journalists, who often resort to self censorship, rather than run the risk of being deleted by drug gangs.

Friends of Mr. Will were very much thinking of this – and of him – in recent days, when some television channels were devoting hours of coverage to the death of Mr. Russert, a beloved media figure.

“It really does highlight the disconnect or distance between hard-hitting investigative journalists who are out there working and the risks they take versus the boys club in D.C.,” said Mark Read, who teaches media studies at New York University. “There is a self-importance there, and rarely do they try to leverage their celebrity to speak out and help protect those who are doing risky, dangerous work.”

Mr. Read had befriended Mr. Will in New York in the late 1990s, when they both were active in the city’s community gardens, which were under threat from officials and developers. Both of them had also come to know Harry Bubbins, an environmental activist in the South Bronx.

“We met while doing environmental organizing,” said Mr. Bubbins. “During the Giuliani administration we were arrested at City Hall for protesting the auction of community gardens.”

Mr. Bubbins said that Mr. Will eventually moved toward independent reporting work, traveling to Latin America often. He went from being part of the story to covering it. Ultimately, his killing became the story one last time.

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Bob’s Discount Furniture donates to Bronx school

Bob’s Discount Furniture, a furniture retailer with 29 furniture stores in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island, has announced that it has recently donated two laptop computers and $500 to a school in Bronx, NY.

Bob’s Discount Furniture surprised the students at the Anna Cross Mersereau Intermediate School MS206 and presented the check for $500 to the school’s principal, David Neering.

The donation was part of Bob Discount Furniture’s new Outreach Van Program, where once a month, the retailer chooses a non-profit organization to support and then surprises the organization with a donation.

“From the daily writing and research projects to learning how to utilize relevant software, our students were very happy about the new additions to our classrooms,” Neering said. “Bob’s Discount Furniture’s Community Outreach Van program has created some very valuable and new opportunities for our students.”

Bob Kaufman, President of Bob’s Discount Furniture, said the furniture retailer developed the community outreach program to work more directly with charitable organizations.

“The Bob’s Discount Furniture Community Outreach Van is now ‘on the road’ in the tri-state region performing random acts of kindness and making our community a better place one stop at a time,” Kaufman said.

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