Shane Claiborne's Community Burns

Erik Guzman June 21st, 2007

I got up this morning and started to replace the Shane Claiborne interview with this week's edition of The Brown Sessions. I didn't get far before I came across a comment and this post from Mike informing us that Shane's neighborhood in Kensington was consumed by a massive fire yesterday. Thanks for the heads up, Mike.

According to thesimpleway.org, "…a 7-alarm fire consumed an abandoned warehouse in our Kensington neighborhood in Philadelphia. The Simple Way Community Center at 3200 Potter Street was destroyed as well as at least eight of our neighbors' homes. Over 100 people were evacuated from their homes, and 400 families are currently without power. Despite this tragedy, we are incredibly thankful to share that all of our community members and every one of our neighbors is safely out of harm's way."[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0D8Ai-O-LcU[/youtube]

This of course gives me a great excuse to leave the Shane Claiborne interview up for another week. Beyond the fact that I'll jump at any opportunity to do less work and still stay relevant, The Simple Way community needs your help.

Go to thesimpleway.org to find out how you can help. They have established an emergency relief fund, not just for The Simple Way, but for those in the neighborhood who lost their homes. Keep going back for updates, they'll be needing relief supplies soon as well.

Now, if you're thinking, Shane who? The Simple what? then listen to this interview and get Shane's book, The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical. After you fall in love with him and his work, get involved in their rebuilding effort. As Steve says in this interview, "Shane is the real deal." Alright…enough. Start clickin'.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, June 21st, 2007 at 11:08 am and is filed under Kensington Fire, Philadelphia, Shane Claiborne, The Irresistible Revolution, The Simple Way. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.