The Mercury from Pottstown, Pennsylvania • Page 11

5-PC. KITCHEN SET 4 UHAIRS $CC95 TABLE DO (While InStock) FURNITURE RT 100 BOYERTOWN 367 2676 HEATING OILS GASOLINE CALI 323 3900 SchuylkMI Volley Oil Co. Pottstown Friday, December 2, 1977 Eleven Fellowship Farm: The place where people grow' through peace and harmony BY JOHN THIESSEN Mercury Staff Writer Arabs and Israelis, just barely swallowing their enmity, climb to the top of a quiet hill just off Sanatoga Road. They come down again several hours later, without even exchanging friendly words, and something has happened. Peace is beginning in their mutual hearts.

Brawny Russians, who follow the communist line by scoffing at anything religious, sit in silence on the same hill, and something mystical happens to them, to see, feel, and experience life with sensitivity. Is it magic? Brainwashing? Or a sinister plot? No, just the quiet method of Fellowship Farm at work, and the hilltop meditation center, with its 30-mile view, is only one of many techniques in use there. Known as the where people Fellowship has for nearly 50 years been building bridges of understanding across the deep divisions of race, class, religion, age and even political differences, first at its home in Philadelphia, and since 1951 at the Sanatoga Road farm. Thousands from around the world have come to Fellowship encounters and programs, many of whom returned home and helped to bring more kindness, fairness and justice to their communities. A large proportion of the work is with schools throughout the Delaware Valley, and until the recent fiscal crisis in the Philadelphia School System, Fellowship was under contract to teach facts about to administrators, teachers and students on all levels.

According to Mrs, Marjorie Penney Paschkis, founder of both the house and the farm, innovative methods of reaching and teaching developed by Fellowship are in use across the country. Located only 35 miles from Philadelphia, the 126-acre farm is nestled in the historic Crooked Hills that come alive to more than 5,000 persons a year with stories of William Penn and the Indians. Sanatoga encampment, and the Underground Railroad. The late Dr. Martin Luther King, acknowledges in his published writings that Fellowship House in Philadelphia was a major influence by exposing him to the teachings of Mahatma Ghandi.

Fellowship farm conducts a year-round program of vivid educational experiences, many of them held outdoors when weather permits, and often combining entertainment with the lessons of human relations, according to Mrs. Paschkis, founder, and Helen Stark Thomkins, director. There is, for instance, a new look by 8 to 14-year-olds at the amazing founder of the Commonwealth and his adventures with the original occupants of the very lands on which the farm is located. On the grounds of the farm, costumed staff members act out the Penn story, with the help of a mini-museum and games in the woods, even offering participants a William Penn gingerbread made from his family recipe. In addition, each child receives a souvenir deed to Pennsylvania, which Penn called a Or, Mrs.

Tompkins said, there is a look at events of precisely 200 years ago, when soldiers, weary and wounded after the defeat at Brandywine, rested at Camp Pottsgrove for seven days before they began their dismal winter of 1777 in Valley Forge. Fellowship Farm was one of four farm properties where those men endured the cold and rain before meeting an even worse fate in the famous rolling hills that recently were made a national park. Children from ages 10 to 16 learn not only about the Revolutionary period, but also learn of the larger revolution that continues into our times. Through fieldtrips to nearby headquarters in Valley Forge, and stately Pottsgrove Mansion, where Martha stayed, the students learn about the struggle for freedom that continues in this country and abroad. Mrs.

Tompkins explained that another course of study for 8 to 16-year-olds involves an Indian resource center on the farm in the form of an Iroquios longhouse located in a rocky glen used for 8,000 years by the Lenni-Lenape tribe. That longhouse, containing artifacts, crafts, maps, history charts and posters, forms the heart of a continuing emphasis on native Americans, which Fellowship Farm began promoting years ago. Indians from many tribes have come to teach at the farm or to enlist its help in the struggle for equal rights and other action projects. For instance, Mrs. Agnes DiRosato, an Onondaga neighbor, and Neil Camaho, a Navajo, offer folk lore, nature lore, beadwork, stories and an Indian meal.

Underground Railroad: It Ran Through is the title of a fascinating study for 8 to 16-year-olds, which relates the stories of heroes and heroines who opened their hearts and homes, Mrs. Tompkins said. Again, costumed staff members, a mini-museum, a giant picture map and drama combine to depict the life of brave runaways from slavery, emphasizing the personal responsibility in moral issues. A study of the real beauty and strength of America, for 8 to 10-year-olds, goes beyond the magnificent scenery and resources or conquest of space, according to Mrs. Tompkins.

It looks at its people, and through its doll library, the farm helps to depict the lives of American who helped There were Rebecca Gratz, young Jewish educator; Richard Allen, black hero of the yellow-fever plague in Philadelphia; Lucretia Mott, quiet Quaker liberator of slaves and women; William Still and his wonderful records of guests who passed and Dr. Ralph Bunche, a man of the whole wide world. Mrs. Tompkins added that a course on for 10 to 16-year-olds, presents an overview of the Bright Continent, plus a detailed look at West Africa. Again, the mini-museum, maps, artifacts from the past and present, household articles displayed as though they were in an outdoor village market, all combine to provide an insight into cultural differences and the reasons for them.

The significance of the topic is evident from the fact that 15 per cent of the U.S. population can trace its roots to African ancestry. Even something as simple as home-baked bread is used as a teaching tool. Ever since the farm began its operations in 1951, loaves have been marked with three cuts to remind the eater that: Mercury photos by Russ wk United effort They came, they saw, they listened, they built a teepee, and they conquered the bigotry barriers that bind so much of the world. At Fellowship Farm, Crooked Hill, Sanatoga, people from all over the world come to learn about the history and heritage of the United States in a way that proves the need for each race, religion, age and gender in the total pursuit of liberty.

At top, black students at Fellowship Farm start building a teepee, and learning about their red countrymen. At right, Chief Camaho, 73 S. Evans teaches youngsters about the American Indian heritage, both in history and in modern times. Above, the youngsters in headbands get the feel of tribal living, listen to Chief stories in a fireside chat about native folklore. Below, Jennifer Gittings, Highland Road, Lower Pottstgrove, a worker at Fellowship Farm, explains the construction of an Indian canoe.

1. Everyone needs bread for his stomach. 2. Everyone needs work for his hands and education for his head. 3.

Everyone needs love and understanding for his heart. Fellowship, the organization that embraces both the farm on Sanatoga Road and a house in Philadelphia, began during the great depression of 1931, when a few Quakers and courageous clergymen, both black and white, invited young Philadelphians to take a hard look at William of brotherly and the state named for him. Mrs. Paschkis explained that Fellowship helped those teenagers learn about growing up black, Spanish-speaking, Italian, Irish, Eastern European or Oriental, and sent many out to work for and justice for all At first Fellowship hacked away at the color line, she said, adding that Philadelphia in 1931 was a Crow and the going was rough. But blacks could no longer say and white Anglo-Saxon Protestants began to understand the despair of the minorities Then in 1939, Mrs.

Paschkis continued, hate- campaign reached America. An FBI agent came to contact what he called only Christian youth group prepared to fight and he asked if Fellowship would do As Mrs. Paschkis recalls the events of those days. Fellowship took a leap of faith. needed to create a center where people of all ages and backgrounds couid be trained to deal with crists in human she said.

1941, the first Fellowship House was operating, appropriately enough in an abandoned second-oldest in heat or furnishings. people came to see and sometimes returned to scrub, paint, plaster, cook and organize..