Eight
years ago, Miss June arrived in Cincinnati with nothing but a copy of
her teaching certificate and a few papers her mother had given her
before she died. She had been sick. She had been threatened. And she was
fleeing for her life.
"I did not look
like the polished person I was," says June, 50, who received her
master's degree in art education and worked as a teacher in Alabama
before she left the South for Cincinnati.
After
brief stints in local women's shelters, she landed in
Over-the-Rhine. She marveled at the lack of self-respect she saw around
her and bristled at the violence and disrespect.
"I
have spent so much time with stereotypes thrown at me," she says, her
gravelly Southern drawl loosening as she relaxes into conversation.
The
daughter of a teacher and a preacher, June has a quick wit and low
tolerance for bad behavior. She soon attracted the attention, and
admiration, of Sister Mary, an outreach worker who suggested June visit
the Peaslee Neighborhood Center.
When
June first walked inside Peaslee, she felt at home for the first time
since her father was killed when she was just 9 years old. "It's more
sacred than any church I've been in," she says.
Peaslee,
a former Cincinnati Public School building purchased by a group of
female neighborhood activists in 1984, remains a valuable educational
and cultural resource in the community. Neighbors and visitors sense the
peacefulness of the space, where childcare, education and arts programs
co-exist with the upstairs office space for a consortium of non-profits focused on social justice and human rights.
June
soon found a niche teaching in Peaslee's summer youth art program.
Today, the artist who reveres the beauty of the Harlem Renaissance as
well as the Renaissance Baroque has a lot to say about re-birth. She
teaches art to infants and pre-schoolers. When they are too young to use
fingerpaints, her tiniest students use food to express themselves.
For
the last three years, June has also been taking piano lessons at
Peaslee, where students at the keys range in age from 7 to 70. For June,
playing is about more than keeping her brain alive. "This is another
voice I have to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves."
Now
a fixture at the center, June composed "The Peaslee Song" and performed
it at a recent fundraiser for the non-profit. She looks forward to a
spring of new programs, new faces and new ways to spread her message of
personal empowerment and peace to all who will listen.
Do Good:
• Get your hands dirty. Email to help prepare Peaslee's Edible Schoolyard Garden for spring the morning of Saturday, March 12.
• Connect on Facebook. Join Peaslee's page to keep up with the latest news and events.
• Be creative.
You can donate funds online, or look through Peaslee's wish list for
some creative options, like glue sticks, gardening tools and paint
brushes.
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