Town Hall at New Covenant Church of Philadelphia on Monday at 6:30PM
Sunday, January 19, 2025
MLK DAY: Pastoral Organization Hosts Education Stop at Philadelphia Church
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA – On Monday, January 20, 2025, at 6:30 PM, a community town hall will be held centered on education policies and their impacts on low-income and other marginalized students.
The town hall will be held in at New Covenant Church of Philadelphia at 7500 Germantown Ave., Philadelphia, PA 19119. The event is free and open to the public.
It is being organized by Black Pastors United for Education (BPUE), a nonpartisan, educational advocacy group of independent congregations. New Covenant Church of Philadelphia is one of the independent congregations that works in partnership with BPUE.
The panelists for the town hall include: Rev. Joshua C. Robertson, Lenny McAllister, Pastor Bob Oliver, and Pastor Jerome Barmore.
The town hall discussions are to help community members better understand the political process and education policies.
“The church has a spiritual mandate to serve people, and these town halls are a way for us to express that love,” Rev. Joshua C. Robertson, BPUE’s founder, said.
Robertson also notes that the group wanted to host the town hall on MLK Day to celebrate the civic innovation of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The town hall in Philadelphia kicks off the group’s first town hall of the new year and follows the groups pattern of bringing vital information to the community in a church setting through the church buildings. BPUE has hosted a town hall with several lawmakers and its scholars in its learning centers recently hosted a town hall.
Last summer, BPUE sent an open letter to Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, making several requests:
- Fully and properly fund public schools.
- Enact Lifeline Scholarships, delivering on his campaign promise for children in Pennsylvania’s lowest-performing schools.
- Oppose cuts to public cyber charter schools, which serve a higher percentage of low-income and non-white students than traditional school districts.