Brown and White Vol. 133 no. 13

              The Brown and White Vol. 133 No. 13
Tuesday, October 24, 2017 ‘All the Lehigh News First’
Boys and Girls Club
closes on the South Side
California fires affect Lehigh community
By MARISSA MCCLOY
Designer
South Bethlehem institutions
and organizations are stepping
up to fill the void in program-ming
created by the closing of the
South Side Boys and Girls Club.
The South Side branch of the
organization shut down because
of low funding and has now
merged with the North Bethlehem
branch.
“The numbers of students par-ticipating
in the Boys and Girls
Club were dwindling and, unfor-tunately,
some things had to be
done,” said Carolina Hernandez,
the assistant dean and director
of the Lehigh Community Service
Office. “Managing multiple loca-tions
is a difficult task for an
agency that causes some chal-lenges,
especially fiscally.”
Hernandez said communi-ty
partners are receiving fewer
grants, so funding is an issue for See CLUB Page 3
many of these organizations.
According to the Boys and Girls
Club of Bethlehem website, the
organization offers a number of
activities, including technolo-gy
classes, recreational sports,
SMART Moves, an anti-drug and
alcohol program and homework
assistance.
During the school year, the club
is open Tuesdays through Fridays
after school until 9 p.m. and on
Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
There is a yearly fee of $15 for
club membership.
Hernandez said while a sig-nificant
number of Lehigh stu-dents
volunteered at the Boys and
Girls Club through student orga-nizations,
the number of South
Bethlehem students participating
in the club was dropping.
Hernandez said she doesn’t
think the kids of the South
By KARLI WACHTEL
B&W Staff
Wildfires in Northern California
have devastated communities
in the region and irrevocably
changed the day-to-day lives of
residents.
The fires have damaged more
than 245,000 acres of land span-ning
throughout Napa, Lake,
Sonoma, Mendocino, Butte and
Solano counties.
An updated statewide fire
summary filed by the California
Department of Forestry and Fire
Protection on Oct. 19 reported that
more than 10,000 firefighters are
working constantly to tame the
burning flames. More than 15,000
people were evacuated from their
homes. An estimated 6,900 struc-tures
were destroyed. Forty-two
individuals lost their lives.
Firefighters are still working on
extinguishing the fires, fighting
winds ranging from 35 to 50 miles
per hour.
Almost 3,000 miles away, some
Lehigh community members are
also reeling from the damage of
the wildfires.
Before coming to Lehigh, AJ
Diakon, ’20, lived in Napa Valley
with her father. On Oct. 8, the
California wildfires reached her
neighborhood and destroyed her
home. Diakon said she speaks to
her father a few times a day to
keep updated on the state of her
home and community.
Diakon said her father and her
neighbors saw the fire from afar
at around 9 or 10 p.m. but did not
worry about it approaching them
because there was a fire station
between the fire and the com-munity.
At midnight, however,
the neighbors realized how much
closer the fire was getting, so they
started to evacuate the area.
“The firefighters don’t tell you
when your house burns down
because they’re busy fighting the
next fire,” Daikon said, “so if you
want to find out, you have to go
back and go look at your house.”
Diakon’s father walked about
five miles from where the road
was blocked off to his street.
“He rounded the corner and saw
that our entire street was com-pletely
gone,” Diakon said.
Xavi Lema, ’19, and his fam-ily,
who live in Sonoma, were
also impacted by the fires. While
Lema’s house still stands, his
family’s vineyards were complete-ly
destroyed in the fire. The vine-yards
used to be a family-run
business, but had turned into a
hobby for the Lema family, until
the fire ravaged the land.
“Vineyards are tough,” Lema
said. “That whole area is going
to go into a little bit of a reces-sion
with wine-making because See WILDFIRE Page 3
you can insure the winery, like
the building, but you can’t really
insure vineyards.”
Lema said the fires are dev-astating
to many businesses in
wine country. He said it can cost
up to about $300,000 per acre to
replant, and it can take about 7
years to get a bottle out of the
land.
Lema said he and his family are
lucky their house is safe.
“I have a list of 50 people that
I know whose houses are just
gone,” he said.
Benjamin Miller, ’18, is from
Southern California, so his
home was not directly affected.
However, for years Miller attend-ed
Camp Newman in Sonoma
Valley.
“It’s weird to know that the
camp that you went to for so long
is gone, but also kind of the places
Designed by Musa Jamshed
This week, the board of trustees will vote whether to rescind President Donald Trump’s
honorary degree from Lehigh. Last week, The Brown and White surveyed 786 members of
the Lehigh community – including students, staff, faculty, parents and alumni – about their
opinions concerning the rescission of honorary degrees from Lehigh. Each respondent was
presented with a set of questions about either Trump or Cosby. The questions about the
two men were separated in an effort to collect honest responses about the individual cases.
Should Lehigh revoke
honorary degrees?