tanya_martin_pekel.jpgStreet naming for Tanya Martin Pekel
MIAMI SHORES – Tanya Martin Pekel, daughter of Marcia Saunders, accomplished more in her 42 years than many people who reach twice her age, which is partly why on Friday, March 1, at Miami Shores Elementary School, 103 Street and N.E. Sixth Avenue, a street will be renamed in her recognition, memory and honor.

Considered the glue of every community she joined, the death of the former White House fellow, corporate attorney, domestic policy expert, urban-school innovator and loving mother of three (Oct. 3, 1964 – May 22, 2006), following a 2½ year battle with breast cancer, was considered a great loss. For more information call 305-757-2444.

Set Free Ministries Sabbath School
MIAMI GARDENS – For in-depth knowledge into God’s Word, Elder George N. Gibson, founder and pastor of  Set Free Ministries through Jesus Christ of the Apostolic Faith Church, Inc., invites all to the Sabbath School during March to explore the Suffering, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ!

The class will do an exegesis and hermeneutics of the Sacred Scriptures, 2 – 6 p.m.  on Saturdays, March 2, 9, 16, 23, and 30, at the First Glorious Church of Love, 99 N.W. 183rd St., Suite 238 (just east of 441 next to Subway’s), Miami Gardens. Seating is Limited. For more information and to R.S.V.P., call 786-488-2108.

Seminary grant to study black churches
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) – Louisville Seminary has been awarded a $200,000 grant to expand a program that studies African-American churches. The Black Church Studies Program began at Louisville Seminary three years ago and now has 30 students enrolled in the curriculum.

Lewis Brogdon, the program’s director at the seminary, says it needed to do more than just offer classes in black theology, African-American Christianity and preaching, and the grant will allow the program’s leaders to spend time in local and regional congregations educating laypeople about issues affecting African-American churches and communities. He says it will also help recruit leaders who want to come to the seminary.

The grant is from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations.The seminary, founded in 1853, is part of the Presbyterian Church (USA).

First NY civil rights museum for Harlem
NEW YORK (AP) – Plans are underway for New York State’s first civil rights museum to be built in Harlem. Officials said the Museum of the Urban Civil Rights Experience will be built on a stretch of 125th Street between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and Lenox Avenue/Malcolm X Boulevard, and will use Harlem as a lens through which to view the wider civil rights experience.

The museum will be housed on a 42,000-square-foot stretch of property that will also contain a new national headquarters for the National Urban League.

*Pictured above is  Tanya Martin Pekel.