Bipeds of Brookland: Cheryl Alston

Cheryl Alston met Pope Francis last year. She used the Latin she learned at St. Anthony’s, saying “dominus vobiscum” (the Lord be with you). He replied “Et cum spiritu tuo.”

She began school in 1954.  “I was the first black child to go to St. Anthony’s.  I started 1st grade and graduated from 12th grade.”  She had perfect attendance over those 12 years. “I had an opportunity to get a good education and that carried over into adult life.”

Cheryl worked for Safeway for 28 years. “I used to love thunderstorms because it would knock the power out and the store manager would have everybody get in my line and I would take the groceries and add them up without the register.” She went to DC Teachers’ College at night

Sarah Woodhead is an architect who came to Brookland in 1991, with her husband and  three kids. They bought an abandoned house on Kearney with graffiti, no heat, and mice living in the oven. “We fixed it up while living in it and it took us 10 years to get it all fixed. We did a lot of work ourselves. After we finished it we had to move because I needed projects. So we bought another project house, and we’ve been here for 12 years. It’s not done yet.”

She has worked in DC, Arlington and PG counties on building and modernizing schools. “When I was 12, I just started designing buildings. I didn’t know any architects so I didn’t know how to go about it.  So my undergraduate degree is in Middle East Studies and Arabic.  So then I went back to graduate

Bipeds of Brookland: Malaku Steen

Malaku Steen graduated from Catholic University Law School in 1963. He was the attorney who enforced anti-discrimination law for the Department of the Treasury. Any local government that discriminated would lose federal money.

One of his first cases was getting the Volunteer Fire Department in Dover, Delaware to integrate. “I said, ‘How in the world am I going to threaten a volunteer fire department with discrimination? They might say, ‘OK we won’t put out any fires.’” However, the head of the volunteer fire department was also a member of the City Council. So in order to not lose federal money, he opened the fire department to African American volunteers.

“Chicago was another one.  The Justice

Bipeds of Brookland: Fr. Jim Gardiner

Fr. Jim Gardiner remembers "a bus trip that I took to the motherhouse of what is now my community, Friars of the Atonement, in Garrison, NY. I was in the first grade. First time we ever went anyplace.  . . a couple of hours from the Bronx where I grew up.  As we were getting ready to leave, one of the priests there asked me if I had a good day. I told him I thought I had a wonderful day and he said, ‘I’m going to pray every day that you come back.”

Fr. Jim joined the Franciscan community after high school and came to DC for seminary, studying two years at CUA. “This neighborhood reminds me of my neighborhood in the Bronx because everybody has gardens, everybody shares what’s in the garden . . .You can always

Bipeds of Brookland: Iluminada Sanchez 

Iluminada Sanchez came to United States with her son from the Dominican Republic in 1995 after her husband. She and her husband were both lawyers but “in my country the economic situation was not good and we had a plan to make our life better. That’s why we decided to come here.”

In her first year, her daughter was born prematurely and she could not work, so she stayed home to care for her children. Her family moved into a transitional housing apartment at the nonprofit Mary House in Brookland, and Iluminada helped organize and distribute donations of clothing for families while living there. She is now on the board of Mary House. “I will always be grateful to them because when you come to another country,

Bipeds of Brookland: Josh Burch

Josh Burch is a DC Statehood advocate who was born in DC. He moved to Brookland when he was ten months old. He went to Ghana as a Peace Corps volunteer and met his wife, another volunteer. In 2002, he bought the house next to the one where he grew up, and he now works for DC, managing restoration projects for our many streams that are in are in poor health.  “Brookland is just a beautiful neighborhood. Because of my work in the environmental field, I see the number of green spaces and the way people take care of their yards …  There is a consciousness about the environment that people in Brookland have that I love.”

Josh became involved with the DC Statehood movement in 2011.  “My daughter was a few months old and I

Jesse Brown grew up in LeDroit Park and first came to Brookland when he was 14 and walked a friend home. “I loved Brookland when I saw it, like a hidden gem.” He bought a house here 31 years ago and has been a member of the community ever since.  

Jesse opened up a coffee shop, Brookland Cup of Dreams, in 1997 and is now the sole proprietor of Serendipity Jazz Coffeehouse on 12th St which serves coffee and food and offers live Jazz Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday evenings.

By day Jesse is an electrician who trained here in DC and is a member of the local union. “Electrical is something I love. That’s not work, that’s passion. I’ve been doing it for 35 years. I learned from the best.  I learned when we didn’t have all these power tools and

Shani Hernandez is the founder and editor of the Brookland Bridge blog. “I’m really not an activist, I’m more just like a concerned person who wants Brookland to be the best it can be.

She remarks, “We weren’t here a month when I went to my first meeting of the Brookland Neighborhood Civic Association and I was sort of hooked on knowing more. Then I would know a little. So I would be walking my dog and people would ask, ‘What do you know?’ There were some times I couldn’t get around the block. I’d run into a neighbor here, a neighbor there, and I said I feel like the town crier… and I said maybe I should start writing it down and do a blog.”

“Our work on trying to save the Brookland Green was huge. It was a lot of people;  it wasn’t just us.

Bipeds of Brookland: Introducing the people who make Brookland their home, one step at a time.

Gidey Teferra learned auto skills from his next door neighbor in Ethiopia, “I actually knew names of tools and parts before I even started kindergarten. I was probably five or six when I did my first brake job.”

Gidey came to the US from Ethiopia when he was in eighth grade. “When I was 16, I would work on my own stuff in the back yard” in Virginia. Eventually he had so many cars parts stored behind the house, he had to move out and rent a storage unit to do his car repair.“I almost took a job at a big auto repair company once.  But then we didn’t agree on their style of sales. I’m against these auto repair services that are not honest with the customer.

Bipeds of Brookland: Introducing the people who make Brookland their home, one step at a time.

Mike Thomasian, the principal of St. Anthony Catholic School, says that people tease him about living in a ‘Brookland bubble.’ “I hardly ever get in the car, I hardly ever go on Metro because my life is focused around these few blocks, and I’m not complaining. I love it.”

Mike came to St. Anthony in 2000 through Response-Ability, an AmeriCorps program which placed volunteer teachers in inner city Catholic schools.  He is happy that in addition to rigorous academics, St. Anthony offers classes in art, music, PE, computer, library, and Spanish every week to 200 students from Pre-K3 to 8th grade.  Mike proudly shared that 100% of St. Anthony graduates are