Editorial: Saving the Mentally Ill

How do you perceive the mentally ill? Is there sympathy? Frustration? Perhaps both? For those who barely deal with the mentally ill, frustration supersedes all emotions. That frustration lies when a sufferer’s emotions or actions defy logic and social conventions. It’s particularly misunderstood by those who barely interact with the mentally ill altogether, never taught that conditions like obsessive compulsive disorder, schizophrenia, depression and bipolar disease, are the result of an involuntary chemical imbalance that renders the sufferer helpless. It’s a disease where its symptoms are not so apparent, and where the fight for normalcy happens in the cerebral arena.

By DANIELA BEASLEY

Two local kids with a passion for leading a healthy lifestyle and a desire to educate others on the importance of nourishing one’s body the right way made a splash in Norwood with the advent of a new brand of water. Princeton and Brazil Dowe, a pair of seven-year-old twins, have set out to make kids more aware of what they’re putting into their bodies with the launch of Water2Kids, a label that specifically targets children who may be unware of the health benefits of water. The product was conceived after the Dowe family watched a health news segment on

Free Legal Services The Office of Councilman Andy King is hosting a free civil legal services mobile van for Bronx residents in front of his district office, 940 E. Gun Hill Rd., on Nov. 22 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Lawyers will be on hand to assist with family issues, immigration, and more. To set up a required appointment, call (718) 684-5509. Grants for Nonprofits Cleanup and improvement project grants valued at $1000 are available to neighborhood groups who apply. Applications are due Nov. 7. To apply, visit www.citizensnyc.org/grants/love-your-block or call (212) 822-9563. Gjonaj Mobile Van The Office of

The East 204th Street and Bainbridge Avenue Merchant Association, a business group representing the long line of mom-and-pop shops along East 204th Street and Bainbridge Avenue, put their heads together for their annual meeting. Community stakeholders, including Mosholu Preservation Corporation (publisher of the Norwood News) were on hand to lend support to the merchant group, with representatives from city agencies offering tips to keep streets clean and avoid penalties. Merchant associations are usually a precursor to a full blow business improvement district, which receives a budget for official marketing and extra sanitation services for the corridor. Check out the photos from Miriam

Editor’s Pick : Halloween Happenings The public is invited to an evening of Halloween fun on Oct. 31 for a party with music by DJ Krazy Rob, and featuring a costume contest and games with prizes at the plaza on Jerome Avenue and Mosholu Parkway North at 4 p.m.; and a trick-or-treat parade through the stores on Jerome Avenue and Gun Hill Road at 6 p.m. For more information, call (718) 324-4641. See additional listing of holiday ‘happenings’ under Halloween Events. Onstage Bronx Academy of Arts & Dance (BAAD), 2474 Westchester Ave., presents An Evening of Dance, featuring contemporary dance and folkloric

By JALEESA BAULKMAN

Stories telling of the exponential growth of the Mosholu Montefiore Community Center (MMCC) under the leadership of Donald Bluestone will no longer be the only way to remember the executive director after he retires in 2017. On Oct. 20, board members unveiled the renaming of a central point of one of MMCC’s campgrounds in upstate after Bluestone, sealing Bluestone’s enduring legacy that saw the neighborhood center impact the lives of thousands of young Bronx residents. “We decided that the best way to honor Donald was the camp,” longtime MMCC board member Natly Esnard said at a dinner honoring Bluestone. The

Hello Fellow Readers! The latest edition of the Norwood News, covering Norwood and its surrounding Bronx communities, is out with plenty of community news you can use. There’s plenty of news in this 16-page packed paper, so let’s get to it. We begin with a story on the internal politics happening at the local Community Board 7, which covers the Norwood section. Read about members extending the probationary period of its district manager, and learn what may have really triggered this animosity. Inside the cover, we look into the impact the NYPD fatal shooting of Deborah Danner of Castle Hill

By DANIELA BEASLEY

It was the kind of crucible Andrew Sandler thought he passed, only by the end of the night he realized he had more to go. Eight months after Sandler, Community Board 7’s District Manager, was hired, members voted on Oct. 18 to extend his probationary period into February 2017, continuing the fractious relations members have had with the rotation of its district managers in the last four years. Prior to the vote at the community board meeting, several people defended Sandler, criticizing the board’s experience with Sandler’s predecessors. Since 2013, CB7, which covers Norwood, Bedford Park, Kingsbridge Heights, Fordham, and

By DAVID CRUZ

The head of the city’s homeless services agency has launched a full investigation into the death of a newborn baby inside a pop-up shelter in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. Steven Banks, commissioner for the New York City Social Services Department, appearing at a forum with the CUNY Journalism School’s Center for Community and Ethnic Media, said the probe into the four-month-old’s death, is underway. The baby’s death is unclear, Banks told a room full of reporters that “we should await an outcome from the Medical Examiner’s report.” The body of Duane Pollard Jr. was found unconscious at the