SPARX Program Ignites Interest of Coding to Young Girls

By DAVID CRUZ

Zaleen Julia, 12, stood carefully monitoring the group of 10 young girls staring intently at their Dell computers. They sat inside the boxy computer lab at St. James Park Recreation Center in Fordham, learning how to code, or giving a computer program a voice. But the tedious work transformed into a thrilling exercise for the girls, utilizing a program dubbed Python, software that helps visualize the coding process. There were girls as young as 10 years old in the class, all decked out in pink T-shirts. Zaleen, a student at MS 244, wants to be a dancer, but she’s certainly

Senior Homeowners Fair The Parodneck Foundation in partnership with University Neighborhood Housing Program hosts a free Senior Homeowners Fair on March 15 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Serviam Gardens Bldg., 323 E. 198th St. Seniors can meet with certified housing counselors and attorneys for free financial and legal advice. For more information and to RSVP, call (212) 431-9700 ext. 391. Free Tax Services Councilman Ritchie Torres hosts free tax preparation services for Bronx residents at his office, 573 E. Fordham Rd., from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., every day except Thursdays and Sundays; Mondays till 7 p.m. For

COMMUNITY BOARD 7 will host its general board meeting March 15 at 6:30 p.m. at the St. Nicholas of Tolentine Church, 2345 University Ave. CB7 committees are held on the following dates at the board office, 229A E. 204th St. at 6:30 p.m. unless otherwise noted: Education/Libraries & Youth Services committee on March 8; Senior Services committee on March 9; Parks & Recreation committee on March 9; Traffic & Transportation committee on March 10; Veterans committee on March 10; and Housing/Land Use & Zoning committee on March 16. For more information, call (718) 933-5650. THE 52ND PRECINCT COMMUNITY COUNCIL will

By DAVID CRUZ

Fore! The next Tiger Woods could be at a golf outing in Mosholu Parkway. And so can be young athletes whose burgeoning skills can be refined through the game of golf, according to Tee Time, an international program that uses the game of golf as a character-building apparatus. The First Tee has a local chapter, The First Tee of Metropolitan New York City, which opened in 2001 at the Mosholu Golf Course, a sprawling public course. For Peter Aloisio, head coach of The First Tee at Mosholu Golf Course, drawing parallels to the game of golf and personal integrity are

By JASMINE GOMEZ

For a few moments, Elizabeth Quaranta sat in the middle of a big pile of dirt where a beloved tree stump once stood. Found along Mosholu Parkway South between Bainbridge and Marion avenues, the tree base once decorated with lilies and other ornaments was removed by the New York City Department of Parks on Feb. 18. The uprooting of the stump, once dubbed by Quaranta as the “Giving Tree,” left many community members mournful. To many, the tree stump served as the communal arbor for neighborhood residents, where many often met up to sit and chitchat. “The community saw it

By VIVIAN CARTER

You could call Cody Childs and The Ladies of Soul the “staple singers” of local public libraries. For at least a decade, the quartet’s wildly popular performances paying tribute to classic soul artists like Nat “King” Cole, Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield, and groups from The Shirelles to The Temptations, have become outer borough mainstays, particularly in the Bronx and Queens. Judging from the diverse and enthusiastic standing-room-only crowd that filled Bronx Library Center’s auditorium to hear Childs and his backup trio on Feb. 27, the group’s following is in no danger of dwindling. Cody Childs and The

By DAVID CRUZ

Shades of blue have been spotted at one of the borough’s largest commercial stretches. They come in the form of posters hung at more than two-dozen businesses across the Fordham Road Business Improvement District reminding men and women over the age of 50 to get screened for colorectal cancer, an illness common in that age bracket. The campaign, dubbed “Fordham Road Goes Blue Campaign,” coincides with March’s Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month. The BID is the only commercial district to adopt the program. “It wasn’t asking [businesses] for money. It’s going out and asking them ‘please help us raise awareness for

Editor’s Pick BMCA Flea Market The Bedford Mosholu Community Association will host their annual flea market on March 5, at St. Mary’s Orthodox Church, 360 Bedford Pk. Blvd. (at Decatur Avenue) from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Kitchen items, books, and other knickknacks will be sold at deep discounted prices. Proceeds go to the organization’s yearly operating budget. For more information, call (718) 584-1900. Onstage The Albert Einstein Symphony Orchestra presents Gilbert and Sullivan’s H.M.S. Pinafore, March 13 at 2 p.m. at Albert Einstein College of Medicine’s Robbins Auditorium in the Forchheimer Building, 1300 Morris Pk. Ave. Contributions are suggested.

This week we asked readers their thoughts on the recent string of slashing incidents happening across the city and what could be done to stop it. Well, I don’t know if they can stop it. Nowadays people are just reckless and out of control. They don’t really have a motive to do things; they just do it to impress their friends and stuff. It will be hard to stop because there are too many things going on. But I feel safe around here. Isaura DeLuna Bedford Park It’s a big problem and I think they should crack down on that.