The Spark

In 1851, a Maryland farmer tried to apprehend two formerly enslaved men who had escaped from his property two years before. That farmer -- Edward Gorsuch -- probably didn’t anticipate the resistance he would get when he tracked Samuel Thompson and Joshua Kite to William Parker’s rented house near Christiana.

Parker, a Black man who had escaped slavery a few years before, led a group of armed defenders against Gorsuch’s posse and the violence that ensued became national news coming just a year after the nation passed the Fugitive Slave Act.

On The Spark Monday, Darlene Colon, with the Christiana Historical Society described what happened on September 11, 1851,

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Yoda, a four-year-old Belgian Malinois, was instrumental in capturing escaped murderer Danelo Cavalcante last week after a 12-day manhunt.

As Cavalcante attempted to crawl through underbrush, armed with a rifle, Yoda was released to pursue him. Yoda bit Cavalcante on the forehead and then latched onto his thigh and wouldn’t let go. It gave law enforcement time to catch up to Cavalcante and take him into custody.

Yoda’s heroics also brought attention to dogs trained to help law enforcement.

On The Spark Monday, Patrick Fitzgerald, owner of Keystone K-9 Services in Pottstown said dogs as early as eight or nine weeks are candidates to be trained,"There are some pretty big kennels across the country, private breeders who strictly sell military and police canines. But pretty much, right around that 8 to 9 week mark. The breeders, the trainers, they're going in there looking to see what dogs have the best nerves, the strongest drive, the most tenacity, the ones with very high food drive and toy drive."

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The manhunt for escaped murderer Danelo Cavalcante captured the world’s attention over the past two weeks. Calvacante escaped from the Chester County Prison August 31st and was on the run until being captured Wednesday. Along the way, he hid in wooded areas of Chester County, stole a gun and a truck and drove 20 miles north and reportedly had plans to carjack a vehicle a make a dash for Canada or Puerto Rico.

Vinny Vella covers how law enforcement investigates crime in Philadelphia’s collar counties: Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery for the Philadelphia Inquirer. He reported on the Cavalcante escape and manhunt extensively.

Vinny Vella was on The Spark Friday to describe how Cavalcante escaped, how the search for him transpired and how he was captured.

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Ricardo Rodríguez is a former WWE wrestler that has taken his talents outside the ring and into the boardroom as the owner of Three Legacies Wrestling. Three Legacies Wrestling is a professional wrestling Academy and Promotion company based out of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. We speak with Ricardo about his journey, his time during with the WWE, and how he now trains young athletes for the ring. 

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Church World Services and the Lancaster Rec recently partnered up to form the Unity Cup, which is a 16 team soccer tournament that features teams representing Lancaster’s refugee and immigrant communities. Sixteen soccer teams, representing five continents, will face off against one another over the span of 8-weeks which features soccer teams made up of members of Lancaster's refugee and immigrant communities. The next round of play continues this Saturday at Clemente Field.

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September is Hunger Awareness Month. About 1.7 million Pennsylvanians are food insecure. Many are children who go to bed or wake up hungry.

Downtown Daily Bread in Harrisburg offers a soup kitchen and lunch for those who don’t have or can’t afford food. But Downtown Daily Bread is much more than a place to get a hot meal. It provides a day shelter with cots, computers, phones, and staff counselors; a winter season night shelter for men, and numerous assistance programs such as showers, lockers, mail delivery, laundry cards, vouchers for photo IDs, clothing, and other personal hygiene items.

Downtown Daily bread also has something else that is unique – an Executive Director who was a sous chef at four-star restaurants and written three books.

On The Spark Wednesday, Corrie Ligenfelter or Chef Corrie explained her journey from being a chef at four-star restaurants to Downtown Daily Bread,"I was at a time in my life -- it's time to give back -- to be community driven. I'm always been the advocate for any type of food insecurity. And I saw that we had a hunger gap in this area and that as a chef I wanted to tap into that of, "Hey, how can I take what I know, take what I'm working on, continue to advocate for the people?" And that's kind of how we got the tagline "Feeding the People," because I wanted to really bring awareness to that demographic and not just stand by. I want to provide good food to anybody. I think anyone should have access to good food, to healthy food, to food that we can sustain. So that is why I was the lead and that was my passion on that different demographic, because it's fun to cook for actors, it's fun to cook for celebrities, but then it's also fun to cook for your community and bring them things that they may not have had access to."

How does Chef Corrie see hunger in this region?"It's an unfortunate thing. I think that. I've cried over that. And I think you can't serve something you haven't cried over. And I mean that by saying, I remember I was a teen mother and I wasn't always fortunate to have good paying jobs. I was struggling in the beginning, and I remember being on food stamps and waiting for it. I was like a day in between. I ran out of food and I had like these things that I could put together as a meal. But my daughter, I believe, was like three or four at the time. And I remember saying, like, where I can make this and I'll feed her and then I'll just take the rest and then whatever. We have food stamps tomorrow, but as long as she's fed, it's okay. And so I never put passion behind something I haven't experienced myself. She's 15 now, so ten plus years ago. So to then see the people we serve still kind of going through the same thing. Hunger in this region, it's still an insecurity. There's still people -- the working poor -- that they may not get food stamps, but they still don't make enough to just get the household ingredients, the good food that they need, the nutritional value. We always have these conversations about it's cheaper to go through Wendy's than it is to just get some food at Giant. So, I think it is sometimes a sad situation, but I think there's enough people and agencies like ours that are also bringing solutions and and striving to change that and to bring awareness to food insecurity as well as bring a solution. I think that we could talk about a problem, but I'm very solution based. What's the solution here? How can we fix this? What can we partner on? And that's that's kind of what we're doing with all the agencies that we work with, with the (Central Pennsylvania) Food Bank, with Feeding America, Feeding Pennsylvania and things like that. But it's sad and it's an issue. And I think it needs to be talked about more than just hunger action month as well."

Chef Corrie new cookbook is called 30 Meals in 30 Minutes. "It's 30-minute meals. So there's like 100 meals in here. It's geared to those that are working, that are busy. The bachelor, the single woman -- that's like, "how can I even put together a meal?" Of course, the working parent, the working person is like, I can't even find 30 minutes in my day. But we found it for you and we found a meal that can fit. And so it does break down things from breakfast, lunch, dinner, appetizers and snacks, desserts, things like that. So it really is for anybody that just is like, "hey, I could not put a meal together. It takes me forever." And it's kind of condensing the average meal that would take people think like, "Oh, this can take me an hour." Well, I've made it that it will take you 20 minutes to prep or 10 minutes to prep, 20 minutes to cook, things like that. So yes, it is for everyone."

Proceeds from sales of the book will go to Downtown Daily Bread.

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Evita Colon and Solise White are the proud owners and operators of A Concrete Rose Book-bar and Micro-Winery! A Concrete Rose merges a bookstore, micro-winery and live entertainment venue under one roof; a book bar but so much more! The bookstore will feature books and art created by authors and artists of the African diaspora providing the community with the opportunity to learn about different cultures through the immersion of literature and art. They aim to provide the community with a place to freely express themselves and showcase their work on a regular basis. The inclusion of wine intersects a sophisticated experience with a casual experience giving our space a unpretentious vibe for all to enjoy. Their vision is to establish a passion and appreciation for culture, literature and the arts through the wine bar and bookstore. A Concrete Rose serves as a staple of growth and the merging of ideas in the community by providing a safe space for all to feel welcome. In celebrating and amplifying the stories of people of the African Diaspora, they hope to ignite conversations and actions that will positively change the dynamic of the relationships we have with others.

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Historical fiction is one of the most popular genres of books Americans are reading today. Readers enjoy stories told with history in the background but most historical fiction readers like the history to be accurate.

With that in mind, author Kim van Alkemade’s latest novel Counting Lost Stars is inspired by her family history during World War II and the Holocaust, the Baby Scoop Era when more than a million pregnant women were coerced into giving babies up for adoption and touches on issues that are relevant today.

Appearing on The Spark Tuesday, van Alkemake said,"One of the things that really inspired me was learning that punch card computers were used to organize the Holocaust, and that's not something I discovered. Edwin Black wrote a book in the 80s called IBM in the Holocaust. But it was interesting to me as a device for creating a story that would bridge two time periods. So I have in the 1960s in New York, Rita Klein, who's a young woman working as a computer programmer who's become pregnant, and she's not married and she's coerced into giving up her baby for adoption. In 1940s, Netherlands, another young woman, Cornelia Vogel, who's working for the Ministry of Information, which is a fictional version of a real ministry where they are using computers to conduct a census of the population in Holland that will help them identify every Jewish person under the Nazi regime. And the two stories come together when Rita Klein meets Jacob Nassy, who is a Dutch Holocaust survivor on the observation deck of the Empire State Building and trying to help him find the information he's looking for about his lost mother brings her to the 1940 story about Cornelia Vogel during the Holocaust."

Part of van Alkemade's own family story helped inspire the story. Her mother was from the Netherlands where his home city Rotterdam was bombed by the Germans during World War II and she describes her mother as a "Jewish girl from Brooklyn."

The "Baby Scoop Era" after WWII is a unique story line in the book,"There was a lot of shame around unwed pregnancy and mothers, and yet there was a lot more sexual activity. Birth control was illegal unless you were already married. And so the result was many young women becoming pregnant and having no real options. And the Baby Scoop Era is a time when a system of adoption agencies came into place so that it really seemed for many young women that their only option was to -- it was called going away. You'd go away maybe "to visit a sick aunt." You would say, "come back six months later and pretend it never happened." Adoptions were closed. Nobody ever knew what happened with the babies. And, when it's a choice that you make, fantastic, great. But it was often not presented to the young woman as a choice, but more as something her family was so ashamed of. They wouldn't give her any support. And it was really a pretty coercive system in some place, in some cases."

Van Alkemade will discuss Counting Lost Stars and the issues it raises Tuesday at 7 p.m. in the Great Room at the Stern Center on the campus of Dickinson College. It's part of the Clarke Center for Contemporary Issues. Van Alkemade also has a book event scheduled Wednesday at 6 p.m. at Shippensburg University.

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One of many Central Pennsylvanians' favorite fall fun activities is exploring a corn maze.

Cherry Crest Adventure Farm in Ronks, Lancaster County has one of the best in the country. USA Today’s 10 Best Readers’ Choice contest chose Cherry Crest’s corn maze number one in the nation in 2020 and it’s placed in the top three in 2021 and 2022. Cherry Crest is nominated again this year and the winner will be announced this Friday.

Cherry Crest owners Jack and Donna Coleman spoke with The Spark on Tuesday's program. Donna was asked what makes their corn maze unique,"I think it's the interactiveness of our corn maze. We have a lot of activities going on in the maze. You have to find them in order to enjoy the fun part. But yeah, there's a lot of interaction in our corn maze, not only trying to find pieces to the puzzle to build your map and find your way out, but also play while you're in there."

Cherry Crest Adventure Farm is more than just a corn maze. There are more than 60 farm-related activities.

Donna Coleman said there are many people who visit Cherry Crest who aren't familiar with farms,"It's actually amazing because there are people who have never been this close to a corn stock in their whole entire life. And you still get the kids who think their milk comes from the grocery store or their corn is produced at the store itself. They don't understand the whole concept. So that's one of the main reasons why we started this as well, is to educate the public about where their food comes from and where would they be without farmers."

The Colemans continue to farm the land producing corn, pigs, and chickens.

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Catherine Hershey Schools for Early Learning creates high-quality learning communities that nurture, educate, and empower children and families in social and financial need to lead fulfilling and productive lives. Catherine Hershey Schools for Early Learning transforms the lives of children by providing them with the foundation for lifelong success. CHS embraces and supports families, strengthens the broader community, and serves as a leader in early childhood education to improve outcomes for children everywhere.

On The Spark, we sat down with the Executive Director of the program Senate Alexander. Senate Alexander, Esq., a 2006 graduate of Milton Hershey School, is the executive director of Catherine Hershey Schools for Early Learning. Senate is the first to serve in this role, leading Milton Hershey School’s $350 million early childhood education initiative to initially develop up to six Early Childhood Education Centers in Pennsylvania. The Centers will provide cost-free programming to children from six weeks to age 5 from economically disadvantaged and at-risk backgrounds. 

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