Arriving at Half Street and O Street SE this morning, it was shocking to see just how many wealthy (in this case at the expense of DC residents) members of the business community were in attendance at the groundbreaking for a new stadium for the Washington Nationals. The stadium is estimated to cost in excess of $600 million.

As Mayor Anthony Williams began his remarks, he was interrupted by citizens concerned about the crisis situation of DC Central Kitchen, displacement of residents, businesses, and clubs in the area of the new stadium, and underfunded DC schools(either by eminent domain, coercion, enticement, or otherwise).

Those there to oppose the backwards priorities of developers and some city leaders chanted and held signs, including "Feed the Homeless, Not the Greedy", "Feed the Needy, Not the Greedy", and "Feed the Poor, Not the Greedy", drawing the attention of many in attendance for some minutes. One activist was also aggressively chased away from the groundbreaking site prior to the speech and threatened with arrest.

It is also worth pointing out that, in addition to $600 million being spent on a stadium (while thousands are without regular meals), the District of Columbia spends $2.1 million annually to fund JROTC programs in public schools. Such money could easily be better spent on an already severely underfunded DC public school system (repairing crumbling school buildings for instance), or to help provide funding for DC Central Kitchen, or both (rather than on exposing children to warfare and weapons). Without public pressure however, it won't. The mayor, the developers, and the military, will continue to ignore the needs of DC residents unless we force them to change.

Meanwhile, DC Central Kitchen, and those who they provide regular daily meals for(some 1800 per day) are still in dire straits. For seventeen years DC Central Kitchen has taken on this task, free of charge, by privately raising 1.6 million dollars annually to collect, prepare, and deliver food. Due to increasing costs of providing healthy, nutritional meals to DC residents, DC Central Kitchen is no longer able to shoulder all of the financial burden for providing said meals. As early as 2004, DCCK approached city officials regarding this impending crisis, alerting themm to the fact that the current situation (all private funding) was unsustainable. The agency also responsible for allocating city funding for homeless services to other institutions is the Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness. Letting deadlines for awarding funding to DCCK pass (the earliest of which was April 15), CPPH has yet to give DCCK the funding it needs to be able to provide 1800 healthy, nutritious meals a day. CPPH's executive director, Sue Marshall, can be reached at 202 543 5298, ext. 102. She needs to be urged to give DCCK the funding that they need, so that regular food service can be restored. Please see dc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/133677/index.php for other ways to help.

Those concerned will also be expressing their concern with, and outrage at, the mayor's complicity in this situation, tonight, at 930 PM at the home of Mayor Williams; 2475 Virginia Avenue, Potomac Plaza Apartments(near the intersection of Virginia Avenue and New Hampshire Avenue across from the Watergate). Fund DC Central Kitchen now!