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40 Good Neighbors

Francenia Emery

Francenia Emery has devoted both her professional life and her community efforts to education.  She was a public school teacher and principal for many years, served on the Mt. Airy School's Committee, and worked to encourage her church to support a local school.  In recent years, Fran has devoted much of her time to the Multicultural Resource Center which she started in 1993.

Fran's work with the Center grew out of her teaching and her concern for integrating the perspectives of all people into education.  The Multicultural Resource Center has two main goals.  "We show people who work with children how to use literature to integrate multicultural competence into children's lives.  We do that with teachers and parents, adoption agencies, clergy, and others."  The Center also works closely with libraries to help them choose books with a multicultural emphasis.  Second, "our work has expanded to include crisis intervention.  We have people who intervene in trouble spots in the schools."

As part of her effort to find works that can be used to bring a multicultural perspective into education, and to make these works available to others, Fran has written and periodically revises an important bibliography of multi-cultural literature.  Many of these works could be found at the bookshop she ran for several years on Hortter Street.  Since closing the bookshop, Fran has devoted the first floor of her home to the Multicultural Resource Center.  She has also established a new organizational structure for the Center, while bringing new members onto its board.

Fran's work has had a broad impact.  She has worked with several college, including Temple University.  And she serves on a twelve-person council appointed by the Governor of Pennsylvania.  The council is responsible for the development of libraries in the state.