Hershey Corp to the Rescue!

How many mind map bubbles float to the surface of your brain when you hear Hershey?

People from PA are not allowed to read this newsletter. It is just for MA liberals like me who need an explainer on swing states. I am guessing that non-PA people lack the cross-linked list that has mind map bubbles surfacing and popping like fireworks when I hear Hershey. Did you think of

1. Chocolate? If yes, was it the
a. Cocoa,
b. Candy Bar,
c. Halloween Mini, or
d. Kisses?

Is your brain giving you some location-based pings?
2. Hershey, PA, home of:
a. The factories,
b. Hershey Park,
c. Chocolate World, and (only if you have been there do you know this one)
d. streetlamps shaped like Hershey kisses.

A super-duper Masshole-level liberal like me might hear Hershey and think:
3. Chocolate-industry forced child-labor? (It was actually the libertarian branch of my PA family that informed me of this candy-for-kids-by-kids? paradox.)
a. Did you see The Dark Side of Chocolate and buy everyone Tony Chocolonely bars like my brother did?
b. Do you live in the kind of MA municipality where every corner store has a $6 bar of chocolate near the Hershey bars that proclaim loudly Sans-Slavery!?
c. Do you live in the kind of MA municipality that has officially banned any sub-$6 chocolate citing child-slavery?
d. Or are you a recovering Pennsylvanian like me; and you know that Hershey’s child labor issues include debacles with seasonal worker teens from Europe working and living in less-than-legal situations?

Now for the niche New York Times reader Hershey knowledge:
4. Milton Hershey School, a few years ago a Times reporter had a lengthy story and a book about one student. What do my NYTimes readers remember about that school?
a. MHS is a boarding school,
b. It is free and only for high-risk, low-income kids,
c. Milton Hershey built it for “orphans” like him,
d. The foundation covers every single need the kids have from college tuition to dental care to clothes to post-graduation cars.

Okay, what if you are the Massachusetts super liberal that read that book about what it is like to be a homeless family in New York City and then a student at Milton Hershey? If so, hearing Hershey surfaces major objections to the original Mr. Hershey’s politics and perspectives and minor objections to the current company and school’s policies. I would frame that reporter’s perspective as more of a questioning one than an objecting one. I think all of us with a strong self-righteous bent should temper our enthusiasm and reserve judgement on that school. I am from PA; I have known a few Milties. I have a family member that works for them. Everyone agrees that they are doing the giant awesome necessary good that we as a country have failed to do…

…but in Massachusetts we have come pretty close…

The pretense of these essays is that I am explaining swing voting PA to Bay Staters, so that they can have hope for a more reasonable government elected by the purple people of PA. In liberal world, if one is writing about Hershey one must acknowledge from whence the choco-cash flows, lest the liberal-oversight committee dismiss me at My Hershey-hello.

Are child labor questions allowed to be a caveat…yes. “Hershey” is responsible for half of the hope I have for Harrisburg as a swing district. They have created a Massachusetts-like oasis in the middle of a struggling city. Before I give you the big Hershey beacon of hope explainer please orient yourself to PA Congressional District #10’s 7th Ward voting precinct. (I introduced it to you in the last essay). Yesterday’s message of hope was that the Pennsylvania supreme court rescinded this map:

Note that PA’s capital city is divided into 3 districts which all stretch off into the distance. The other chunks of Harrisburg got Republican lawmakers …

The Trump loyalist on the right is Scott Perry, PA-10’s congressman. In order to deprive the capitol city of a Democrat, or even a centrist Republican, The map that got Mr. Perry a seat bit off the bluest chunk of Harrisburg. Representative Perry did not even mention Dauphin county in the list of counties he represented with that map. Really. He just ignores it. More people live in that little slice of city than in all of that farmland that makes up the geographic bulk of his district. That shape was designed to rob those folks of a rep. It worked.

Hope! Overturned. We now have this one:

Woohoo! Harrisburg gets to sit in just one congressional district!

That map changed in 2018…PA-10 should have gotten a better rep in the last election. We weren’t paying close enough attention, MA! Let’s lock it in for November. The Hershey corporation is going to help.

Spot the Difference

These are all of the Google Earth images of the Northern half of Harrisburg’s 7th Ward. That first black and white image is from 1993 when I was 10 and rode a school bus down that main street every day. My 15 year old says they all look the same….Can you tell from these that each successive photo has fewer houses? One house after another caught fire or was just demolished. By the time we get to the 2020’s on the bottom row a whole street of homes has been removed.

And then there is that last photo. Easy to spot that difference. That one is from last year. If you had one wish for what that brand new big building is in that last photo, given the persistent poverty problem of this area, what would it be?

It’s a free, crazy wonderful high quality all encompassing daycare! Those first two photos of the (pretty) empty lots and the side street to a bush are where this 0 to 5 years old school now sits. It has a parent ed center and several more playgrounds inside including a roof garden with butterfly-attracting plants. It is part of the wider Milton Hershey group of organizations, but it runs as the separate Catharine Hershey Foundation.

I have a deep love of an empty lot; and, learned skepticism of any urban renewal updates.

But, when I saw this center and understood the intention was to take great care of my city’s babies and their grown-ups; I cried. Two years later I’m still tearing up. Every day of my young life in Harrisburg I would see a level of suffering and struggle for families that I see maybe once a year here in Massachusetts.

Up in MA, with our universal Pre-K pushes in every municipality, world-class public schools and hospitals and first rate social services for the 0 to 5 population and their caregivers, we have a little trouble understanding what life is like in Harrisburg for struggling families. I would recommend that we all take a trip to a playground in PA-10 to absorb some of the stress that I feel in pulsing off of those tired parents and grandparents.…but I can’t…because PA has a paucity of playgrounds!

In swoops the Hershey Corporation to administer charity. They are doing a spectacular job making that tiny slice of Harrisburg operate like Massachusetts. Harrisburgers now know what it feels like to have the complete social services for families that is our human right. Charity is great and all…necessary when the commonwealth does not elect to serve that function.…but we in the other commonwealth elected representatives that give us that same great care for our youngest citizens. Massachusetts Congressional District 7 Ward 2 voted for Ms. Harris at 81%, too; the same as PA-10’s Ward 7. We are so alike politically; we should have reps that vote for the same things in congress.

Scott Perry voted against the Build Back Better Act that capped parental spending on daycare…hmmm….I don’t see his name on the Childcare Availability and Affordability Act nor on the Childcare for Every Community Act…let’s see what else…he did sign a bill asking that pre-K teachers be able to get a tax deduction for their out-of-pocket expenses…not nothing…but $50 in Clorox wipes, Goldfish crackers and Ziplock baggies does not a high-quality daycare make.

Harrisburg, PA should not have such a far right rep.

PA is still feeling after-shocks of that false fault line. It inherited the most extreme of PA’s Republican incumbents. It will flip to a purplish blue Dem this November! … we think. She did lose to him last time (but barely).

There are many many myriad ways to push this district over the finish line and get those folks the rep that reps them. Stay tuned for specifics. Or just email me! Or check out MA Flip PA’s website! It’s going to feel great to right this wrong for our sister district.

…it could be argued that another Massachusetts man saved those Harrisburg babies from the Reagan administration’s worst intentions…Tip O’Neill saved HeadStart from being absorbed into a larger budget pool and defunded…and he stopped Reagan from counting ketchup as a vegetable in school lunches…true story.

Call Bob at MA Flip PA to get to work right now!

No more kissing babies as a cover for boosting baby bottles!