By MARY BAILEY The Reporter

The second Concerned About Albertville meeting was held Monday evening at Mt. Calvary Baptist Church on Rose Road.

Seats were open for anyone in the community with concerns to attend, although many chairs were empty.

The meeting was opened with a prayer from Mt. Calvary Baptist Church Pastor David McMillen and then he briefly spoke before the start.

“The last time we were together I shared with you, if you remember, I know some of you do. That there was a lawyer who came to Jesus, this lawyer that came to Jesus asked Jesus what the great commandment was, and Jesus said, well you know how to read, what do you think the great commandment is? The lawyer said love the Lord your God with all our heart, with all your soul, with all your might and the second unto it is to love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus said you have spoken rightly, then the man asked a question, who is my neighbor? After that Jesus gave the parable of the Good Samaritan,” McMillen said to those in the audience.

“If I were to ask us here today in a contemporary audience who is our neighbor? We would have to say everybody, not just the person living on either side of us but every person in the world who crosses the streets of Albertville, Alabama or Marshall County or the state of Alabama as a whole, folks, that’s our neighbor. When the Bible speaks to us about our neighbor it is very clear how we are supposed to conduct ourselves.”

McMillen then read Bible passages from Galatians, Ephesians and James pertaining to neighbors.

“Friends, this is not a white community, this is not a Hispanic community, this is not a Haitian community, this is a community of neighbors. It’s our community, so we need to see what we can do to help make each other’s circumstances and situations be better than what they are. There are those among us that are struggling, that are being persecuted by labor, some are being persecuted by living conditions. So, we need to help where we can. Is it fair that folks get stacked up in houses, no, that’s not healthy or safe. When we let that happen and we know about it, then we need to do something about it because we have a responsibility. If you are a church goer or a Christian in this room, then our concern should be for our neighbor and our neighbor is everybody.”

Jeff Lamour, a business owner in Albertville then spoke about his Haitian heritage and how he views his town.

“It’s a beautiful thing to have some of our Haitian Pastors here and everybody from different backgrounds in this community. So, today’s meeting is about unity, because we all have issues that are affecting all of us believe it or not. Some of the challenges our community face, Pastor Duke can talk about it, I can talk about it myself. We do have a lot of people that is coming here to better their life because Haiti right now is not a safe place. That part of the world is not a safe place, and we have been very fortunate to live in a great country that we live in that is America,” Lemour said. “So, when people come here, most of the time, they are supposed to be sponsored. When they get here and start living here the sponsor kind of leaves them on their own and then that responsibility falls on the local Pastors. Guys like myself start a food pantry, different community activities and different works that I do.

“Now I do think that it’s not fair to the Pastors, the little they have on their budget, most of the time they have to provide food to a family or help them make their rent on time. When a lot of people are supposed to come here with sponsors.”

Lamour said he works with the city of Albertville and is very troubled by what he has seen.

“I’ve been very fortunate to work with the city of Albertville and going into some houses, it’s a sad thing. To see how people are living here. My definition of Albertville is not the same. Me and one of the code enforcement officers, we went to a house and the owner of that house is buying property from the Weather’s and different guys who have a lot of property in town and they will rent that little house, a very small house, and they will rent it to them for $2,000 a month. The people don’t know any better because they don’t understand our law. The reason I help the city when I talked to the mayor he wants to educate the community, he wants people to understand how to live here because there isn’t much policy wise the local city government can do. So, when the mayor talked to me, he wanted my help to help out the city. When I went into these homes, they are just awful. I know there are different programs where a homeowner can choose to rent out one bedroom in their house for $500 and when you have a bunch of families who live there, that’s not how we live as Americans or how we live as a community. It’s sad because they don’t have enough food. Most people are coming here because of the promise that they will have a better life.”

Lemour then wanted to talk about zoning.

“And the second thing is I wanted to discuss is, a lot of the Pastors have been receiving a lot of emails, especially about our zonings. I don’t think zoning is about race. It’s not about race, it’s not about color. I don’t think zoning should be about race or color; I think zoning is there for hard working people who build a home,” he continued. “I, myself, work hard. At 22 years old I bought my first home, if my neighbor leaves a pile of trash in their front lawn and you look at it, those zonings are there to protect you. Those zoning are not racists; they are there to protect everybody. I think the sponsor should be responsible for the well-being of the beneficiary, that’s just common sense. If you are bringing someone over here to take care of them, you should take care of them, but nobody is enforcing that rule. At the end of the day, I tell people this, it’s important, I want to emphasize this, election does have consequences. Because policy affects us, it affects me, it affects the pastors, it affects everybody. White, black; it affects us all.”

Lemour spoke of when he first came to the city of Albertville as a young child with only one pair of pants and shoes.

“I came to Albertville with only one shirt, one pair of pants and one pair of shoes on Rose Road. I was really poor. Kids made fun of me, and I was bullied in school. I washed clothes with my hands and then hung them out them on the fence before school the next day,” he recalled. “At that time, I didn’t have hope but my Principal, Mrs. Bonds, she helped change my life. She would give me a word of encouragement every day, she said Jeff, you can do anything you put your mind to, no doubt.”

Lemour said a local family took him in at the age of 13 and his life changed forever.

“I was 13, 14 and a family took me in and adopted me as their own. I remember my first Christmas. I never think this community is about race,” he said. “Albertville is one of the greatest communities that anybody could be a part of. There are people that makes things about race, there is. But is it all of us? No. It’s sad today that we make everything about race but the real problems in our community, we aren’t looking at the real problems. The problems are not the people of Haiti that are here or people that come here illegally but the problem is the policy that is affecting all of us. We don’t need to be hateful to anybody. I think we just all need to work together and do as Jesus did to them and that’s show them love and affection.”

Jay Palmer, who has been open about his willingness to help the community with immigration and employment issues read a Bible verse from John Chapter 3 and then addressed the audience.

“The biggest reason I am here is to try to explain the immigration process of what’s going on in this community and let you know that you aren’t alone. Over the past two weeks I have received phone calls from Athens, Coffee County, Baldwin County, everywhere with the same challenges. A lot of this is understanding. Gerilynn (Hanson) is going to talk to you more about what we are doing to try to educate and communicate what’s going on in the community. How the integration of all cultures should become one because we are all one in the eyes of God,” Palmer said.

“The main reasons I am here is because of human trafficking, it is rampant. I have proof, people are coming out of the wood works, and we need to stop that. People look who to blame, you can’t blame the workers. There are 19 staffing agencies within a 15-mile radius of Albertville.

“Congress gave money to sponsor people to live adequately over here and I believe, or I think from what I am getting, there is probably someone in this area that are financial sponsors, could even be Birmingham. I think it’s important as a community, no matter what you think, the Haitian people, the Hispanic people, they are all here and want better for their lives.

“We didn’t ask for a lot of this, but we have to embrace everybody. I can’t get passed the labor trafficking; it keeps me up at night. You can’t hate the people because they are just trying to do what they can to survive.”

Palmer said that he received several threats over the weekend.

“If people think I’m here to ruffle feathers and cause up a stir, I’m here to educate and I’m here to try to stop human trafficking. Rules and regulations for these staffing agencies is really what needs to be addressed.”

Gerilynn Knight Hanson, who began the community group was the last to speak.

“The question is, what are we here to do? Well, we are going to start a corporation, we are going to start a 501c. We are going educate the people, we are going to educate the Haitian people. We are going to make sure they know what they deserve. We are going to make sure they know English. We have over 300 students at Albertville Middle School that do not speak English. They have asked for help; they have begged for help, and they have one teacher,” she said. “We have got to get some programs in place because we are the hub. I keep saying this and people are not understanding, the chicken plants use these people until their Visas run out and then they drop them. That’s why they need more and more. That’s why they keep stuffing them in house, that’s why they think they should live in squalor. I have been in some of the slumlord houses around here. They are appalling, no human should live in there. They passed a Landlord-Tenant Act in Alabama, and we are going to make sure they know how to use it. We are going to make sure those people taking these nice federal funds for housing that did not read the instruction book, they are going to understand. We can’t do anything about it as people but all we can do is educate them and hope they can stand up for themselves. We are going to make sure they get the benefits they are supposed to and the way we are going to do this is through grants. There are tons of grants.”

Hanson said the name of the group will also be changed.

“We are changing the name “Concerned About Albertville” to “Concerned About Alabama” that way we can help the county schools because they are drowning. Everybody is reaching out because they all need the same things. If we don’t teach these children how to speak English in school, then they learn nothing. Then what do we end up with? A split society, kind of like what we have now. Everybody is split in their own little groups, and nobody talks to anybody and that is wrong. We have to open the lines of communication.

“There are different parts of this company, and we will need lots of volunteers.

“This is not a for profit, this is a non-profit. Because if anybody deserves something for free it’s the people who are suffering and it shouldn’t cost them anything.”

There were no questions from the audience after Hanson spoke.

Haitian Pastor Dukinson Merilien ended the meeting with a prayer.

Signup sheets for volunteers were available for those who wished to be a part of the new Concerned About Alabama 501c.