Evelyn W. Morrison

Evelyn W. Morrison, who runs a nonprofit advocacy group in Reading, is seeking the Republican nomination for city mayor.

Campaign 2003
...
"Already doing what others only promise," is the campaign slogan of Evelyn W. Morrison, who is seeking the Republican nomination for mayor of Reading.

...
Evelyn W. Morrison

...
Morrison was employed by Berks Heim, 1977-1979.

She worked for the state Department of Welfare from 1981 to 1983 before opening Morrison-Kline Enterprises, a social-service business that closed in 1986.

From 1990 to 1993, she worked for the National Bank of Boyertown.

Morrison was assistant director of graduate and nontraditional student admissions at Alvernia College, 1997-2000.

She also has been involved with several area nonprofit and volunteer groups.

Education: A Reading High School graduate, Morrison received an associate's degree in early education and social welfare from Reading Area Community College, a bachelor's degree in criminal justice from Alvernia and a master's of business degree from Alvernia.

She also has taken courses on African history and tribal dance at the University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana.

Political experience: Morrison made an unsuccessful bid for a City Council seat in 1983.

In 1989, she ran for Reading School Board as a cross-filed candidate and finished eighth among Democrats and fifth among Republicans.

...
Evelyn W. Morrison is more interested in talking about her new nonprofit group than about her campaign for mayor.

The group called The Advocates recently leased space at 16 S. Fourth St. and is applying for a nonprofit tax-exempt designation from the Internal Revenue Service.

Of 10 staff members at The Advocates, only one is paid.

A low-income qualification from Berks County's Careerlink center allows the government to pay The Rev. Charles Whitesides for 191/2 hours per week for his work with Morrison, executive director of The Advocates.

Morrison said she's trying to find more ways to pay her helpers, who donate money to pay the group's rent.

"I can't continue like this," she said."I'm a poor woman."

But she said it is important the group continue to assist low-income residents with problems such as unemployment and legal matters.

"Most of the people come in here as their last resort, but it's their best resort," Morrison said as she waved a list of several hundred signatures from those who have asked her for help.

She said that list is why she's running in the Republican mayoral primary May 20 under the slogan, "Already doing what others only promise."

The Advocates often assists minorities, which is important in such a diverse city, Morrison said.

Despite contrasting information from the U.S. Census Bureau, Morrison claims 70 percent of Reading residents are Latino.

The 2000 census says 30,302 residents, or 37.3 percent of Reading's 81,207 residents, are Latino, while 39,038, or 48.1 percent, are white.

But Morrison said her status as a woman, not as a minority, has been most appealing to residents as she goes door to door in her campaign.

"Let a woman heal this city," she said.

Just as she said that, a woman asked Morrison how she could get her baby back from county officials who allegedly said the woman's homelessness and mental-health problems were cause for them to take the baby.

Morrison agreed to help the woman, adding, "Win or not win, we still have to fight for the poor people."

Then Morrison left the office with Whitesides to check on two men they had placed with Otto's General Contractor, a Mohnton company that needed workers to refurbish the former Colored Political Club, also known as the CP Club, 424-426 N. Sixth St.

Morrison and Whitesides found the two men working there.

"If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have a job," one of them told Morrison.

They spoke briefly about working for Otto's and then talked about Morrison's protests against radiation at the former American Chain & Cable Co. near the Buttonwood Street Bridge.

She said she doesn't believe repeated assurances from local, state and federal officials who say the radiation poses no danger to residents.

"We've been laying this on City Council for two years, and nothing's been done," Morrison told the man, who nodded in agreement before Morrison returned to her office.