Great Story: Acorn Goes on Offensive in Newport

[Scorpious_Maximus]

Protesters get taste of Slocum hospitality

Children seeking more federal education dollars visit the Newport mansion of GOP committeewoman Eileen Slocum.

01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, August 8, 2004

BY MICHAEL P. McKINNEY
Journal Staff Writer

NEWPORT -- Dick Cheney was one of last summer's guests. But when Eileen Slocum, a national Republican committeewoman, walked into her grand Newport home yesterday, children from city schools from the other side of the state waited in the living room. They had walked onto her property in protest.

Slocum's grown daughter had invited the children and activists inside. Moments earlier, organizers from the state chapter of ACORN and the children, many from Providence, Woonsocket and other school systems, had set up a lemonade stand near the tall black gates to Slocum's long driveway. They used the resorting-to-lemonade-sale image, held placards and chanted in protest of what they called millions of dollars in missing school funding that they blame on President Bush and congressional Republicans.

While Slocum holds GOP fundraising fetes at her 459 Bellevue Ave. property, the group argued, many Rhode Island schools lose special-education help, see teachers laid off and endure buildings that need repair.

More computers, said Sabrina Jones, 11, of Providence. "It makes kids smarter, and want to go to school," she said.

A better home-economics room, said Kendell Bliss, 14, a Hope High School freshman in Providence.

New lockers and a new basketball court, said Jalon Brooks, 12, who goes to Esek Hopkins Middle School in Providence.

But the day, perhaps one of the more unusual of a gilded Newport summer, veered off script. Children took matters into their own hands, going through a back entrance onto the private property. Then they strode through the front gate, only to be invited in by Slocum's daughter Beryl Powell, who told them and reporters that her mother has served on boards of several organizations that do good works for people and education. Powell also gave the children some money for ice cream.

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This story was also done on local ABC affiliate.