The Blue Hills Civic Association presented a check for $10,000 to Angel of Edgewood Thursday to help the Hartford nonprofit cover expenses for security upgrades after a string of recent burglaries.
“It is a great honor for me to present a check for $10,000 to the Angel of Edgewood,” said Blue Hills Civic Association Chief Operating Officer Victoria Fennell.
A $10,000 check led to a renewed sense of hope for Angel of Edgewood Founder Jendayi Scott-Miller on Thursday morning.
“I immediately began tearing up,” Scott-Miller said.
“The Angel of Edgewood has been a blessing of hope within our community and with this $10,000 grant, her building has been secured,” said CT Sen. Doug McCrory (D - Hartford).
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Scott-Miller has run her community non-profit out of a warehouse in Hartford for two years, but the last two weeks have been some of the toughest yet.
“Each day, every hour was different emotions. It was 'I quit,' to 'I’m not going to quit.' It was a lot of ups and downs,” she said.
Two weeks in a row, Scott-Miller said she arrived at her warehouse only to find her inventory - from TVs to children's toys - ransacked and robbed.
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The Hartford Police Department says it has identified a person of interest.
“Initially we believed that the burglars were coming in for copper not knowing that when they got here, they hit the jackpot. They thought this was an empty warehouse,” Scott-Miller said.
On Thursday, Hartford’s Blue Hills Civic Association presented Angel of Edgewood with the check in order to purchase better security at their facility.
“I didn’t really think I could go any further. They had really struck me to the core and it was the community members, it was our donors or sponsors, our legislators and everyone in between who has refueled me to keep going,” Scott-Miller said.
For a non-profit that supports the community, she said the community support has been the silver lining.
“This isn’t our organization. It’s not mine. It belongs to the community. It belongs to everyone who has poured into us getting here at this point so I’m just really proud of the connections that have come out of this,” she said.
Angel of Edgewood also received an additional $2,000 from the Maria Sanchez Foundation that will also go towards security.
Scott-Miller said the installation for those systems has already begun.
