![]() ![]() Zampitella never learned to read as a kid and relies on Christi McGough, who helps him manage the club. A Saturday dessert favorite is banana splits. Spaghetti or hot dogs and beans might be on the menu for dinner. Zampitella, 65, spoke to the Delaware Valley Journal in the club, where free peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are handed out for lunch. There are other problems before they come down here.” There can be family issues or “they were teased as kids. “Before they even come down a lot of them are broken, maybe molested,” he said. They’re homeless because they’re using drugs. “For some reason, Kensington, because it’s on Facebook, they come here and they get caught up in the mess. He will talk to people and ask them where they’re from and what they do for a living to try to get them to open up and maybe get sober. “Because I’m from the neighborhood I know those who don’t belong,” he said when asked how he knew people from the suburbs are there. I said, ‘You have a boyfriend and he’s letting you look like this?’ And she didn’t get help. One case that broke Zampitella’s heart was a young Bucks County mother, who had been told by a doctor to stop using methamphetamine because of her heart condition. And people come from up and down the East Coast, having heard that they’ll have easy access to drugs. Although, Zampitella grew up in Kensington, many people who come there to buy drugs are from the suburbs. An opposite wall has the names of those who are sober and alive. We’re here for that one person who comes in the door.”Ī wall in The Last Stop bears the names of patrons who died. But don’t forget a lot of people stayed sober. Just on this block we had seven people die (in about four years). ![]() “They want to escape from whatever happened in the past. “Fentanyl, crack, alcohol, people are broken,” said Zampitella. Oddly, the city recently announced a pilot program for Narcan vending machines in the south and southwestern sections of the city, not Kensington. In the first quarter of 2021, 306 people died of drug overdoses in Philadelphia compared to 265 the same period of 2020. Fentanyl was involved in 81 percent of those deaths. In 2020, 1,214 people died of overdoses in Philadelphia, according to a city health department report, an increase of 6 percent from the previous year. There were more than 100,000 drug overdose deaths nationally from April 2020 to April 2021, The Wall Street Journal reports. It’s been flooding in, through the mail from China and through the wide-open southern border. Nowadays, the drug of choice for many is fentanyl. He grew up watching us as a kid and he always avoided us. And he came in for a glass of water and he stayed ever since. “And one day, for some reason he was thirsty. “A guy grew up in the neighborhood, his name is Nate, and he always hated The Last Stop,” said Zampitella. “The main thing is I’ve got four years,” he said. He was sober for 25 years then had a relapse and is now sober again for four years. Zampitella struggles with addiction himself. “Trust God, clean house and help others,” said Zampitella. In addition to food, there are AA and NA meetings. Zampitella, who got hooked on sniffing glue as a child, said running the club helps him stay sober. ![]() Founded by Ed “Eddie Z” Zampitella around 30 years ago, the club offers food and solace to many of those addicts who are trying to turn their lives around. Here and there, people stand on sidewalks staring into space or in small groups with their belongings on the sidewalk nearby.Īmid the chaos, rubble and squalor, is one point of light: The Last Stop, an Alcoholics Anonymous/Narcotics Anonymous clubhouse on Somerset Street. And that would be accurate if it’s the “War on Drugs” that America has been losing since President Richard Nixon coined the term. ![]() Driving through the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia, you might think it was a war zone. ![]()
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