REMEMBERING ANNA SAMPLE

“My mom was the best,” says Bernadette, a 47-year-old Camden resident. “It’s been 25 years since she passed, and I still miss her.”

Anna M. Sample, who raised 10 children, began her career as a volunteer and ultimately became the executive director of the Camden County Council on Economic Opportunity, Inc. (OEO). She served in the top job for more than 10 years until her death in 1984.

“She always wanted to do the best thing she could for the people in Camden, where she was born and raised,” says Bernadette. “My mom went back to school when she was 40. And then she rose to her destiny, what she was supposed to be doing – helping people. That was where her heart was in.

“She went into her career late in life, but she did well,” Bernadette continues.  “She was brilliant. She fought for the rights of single mothers because she knew what it was like to be a single mother.

 “I remember she worked too much. She was always at work. When she was at home, she was at work. The day my mom went into the hospital, she was at work. The day of her final call, she was at work.”

According to Bernadette, a family shelter “was the best thing they could have dedicated to my mom, because her thing was to help single women and mothers with children. A shelter was the one of the many projects she was working on when she passed.  She was working on getting a better place for the women.”

Kelli Wright, development clerk for Volunteers of America Delaware Valley, grew up near the Sample family’s home at 422 Benson Street.

 “I had the pleasure of knowing Ms. Anna Sample and her children as a young child in South Camden,” Kelli says. “My mother, the late Aletha R. Wright, was a good friend of Ms. Sample.

“Most days she would be in the kitchen preparing meals for some homeless people who waited in a line outside. She and my mother talked about different agendas for helping those less fortunate.

“Ms. Sample was always cooking or doing some kind of activity when we visited,” Kelli adds. “On one or two occasions we made baskets of food for the sick and shut-in and delivered them in North Camden…I believe some of my mother's motivation and strength came from knowing people like Ms. Anna M. Sample.”
 
Only 23 years old when her mother passed, Bernadette has eight children of her own and has taken in and helped raise five other children as well. Her brother, Charles, 51, also lives with her.

 “My mother was a wonderful, great woman,” Charles says. “She stood for all people – for everybody. And she brought us up the best way she knew how.”

Bernadette, who has been battling ill health, is a community leader in her own right – serving as president of Roosevelt Manor tenants and in a number of other capacities over the years.

“I give out winter coats every year, because I saw my mom do it. That was one of her programs,” Bernadette says. “I give out school supplies every year, because that was something she did.  My heart is about helping people. And it’s because of being raised by my mom.”

 

Bernadette Sample