Amid the typical concrete of the cityscape, the Cecil Street Community Garden offers a place for Southwest Philadelphia residents to enjoy green space, something often absent from dense, urban areas.
“Even though it’s in the middle of the city, it kind of gives you an escape,” says Unique Fields, executive assistant at the community nonprofit organization Empowered CDC. “It’s a breath of fresh air.”
Empowered CDC has recently made the community garden more accessible to people in wheelchairs and others who use mobility devices thanks to a $2,000 grant from the Clean Air Council’s Feet First Philly program in partnership with the Philadelphia Department of Public Health’s Division of Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention. The grants aim to improve walkability in and access to public spaces.
The grant allowed Empowered CDC to buy small stones to make the surface of the garden’s pathways compact and easier for people in wheelchairs to traverse. The grant also funded the purchase of concrete to update the aging sidewalks around the garden.
“We believe that everybody should have accessibility to [the garden], no matter who they are or what challenges they may be facing,” Fields says.
Empowered CDC was one of 10 Philly organizations that recently received a Public Space Enhancement Mini-Grant award.
“Our aim is to improve the pedestrian environment, making it more walkable for everyone,” says Titania Markland, Clean Air Council’s sustainable transportation program manager.
Since the grant program launched five years ago, 63 grants have been awarded. The most recent round of grants funded $18,000 worth of community improvements.
The next grant application round begins August 1 and will end by early October. Individuals, businesses and nonprofits can apply. Markland says that the selection committee looks to fund projects in low-income, underserved areas of Philadelphia.
SEAMAAC, a social services organization for immigrants and refugees, received a $2,000 grant for its 7th Street Corridor project between McKean and Porter streets in South Philly. The money will fund planters for flowers and small trees to put outside of businesses.
“It’s very important for us to work with the community to talk to them about the benefits of having a tree,” says SEAMAAC CEO Thoai Nguyen, adding that trees can help reduce the heat index, which quantifies how the human body perceives temperature when humidity is factored in.
He believes that beautifying the commercial corridor will draw more customers into local businesses, too.
Another grant awardee, ACHIEVEability, used its $2,000 to buy supplies for its Impact Day event in the spring. Volunteers beautified the West Philly neighborhood surrounding the anti-poverty nonprofit’s headquarters at 5901 Market Street.
Volunteers power washed the exteriors of homes, painted porches and gave residents planters. They cleaned over 50 city blocks and distributed more than 6,000 pounds of food. ACHIEVEability also installed 10 mini-libraries and opened a new community garden at 60th and Arch streets. Executive director Jamila Harris-Morrison says it will make the area a place where people “desire to walk.”
“All of this was really to improve the exterior appearance of the homes, to help our residents take more pride in their homes and [their] blocks, and to build community amongst our neighbors,” she says.
