On Saturday, Oct. 26, North Philly-based artist and children’s books author Alyssa Reynoso-Morris hosted a DIY water purification event at North Philly Peace Park. This was the final event of a three-part series called Stories Grow Here, funded by the Barnes Foundation.
The series is a part of Barnes North’s Everyday Places Artists Partnerships, which places a local artist in a community space that is related to the artist’s background and current work. Through reading and craft activities, Stories Grow Here combined art with an exploration of the natural world.
“People think that art can only happen inside of museums,” said Carolina Marin Hernandez, bilingual senior programs coordinator at the Barnes Foundation, who also leads Barnes North, a program designed to support and uplift local artists in North Philly. This new initiative is modeled after Barnes West, which had a similar mission.
Most of the participants were parents and children who volunteer at North Philly Peace Park, a community garden where autonomy and knowledge of the Earth is prioritized.
“I want [the kids] to be introduced to water because it’s from the earth,” said Illz Willz, parent volunteer and poet. “But also because we take water for granted.”
For the exercise, some of the older children were given clean bottled water and tasked with adding dirt to the bottles.
Once enough dirty water had been collected for the entire group, all participants walked around the park, watering plants with the water from their bottles to make space for the filters’ ingredients. To make the filters themselves, each participant then cut an empty water bottle in half.
“Peace Park is about community empowerment and I can’t think of anything more empowering than cleaning your own water,” said Reynoso-Morris.
Before becoming a children’s book author, Reynoso-Morris spent much of her time in her home country, the Dominican Republic, purifying water in impoverished communities. She often worked in a similar capacity but on a larger scale, working with community members and engineers to improve access to clean water.
At Peace Park, Reynoso-Morris led the participants in flipping the tops of their cut water bottles upside down and into their bases for the drip process. They then stuffed the tops, layering materials — cleansing rocks, sand, charcoal and cotton balls — in order, creating increasing levels of filtration.
Finally, participants poured the dirty water through their handmade filters and watched it drip into the bottom halves of the water bottles. Reynoso-Morris told them to filter out the water several times until it was clear.
At the end of the event, participants received a copy of Reynoso-Morris’ book “Bold, Brilliant, and Latine,” which highlights the lives and accomplishments of prominent Latine and Hispanic people from the past and present. The book also features examples of Latine heroes in environmental stewardship.
Participants were also encouraged to take the leftover supplies and replicate their DIY water purification systems at home.
