A group of 30 community gardening organizations and allies have issued a letter asking the Philadelphia Land Bank to change how it preserves properties for community gardening. At issue is the land bank’s practice of attaching a 30-year mortgage to properties that it gives to garden organizations. The “self-amortizing” mortgages are for the market rate
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In his classroom at Lankenau High School, veteran teacher Matthew VanKouwenberg points out to his students the connection between average daily temperatures across Philadelphia and tree canopies, noting that the lack of tree cover can leave some neighborhoods — often poor, often majority-minority — overheated in summer. VanKouwenberg, who teaches chemistry and environmental science at
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This spring students from five Philadelphia schools will go birding thanks to funding raised by the In Color Birding Club. The club, launched during the pandemic by Upper Darby birder Jason Hall, committed to not only providing a space for adult BIPOC birders, but also offering a gateway to birding for local children. Club board
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Before she started working on the green schoolyard at Henry C. Lea School in West Philadelphia, landscape architect Sara Pevaroff Schuh, principal of SALT Design Studio, encountered a group of kids who called her over after finding what they said was a spider on playground equipment. It turned out to be a half-squished worm. She
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Philadelphia has the nickname of “Filthadelphia,” and Cedar Avenue block captain Stephen Carb, 60, understands why. While many blocks benefit from the oversight of a block captain to organize cleanups, not every block gets the attention it deserves. According to its website, the Philadelphia More Beautiful Committee (PMBC) works with block captains to organize block
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Don’t give up on Philadelphia just yet. Our centuries-old city has big problems, including the legacy of lead. It’s in our paint, our pipes, our bloodstreams. When it gets in our children, it hurts their young brains’ development, negatively affecting learning and behavior. With the district-wide installation of hydration stations — filtering units that remove
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In 2011, an enraged 12-year-old stormed into the office at a charter school and marched up to Edwena Lanier, the office manager at the time and founder and leader of Girls Talk, a forum for girls aged 10 to 19. “She was furious because she’d gotten a D on an English paper,” says Lanier, 38,
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In 2005, Bill Golderer, then pastor of the Presbyterian church at 315 S. Broad Street, ripped the pews out of the sanctuary to create a big dining room bathed in light from stained glass windows. That move helped thrust the historic limestone church, now Broad Street Ministry (BSM), toward radical, inclusive hospitality. Today, BSM offers,
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On October 2 a large pile of tires was dumped below the Whitaker Avenue Bridge in Tacony Creek Park. One tire lodged in a forked trunk of a tree growing below the bridge. Two others had hooked a branch of another tree and remained suspended about 15 feet up in the air. A tire dropped
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