In the year since Borski Park officially opened along the Delaware riverfront in Bridesburg, it has been home to an exciting slate of events, including a five-day beer pop-up hosted by Parks on Tap, a weekly “silver sneakers” exercise class designed for older adults, and a patriotic bicycle decorating contest celebrating July 4. But for
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We often think of nature as something untouched: a world apart from our city blocks and neighborhoods, where we go to escape the pace of daily life, take a walk, appreciate wildlife or simply find a moment of quiet. But the landscapes we cherish are rarely separate from us. In reality, behind every thriving park,
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Octavia Nash was back for more. She had joined a friend for a paddle on the Delaware River with Camden’s Center for Aquatic Sciences once before and returned for a free kayaking session at Pyne Poynt Park in mid-July, this time with her fiancée. “I like the peacefulness,” she says. “Oh my God, it’s like
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Iresha Picot wasn’t sure how many women would show up. It was the fifth day in a brutal stretch of summer heat, with Fourth of July fireworks having wrapped up just hours earlier. But by 10 a.m., 26 women had gathered at the Indego station at 33rd and Diamond streets for what has become their
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Wanda Lebron’s garden has an open-gate policy. From morning to night, the entrance, framed by sunflowers, is left unlocked so neighbors can stop in to chat, rest or harvest a vegetable from one of the raised garden beds. But each day, Lebron wakes up knowing that she could lose everything she and her neighbors have
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When a fellow volunteer at the Crossroads Kitchen Project announced that she didn’t like rice, Philipa Laster sensed a challenge. Laster, a native of Nigeria, grew up eating rice every day. She began thinking about a dish that would change her colleague’s mind. Masa cakes, a traditional northern Nigerian food that Laster’s mother made weekly,
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Early in 2026 in the Oxford Circle neighborhood, 115 Philadelphians representing 15 different nationalities sat down to enjoy dinner at the first in a series of 21 events across seven diverse neighborhoods. The social impact project, called “Breaking Bread, Breaking Barriers” and conceived by president and CEO of The Welcoming Center (TWC) Anuj Gupta, rests
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When research was needed to create a climate resilience plan for the neighborhood surrounding North Philadelphia’s Tacony Creek, leaders of the Tookany/Tacony-Frankford Watershed Partnership (TTF) had something more ambitious in mind than a traditional written study. “We were going to bring together environmental organizations and leaders in this city, … then have experiences together where
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When Grid visited the LandHealth Institute (LHI) nursery in May, community nursery operations lead Sara Mae Henke and native plant nursery associate Marcelino Smith were repotting hundreds of tiny bee balm plants from flats into pots to prepare them for sale. Behind them rose the arching end of a high tunnel greenhouse sheathed in plastic
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An empty shopfront on South Street is in the midst of transformation. Ennis Carter, the founder of Social Impact Studios, a Philadelphia-based “creative hub,” affixes bolts of colorful paper to a wall and unfurls a vibrant, refrigerator-sized hand-painted canvas beneath a banner proclaiming “Made with Artistry & Activism.” For the month of July, the space
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