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NextFab Holiday Gift Guide 2024

NextFab is a membership-based makerspace that provides shared workshops, education, and mentoring in woodworking, metalworking, laser cutting, 3D printing, textiles, jewelry making, and digital manufacturing tools. With over 500 members, NextFab offers a supportive community where you can learn new skills, build products, and explore making as a professional pathway. By choosing a handmade gift

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18 mins read
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Watershed fellows teach practical knowledge and artistic expression at environmental centers

On yet another wet weekend, a group of ten braced a downpour to walk along the trails of Strawberry Mansion’s Discovery Center for a wild plant tour. Their journey began at the trail entrance, where an innocuous weed was growing. Tour guide Lady Danni Morinich, a local herbalist and forager, identified the plant as yellow

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5 mins read
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Internship program empowers teens to learn, lead and organize around environmental and housing justice

On a chilly night in February, a group of young people gathered on the steps of City Hall, armed with hand-painted artwork, prepared speeches, chants and community speakers; the Philly Thrive interns had organized a press conference to support housing justice in Grays Ferry. They were calling on City Council to support affordable housing legislation

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2 mins read
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Student-helmed docuseries investigates the systemic problems that lead to violence in their communities

When shootings skyrocketed in Philadelphia during the pandemic, teenagers were among those most affected. In the face of this crisis, students at Dobbins Technical High School in North Philly set out to unearth the root causes of the violence sweeping the city. “Future Visions” is the result — an enormously affecting documentary series that follows

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4 mins read
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A Black-led, parent-driven organization is pushing the School District of Philadelphia to make schools more joyful and less punitive

On a treeless sidewalk on a day in May that feels much hotter than its 75 degrees, there’s an ice cream truck serving a long line of people, while several plastic machines are cranking out a flurry of bubbles. Some of the bubbles hurtle toward 440 North Broad Street, the headquarters of the School District

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7 mins read
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Walking group traverses the changing landscapes and diverse neighborhoods along the perimeter of the city

On September 6, a group of 18 gathered at the Delaware River waterfront with Walk Around Philadelphia. Setting off from Cherry Street Pier, some planned to cover 10 miles on that day’s stroll while others planned to do 120 — completing a circuit of the entire city of Philadelphia. All were bound to learn something

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4 mins read
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New EPA program set to help under-resourced organizations build climate-resilient communities

For years, the residents of Edmonston, Maryland, had needed help. Situated just outside Washington, D.C., the town of about 1,500 people, primarily Hispanic and Black, had flooded for four years in a row in the late 2000s. The issue wasn’t overflow from the Anacostia River that bisects the municipality, but rather its outdated and ineffective

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5 mins read
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Overbrook Environmental Education Center is the local hub for organizations to secure environmental justice funding

As a child, Jerome Shabazz saw his father transform a vacant lot into a neighborhood garden that produced enough fresh fruit and vegetables to feed their whole North Philadelphia block. “It was just incredible,” says Shabazz, now the executive director of Overbrook Environmental Education Center, located at 6134 Lancaster Avenue in West Philly. Through his

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4 mins read
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Expansive mural depicts environmental destruction and the hope of climate justice through the lens of Indigenous culture

For three days last summer, smoke drifted down from forest fires in the Canadian taiga, some of it shrouding 1800 North American Street, where volunteers were working on a climate justice mural. Mirroring the dramatic depiction of oil spills, deforestation and smog being painted on the 300-foot long wall, the very real smoky orange haze

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4 mins read