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
More
The Philly Children’s Movement (PCM), which promotes child-centered activism and social-justice campaigns, including marches, demonstrations and workshops, has further heightened social consciousness through its Radical Little Library, a free neighborhood book exchange box at 601 West Carpenter Lane, outside of the Charles W. Henry School, near the Mount Airy Weavers Way Co-op. “We stock the
More
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
More
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
More
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
More
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
More
Fatherhood, for me, has been a course in community building and reclaiming collective cultural memory. As the son of a social worker and a Vietnam veteran (working with jazz musicians in Brooklyn post-war), I prayed for a daughter named Coltrane so that my parents would see that I understood the lessons that they taught through
More
“The only thing you absolutely have to know,” as Albert Einstein once said, “is the location of the library.” When it comes to Philadelphia’s public schools, Einstein’s dictum leaves most students hamstrung, as the district’s number of librarians has declined sharply in recent decades. “In 1991, the School District of Philadelphia had 176 paid librarians,”
More
The FBI kept Hakim’s Bookstore, 210 S. 52nd Street, under surveillance for some time, sniffing around for subversion, says Yvonne Blake, 70. Daughter of Dawud Hakim, the store’s late founder, Blake recounts how her father had done the unthinkable in 1959 by opening an independent Black bookstore, five years before segregation would be outlawed in
More
Watch how We Love Philly’s program at One Arts Center is teaching students how to heal themselves and their communities through mindfulness and entrepreneurship and what the school district can learn from this program. Read the full story here.
More
When you approach the storefronts at 52nd and Warren streets, just off Lancaster Avenue in West Philadelphia, you might notice the handcrafted facades of One Art Community Center’s Earthship-style building, which uses glass bottles and cans placed in cement to provide structure and light. In the center’s backyard, a group of students are working on
More