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Gearing Up

Column/Community

Personal Essay: After addiction led to a jail sentence, bicycling set one woman free

Illustration by Julia Tran The Road Ahead by Noelle Billbrough A door slams shut, a guard calls count, and that’s when it hits me. This is my reality now: an 8×12 jail cell. All control over my life is gone, and all I can do is think about my regrets. I’d spent more time running

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October 1, 2015
2 mins read

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📝 Editor’s Notes: At Least You’ve Got Your 📝 Editor’s Notes: At Least You’ve Got Your Health 📝 What’s more important, jobs or health? The question nominally sits at the heart of the struggle to ban smoking in casinos in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, covered by Rebecca McCarthy in this issue. The people who work at casinos say they should not have to breathe tobacco smoke at work, since that can lead to cancer and worsen all sorts of lung and cardiovascular illnesses. The opponents of the bans — casino owners, joined by unions representing some casino workers — say it would cost jobs to ban smoking. It’s not jobs we should be worried about saving, it’s lives. ➡️ Read the full note from our editor at gridphilly.com ✍️ Bernard Brown #health #airpollution #indoorairpollution #airquality #indoorair #indoorairquality #publichealth #publichealthmatters
🫂 On the morning of September 13, 2023, James A 🫂 On the morning of September 13, 2023, James Aye, cofounder and co-CEO of the Youth Empowerment for Advancement Hangout (YEAH Philly), a Black-led nonprofit that provides critical services to teens and young adults, refused to leave a hearing when ordered to do so. An 18-year-old probationer, a YEAH Philly client and the subject of the hearing, had requested Aye’s presence. Aye was arrested, spent a night in jail, and was charged with obstruction of justice, resisting arrest, disrupting meetings and defiant trespass. Prison was a possibility. Aye’s stance reflects YEAH Philly’s drive to, per the organization’s mission statement, help the Philadelphians from ages 15 to 24 most at risk of getting caught up in violence — or already in its snares. Within days of Aye’s arrest, State Representative Rick Krajewski and City Councilmembers Jamie Gauthier and Kendra Brooks issued a joint statement, citing Aye’s courtroom presence as “part of YEAH Philly’s transformative work in youth advocacy recognized by leaders across the Commonwealth.” ➡️ Learn more about YEAH Philly’s work in aiding those navigating the juvenile legal system at gridphilly.com ✍️ Constance Garcia-Barrio 📸 Chris Baker Evens #juvenilejustice #criminaljustice #nonprofit #youthjustice #childwelfare #legaleducation #legalsystem #safetyforall
And that’s a wrap on 2024’s NextFab Holiday Gi And that’s a wrap on 2024’s NextFab Holiday Gift Guide! We hope the ideas inside inspired you to support a few of the local artists and businesses we’re lucky to share a home with here in Philadelphia. More importantly, we hope it sparked an opportunity to show your friends and family you were thinking of them throughout the month dedicated to gathering with and giving to the ones you care about most 🎁 Happy holidays! We wish you and your loved ones the warmth of joy and lasting memories this holiday season.
Do you craft sustainable food recipes? Know someon Do you craft sustainable food recipes? Know someone who does? Grid is looking for Philly sustainable recipe contributors to work with in 2025. Drop us an email at news@gridphilly.com with your suggestions.
⚠️ Jennifer Skirkanich updated her kitchen exh ⚠️ Jennifer Skirkanich updated her kitchen exhaust fan after an air quality monitor reminded her just how dangerous cooking can be. “You don’t ever think about it, but seeing the light turn red is like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s harmful,’” says Skirkanich, a biologist and West Philadelphia resident who teaches at Bryn Mawr College. Skirkanich’s air quality monitor was picking up on particulate matter, a mixture of solid particles and liquid droplets in the air that, when inhaled, can cause respiratory and cardiac problems, such as asthma and heart disease. “You forget how often you have activities in your house that produce harmful effects,” says Skirkanich, a participant in the Overbrook Breathe Right Community Air Monitoring Project. Skirkanich’s home is one of seven that will have at least one monitor deployed on the premises for the next year. Eight nonresidential properties also have monitors. The goal of the project is to increase awareness about air pollution impacting certain West Philly communities, including Mantua, Mill Creek, Overbrook and Wynnefield. ➡️ Learn more about the Overbrook Breathe Right Community Air Monitoring Project at gridphilly.com ✍️ Jenny Roberts 📸 Troy Bynum #gasstove #kitchensafety #cleanair #healthhazard #airquality #indoorairquality #healthyhome #publichealth
🏡 A search for real estate under $200,000 in Ph 🏡 A search for real estate under $200,000 in Philadelphia yields mostly fixer-uppers and condominiums. Marc Rowell’s mission with Deep Green Retrofit, launched in 2021, is to develop energy efficient, move-in ready housing for working-class families, putting affordability and sustainability ahead of personal profit. Growing up in public housing in North Philadelphia, Rowell came to believe that the residents deserved better. That idea combined with his passion for sustainability led him to a study abroad program in Nepal and China, where, as an undergrad, he recognized the untapped potential of solar energy in the affordable housing market. After returning home, Rowell trained with Solar States, a Certified B Corporation, in Philadelphia, becoming an installer for the company in 2019 before advancing to a project manager role. Rowell’s latest passion project — Deep Green Retrofit’s first fully renovated home — was listed for $170,000 in November, with a sale pending. The three-bedroom, one-bath West Philadelphia row house not only boasts solar panels and Energy Star appliances, but also comes with an orange bicycle and a one-year subscription to Bennett Compost. ➡️ Learn about Rowell’s mission to make sustainable living spaces affordable through Deep Green Retrofit at gridphilly.com ✍️ Dawn Kane 📸 Chris Baker Evens #housingforall #affordablehousing #sustainability #sustainableliving #ecofriendly #greenliving #ecoliving #ecohome
Please spread the word or help out if you can. And Please spread the word or help out if you can. And if you see or hear anything, be sure to call 904-370-4191.
🎁 NextFab Holiday Gift Guide 2024: For the Adve 🎁 NextFab Holiday Gift Guide 2024: For the Adventurous Spirit 🎁 Fuel their wanderlust with these unique gifts that spark exploration and adventure. Whether they’re seeking interactive experiences or virtual escapades, this category offers something for every adventurous spirit. Featuring: @byrdboards @acherepercussion @moodio.studio ➡️ Visit gridphilly.com to view the full 2024 NextFab Holiday Gift Guide! #holidaygiftguide #holidaygiftideas #holidaygifts #shopphilly #supportlocalartists #phillysupportphilly #phillyartist #nextfab
️‍🔥 The same blue flame that imparts the se ️‍🔥 The same blue flame that imparts the sense that gas cooking is real cooking also accounts for the health hazards posed by the appliance found in approximately one third of American homes. “When you have a gas stove,” Drexel University environmental epidemiologist Josiah Kephart told NPR in 2021, “combustion is actually occurring right in your kitchen.” In-kitchen combustion of natural gas produces pollutants galore — fine particulate matter, carbon monoxide, the potent greenhouse gas methane, carcinogens including benzene and formaldehyde — but one chemical in particular has been raising red flags lately because of its negative health impacts: nitrogen dioxide. A February 2022 study found that after mere minutes of gas stove use in a poorly ventilated space, NO2 levels indoors can surpass the one-hour outdoor exposure limit of 100 parts per billion set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Even low-level exposure to NO2 is associated with intensified asthma attacks, increased susceptibility to respiratory infections and decreased lung function in those with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. A December 2022 paper attributed 12.7% of current childhood asthma cases in the United States to gas stove use. ➡️ Learn what you can do to lessen the harm of your gas range while sharing a living space with it at gridphilly.com ✍️ Sophia D. Merow ✏️ Bryan Satalino #gasstove #kitchensafety #cleanair #healthhazard #airquality #indoorairquality #healthyhome #publichealth
🎁 NextFab Holiday Gift Guide 2024: Uniquely Eco 🎁 NextFab Holiday Gift Guide 2024: Uniquely Eco-Conscious 🎁 Looking for meaningful gifts that make a positive impact? Discover products crafted with sustainability in mind. From recycled materials to ethical sourcing, these gifts celebrate a greener way of giving Featuring: @soulflowerprintco @scrapyardaesthetics @byrdboards @m.a.b.e.lstyle @ivyeye.co ➡️ Visit gridphilly.com to view the full 2024 NextFab Holiday Gift Guide! #holidaygiftguide #holidaygiftideas #holidaygifts #shopphilly #supportlocalartists #phillysupportphilly #phillyartist #nextfab
🐟 It has been nearly 380 years since blueback h 🐟 It has been nearly 380 years since blueback herring have been able to swim up Cobbs Creek beyond what is now Woodland Avenue. Back in 1645, New Sweden’s governor, Johan Björnsson Printz, built a gristmill on the waterway the Lenape call Karakung. Water-powered mills generally rely on a dam that backs the water up and then releases it as needed through an artificial channel called a mill race to turn a wheel that drives the machinery, in this case grinding grain into flour. That flour presumably fed Swedes manning a nearby fort. The location was strategic, along the Great Minquas Path, on which the Susquehannock tribe transported beaver pelts to trade with Europeans. The Swedes lost their colony to the Dutch in 1655, and later the British took over. The dam, rebuilt who knows how many times, remains. The herring still bump their noses against it. In 2009 PWD made a plan to take it down. It might seem like a simple matter to knock down a few feet of concrete, but things are not always as easy as they seem. ➡️ Learn more about the Woodland Dam’s effect on Cobbs Creek and why plans to remove it have been delayed at gridphilly.com ✍️ Dawn Kane and Bernard Brown 📸 Troy Bynum #dams #damnsafety #waterway #waterways #urbannature #urbanwildlife
🚰 A recent PennEnvironment report found that Pe 🚰 A recent PennEnvironment report found that Pennsylvania school districts are failing to keep lead out of school drinking water. Grid spoke with the executive director of PennEnvironment, David Masur, to learn more. Here are the questions we covered: • Why should people be concerned about lead in school drinking water? • Why is it so hard to keep lead out of drinking water? • Aren’t schools required to test drinking water for lead? • How common is lead contamination in schools? • Why don’t more districts replace their drinking fountains with lead-filtering hydration stations? • Why haven’t more districts acted? • Are there examples of districts taking proactive steps? • What’s the best solution moving forward? ➡️ Learn about the contamination of drinking water in Philadelphia schools and possible solutions to improving conditions at gridphilly.com ✍️ SJ Punderson 📸 Chris Baker Evens #publichealth #publichealthmatters #publichealtheducation #safewater #cleanwater #drinkingwater #lead #contamination
🎁 NextFab Holiday Gift Guide 2024: Home Décor 🎁 NextFab Holiday Gift Guide 2024: Home Décor 🎁 Elevate your house into a home with these gifts that will be stable in any home decor. Designed to add a touch of personality and charm to any space, give to a friend, or keep for yourself! Featuring: @obliqua_madera @lumpy_studios @untitled_co_ ➡️ Visit gridphilly.com to view the full 2024 NextFab Holiday Gift Guide! #holidaygiftguide #holidaygiftideas #holidaygifts #shopphilly #supportlocalartists #phillysupportphilly #phillyartist #nextfab
📕 Who you are determines how well and how long 📕 Who you are determines how well and how long you live. In 2012 the life expectancy for white Philadelphians was 78 years, versus 73 for Black Philadelphians, according to the latest Health of the City Report, produced by the Philadelphia Department of Public Health. In 2019 that five-year gap remained, and it widened to six years in 2021 as the COVID-19 pandemic dragged down life expectancies. For Black men in 2021 the expectancy was 65 years. The same report found that a Black person giving birth in Philadelphia is twice as likely to suffer major health complications as a white person. Nationally as well as locally, racial disparities in health and lifespan have been stubbornly persistent, as Arline Geronimus writes in her 2023 book “Weathering: The Extraordinary Stress of Ordinary Life in an Unjust Society,” even as the public health community has thrown every intervention imaginable at the problem. “If, like many, you find yourself protesting that these decades-long differences are driven by homicides, AIDS and drug overdose deaths … what if you found out that they were primarily accounted for by death from chronic diseases?” Geronimus writes. Could differences in eating or exercise habits explain the illness disparities? No, Geronimus argues. The difference is not behavior. It is stress that wears people down, “weathering” them, as she puts it. Grid spoke with her to learn more. ➡️ Read our full interview with Arline Geronimus at gridphilly.com ✍️ Bernard Brown 📸 Marcie Killian Connally #healthforall #environmentaljustice #publichealth #publichealthmatters #publichealtheducation #healthdisparities #blackhealthmatters #healtheducation
🎁 NextFab Holiday Gift Guide 2024: For the Cozy 🎁 NextFab Holiday Gift Guide 2024: For the Cozy Homebody 🎁 Melt into any space or moment with these self-care gifts. Set a soothing ambiance, wrap yourself in the warmth of a cozy fabric, and treat yourself to the perfect night in. Featuring: @lyandlines @mei.luxe @soulflowerprintco @lumpy_studios @nuloadaeze @ivyeye.co @lightenupforfun @moodio.studio @m.a.b.e.lstyle ➡️ Visit gridphilly.com to view the full 2024 NextFab Holiday Gift Guide! #holidaygiftguide #holidaygiftideas #holidaygifts #shopphilly #supportlocalartists #phillysupportphilly #phillyartist #nextfab
🌳 In Philadelphia, there was once a large publi 🌳 In Philadelphia, there was once a large public park where humans had previously intervened but where nature was reasserting itself. Residents flocked there to leave the noise and rigidity of the city grid behind and bathe in the wild unruliness of trees and meadows. This was a world unto itself, but not for long: one day word came that chainsaws and bulldozers would soon arrive to chop down trees and flatten the earth, making room for the straight lines and ecologically-bereft landscapes of sports fields and picnic greens. But those who loved the trees fought back. After all, this was the Wissahickon under threat. The year was 1937. The above, of course, also evokes the contentious, present-day redevelopment of Franklin Delano Roosevelt Park in South Philadelphia. History repeats itself in many ways, and here in Philadelphia the controversy around the $250-million FDR Park overhaul is but the latest manifestation of a long-running tension over what kinds of public parks the city’s residents get. ➡️ Learn more about the history of Philadelphia’s green spaces and the continued fight to keep them intact at gridphilly.com ✍️ Kyle Bagenstose 📸 Solmaira Valerio #phillyparks #urbangreen #urbangreenspace #environment #environmentprotection #urbannature #protectnature #savethetrees #saveourtrees
🌾 Long after the sweltering heat of summer is a 🌾 Long after the sweltering heat of summer is a distant memory, Heidi Barr is still thinking about light and airy linen — or at least about growing flax, from which linen is made. Barr, a textile artist and costume designer, first became intrigued with the fiber when she was looking for a local linen supplier for her home textiles company and came up empty-handed. Not long after, local farmer Emma de Long contacted Barr and asked her to make her a linen wedding dress, and the two went down a rabbit hole researching domestic linen production. Barr discovered that flax seed first came to the United States with the Dutch and German settlers of Germantown, a Philadelphia neighborhood just 10 minutes from where she lives. During the pandemic, the two planted a test plot of flax at de Long’s vegetable and flower farm, Kneehigh Farm in Pottstown, Montgomery County. They consulted with growers from the North American Linen Association, and in 2020 they started the PA Flax Project to organize farmers and create an infrastructure to bring the industry back to America. In January 2024, they were awarded a three-year, $1.7 million U.S. Department of Agriculture Organic Market Development Grant to grow flax for linen and other coproducts on 12,000 acres in the state using a cooperative model where farmers would share in the profits. ➡️ Learn more about the PA Flax Project’s mission to revitalize the flax industry at gridphilly.com ✍️ Kathleen Nicholson Webber 📸 Zoe Richardson #flax #linen #flaxlinen #urbanfarming #sustainablefashion #ecofriendlyfashion #flaxtolinen #fiberflax #textiles #agriculture
🎁 NextFab Holiday Gift Guide 2024: For the Sent 🎁 NextFab Holiday Gift Guide 2024: For the Sentimental 🎁 Give a gift that goes beyond the surface and touches the heart. These sentimental pieces are more than just objects; they carry special stories and a touch of magic that will be cherished for years to come. Featuring: @compassrosesd @m.caseydesigns @historicaldream @m.a.b.e.lstyle ➡️ Visit gridphilly.com to view the full 2024 NextFab Holiday Gift Guide! #holidaygiftguide #holidaygiftideas #holidaygifts #shopphilly #supportlocalartists #phillysupportphilly #phillyartist #nextfab
🎰 Walk into Live! Casino in South Philly on a S 🎰 Walk into Live! Casino in South Philly on a Saturday night, and the smell of cigarettes hits you immediately. The Clean Indoor Air Act prohibiting smoking in Pennsylvania establishments passed in 2008, but casinos remain a notable loophole — one of the last bastions of the old, vice-friendly service industry. They’re open 24 hours, they’re always serving drinks and they’ll do everything in their power to keep their customers from stepping outside, even just for a moment. Smoke permeates the casino floor to such an extreme extent that workers say local painters and carpet companies, who are frequently tasked with covering up smoke damage, are actively invested in keeping the smoking loophole in place for fear of losing out on business. Although 20 states have outlawed indoor smoking entirely, the loophole persists in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. More than 1,300 venues are exempt in Pennsylvania alone, but during the pandemic, all of that changed. ➡️ Learn about the progress made to keep casino workers and attendees safe from the dangers of smoke and what’s stopping them from seeing more at gridphilly.com ✍️ Rebecca McCarthy #health #airpollution #indoorairpollution #airquality #indoorair #indoorairquality #publichealth #publichealthmatters
What makes us healthy or unhealthy? Is it how many What makes us healthy or unhealthy? Is it how many steps we take in a day? Whether we eat enough whole grains or leafy vegetables? Exercise and diet are important, certainly, but much is beyond our control. This can be simultaneously comforting and worrisome. We benefit from the public health accomplishments of the past, such as vaccines and laws that ensure clean drinking water. Our genes are locked in at conception, of course, and luck — good or bad — can strike anyone. But we also are stuck with the air that we breathe, and, to a dismaying extent, with disadvantages associated with the racial identities and class statuses we’re born with. Working together, though, we might still be able to tackle problems that are insurmountable as individuals. IN THIS ISSUE: 🩺 Pennsylvania school districts aren’t doing enough to protect students from lead in drinking water 🩺 Simple steps you can take to improve your household air quality when cooking 🩺 A community air quality monitoring program seeks to raise awareness about pollution in West Philadelphia …and more on the importance of well-being, not just for ourselves but for the world around us. ➡️ Visit gridphilly.com to read the full Health Issue now! #health #healthy #healthforall #healthyliving #pollution #environmentaljustice #publichealth #publichealthmatters #publichealtheducation #healthequity
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