Before her mother died in 2020 at age 46 of heart failure, complicated by diabetes, lupus and lung disease, Lelache Word (aka Lela), then 15, was living in Arizona with her mother, stepfather and step-siblings. Strapped by her mother’s staggering medical bills, the family sometimes slept in the car or hotels. After her mother’s death,
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Last summer, someone set fire to one of the Whitby Meadows in Cobbs Creek Park. The blaze didn’t damage property or injure anyone, and it didn’t cause any permanent damage. I disapprove of arson or carelessly-set fires, but in this case, I found myself wishing our parks would burn more often. Done safely, our park
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Being a mother is hard under the best of circumstances — now imagine caring for a toddler alone in the forest during an apocalypse set off by extreme flooding. That’s the arduous task Liv Vela takes on as she tries to survive in the wilderness of a futuristic United States with her 3-year-old son Milo
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I made the mistake of watching the presidential debate between Vice President Harris and former President Trump on September 10. I had earlier decided that watching it was pointless; there is no question who I am voting for. And I am an early-to-bed kind of guy, so the next day I paid a price for
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At the Overbrook Environmental Education Center (OEEC), we know how hard it is to run an equity-centered community-based organization. In 2019, the acre of land on Lancaster Ave that the OEEC acquired to make into a green oasis was analyzed for volatile organic compounds (VOCs), pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), metals and more. We knew the
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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 The issue wasn’t overflow from the Anacostia River that bisects the municipality, but rather its outdated and ineffective
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Running a grassroots environmental justice organization can be difficult, but you don’t have to do it alone. Here are ten resources for groups looking to build their efforts and connect with wider networks. The Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice at Texas Southern University offers training for students and community leaders, conducts community-based participatory
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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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In early September 2021, the remnants of Hurricane Ida swept through Southeastern Pennsylvania, destroying hundreds of homes, resulting in more than a hundred million dollars in economic damages and killing five people. Much of the pain was felt within the Schuyl-kill River watershed, where Ida left homes and businesses flooded from Schwenksville to Norristown to
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When Tropical Storm Isaias hit the East Coast in early August 2020, the waters of Perkiomen Creek surged higher than 19 feet, a record for the waterway and eight feet beyond its flood stage. Homes situated along the creek on First Avenue in Collegeville, Montgomery County, bore the brunt of the flooding. But the Federal
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