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#021 December 2010

Gift Guide: Seasonal Libations

Gone are the hefeweizens, saisons, farmhouse ales and crisp pilsners. Poof! See you next year. As temperatures drop and the light takes on that certain autumnal glow, you need a new kind of brew—something strong, dark and mysterious to entertain your palate.

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November 18, 2010
2 mins read
#021 December 2010

Gift Guide: Sweet

Gift Guide - Sweet
#1 - Betty's Tasty Buttons - Betty’s Speakeasy offers their Tasty Buttons in a variety of seasonal flavors, including white chocolate eggnog and dark chocolate with cranberries and orange zest. Crafted using local cream and local goats’ milk, the bite-sized pieces of fudge are packaged in locally-made boxes.

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November 18, 2010
2 mins read
All Topics

WSJ: Lazy Locavores or Urban Ag Revolution?

The Wall Street Journal recently posted an article titled, “The Rise of the Lazy Locavore.” It covers the popularity of urban sharecropping, mostly along the West Coast and recently in Brooklyn. Landowners who lack a green thumb are partnering with gifted gardeners who don’t have backyard growing space, and would rather avoid community garden plots. Once

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November 18, 2010
1 min read
All Topics

Pastry Press: Market Day on Flying Kite

Flying Kite has a long feature on Gil Ortale, the man behind Market Day Canelé. We here at Grid love the things—crunchy on the outside, custardy on the inside—and featured the perfect pastries in our recent Holiday Gift Guide.    

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November 18, 2010
1 min read
#021 December 2010

Holidays 2010: Fry Baby

I’ve been known to laud Hanukah as the original green holiday—no decorations, no elaborate meat-based meals and an origin story in which one day’s worth of fuel burns for eight. And, adding to my smugness, my family was never big on gifts; dad gave us a little bit of cash (or gelt) and my mom

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November 17, 2010
1 min read
All Topics

Designed for the Dump: The Story of Electronics

Annie Leonard, the woman behind “The Story of Stuff” has a new video: “The Story of Electronics.” Watch and learn. Via New York Times‘ Green blog.

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November 17, 2010
1 min read
#021 December 2010

Gift Guide: Present Tense

I come from people who believe that pickles are integral to a good sandwich, that dinner should be eaten around a table and that all the very best gifts are edible. In fact, one of my earliest memories includes reaching up to slip a cooling cookie off the kitchen counter, baked by my dad for

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November 17, 2010
3 mins read
#021 December 2010

Guest Column: Farm Tour

In February, I joined the band Hoots and Hellmouth at the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture’s (PASA) annual conference. More than once, I was asked if I was the group’s new bass player, or maybe their roadie. In fact, I’m the band’s farmer. It’s not a common title, but, when you work with a band

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November 17, 2010
2 mins read
#021 December 2010

Shoots & Ladders: The Pits

Last winter, after helping our neighbors shovel out of a blizzard, we were rewarded with a lovely pineapple. It got me thinking: “How do these things work?” Unfortunately, it remains a bit of a mystery, as last year’s attempts at pineapple propagation failed, and ditto the efforts to start an avocado tree.

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November 17, 2010
1 min read
#021 December 2010

Along for the Ride: Stephen Bilenky

If, like me, you routinely lust after the beautiful bicycles populating our fair city, then chances are you’ve probably coveted one of Stephen Bilenky’s custom creations. My first encounter occurred last spring on a ride with Curtis Anthony, owner of Via Bicycles. We were taking a rest under the cherry blossoms along MLK Drive when

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November 17, 2010
2 mins read
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Opening with subterranean footage of the foam cups Opening with subterranean footage of the foam cups, plastic bottles and sodden cardboard that decorate the sewer inlets underneath Philadelphia, filmmaker Melissa Langer’s 2025 documentary, “In Excess,” probes into the unseen places where the city’s litter ends up. Spoiler alert: When it comes to the city’s trash, there is no throwing it “away.”

“Every object we discard lives on somewhere else, disturbing someone else’s environment, forever,” says Langer. Langer, who moved to Philadelphia in 2017, immediately noticed disproportionate amounts of litter and illegal dumping in Northeast Philly and began exploring what the City was doing about it.

The product is her 70-minute feature, which weaves haunting stretches of trash footage with candid vignettes of the people tasked with cleaning it up, from Philadelphia Water Department (PWD) sewer inlet crews to a small Streets Department team that monitors hundreds of security cameras for illegal dumping.

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ Julia Lowe
📸 Melissa Langer

#philadelphia #waste #wastemanagement #wastedisposal #illegaldumping #litter
Hanna Kahler lives in West Philadelphia and rides Hanna Kahler lives in West Philadelphia and rides her blue commuter bicycle to work in the Graduate Hospital neighborhood, a trip she says takes 18 minutes via the Schuylkill River Trail and parking-protected bike lanes on Walnut and Chestnut streets.

When she spoke to Grid on Feb. 12, more than two weeks after the last snowflakes of the Jan. 25 winter storm fell, she was still unable to ride to work. She could take SEPTA’s 40 bus. “If it works well, it takes 40 minutes, but it hasn’t been working well,” she says. Mostly she’s been walking, which takes 47 minutes. “The City has completely dropped the ball on maintaining the bike lanes,” Kahler says.

The snow that fell directly onto the bike lanes and that the City did not clear wasn’t the only challenge. “Ignoring it is bad enough, but they’ve shoved piles of snow into the bike lanes,” Kahler says, referring to heaps — some as big as an SUV — that City workers clearing the roads had plowed into the bike lanes at intersections.

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ Bernard Brown
📸 Tracie Van Auken

#philadelphia #bikelane #safestreets #bikesafety #bicyclesafety #bikephl
At 11 a.m. on Valentine’s Day, Aspen Simone stood At 11 a.m. on Valentine’s Day, Aspen Simone stood on the corner of 7th and Christian streets in South Philadelphia holding a long dowel with a laminated, cutout pigeon on the end.

That wasn’t just any pigeon on the end of Simone’s walk leader staff. Primrose the pigeon is how the whole pigeon education enterprise began. Simone’s partner Hannah Michelle Brower took Primrose — at that point a weak, malnourished fledgling found by a neighbor on the sidewalk — to a pigeon rescuer who nursed the young bird back to health. Simone says the rescuer told them the recuperating pigeon, whom Brower had taken to calling Primrose, would do better as a pet rather than being released into the wild, and so the couple kept her.

“We just started learning more about her as an individual,” Simone says. “And then we started learning more about pigeon biology and behavior generally. One day, we realized we could predict what pigeons were about to do based on subtle cues that we can read now.” In the summer of 2025, the couple launched their pigeon tours, priced at $25, to share what they had learned.

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ Bernard Brown
📸 Troy Bynum

#philadelphia #birding #birdwatching #pigeonlove #dovelove #urbanwildlife
The overgrown lot at 5308 Parrish St. in the Haddi The overgrown lot at 5308 Parrish St. in the Haddington neighborhood of West Philadelphia is getting back to its roots. After sitting abandoned, accumulating trash, construction debris and dumped car parts for over a decade, a new project is in progress to restore the space to a new iteration of its past life as a neat, blooming garden.

Nathan McWilliams, however, who has been pruning back invasive species like mulberry and tree of heaven since September, believes it is already an oasis.

“It has so much potential. And I just want to bring that garden back to its glory,” says McWilliams, owner and lead consultant at Tree In Me, LLC.

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ Julia Lowe
📸 Photo courtesy of Nathan McWilliams

#philadelphia #communitygarden #gardencare #gardenmaintenance #urbangreenspace #urbannature
Events happening in and around Philadelphia this w Events happening in and around Philadelphia this weekend!

➡️ 2026 Philadelphia Bike Expo: The Philly Bike Expo is an annual weekend-long event featuring exhibitors, seminars, presentations and events representing the spectrum of cycling.

When:
Saturday, March 14th (10:00 AM - 5:00 PM) - Sunday, March 15th (10:00 AM - 4:00 PM)

Where:
Pennsylvania Convention Center
1101 Arch Street
Philadelphia, PA 19107

➡️ Philly Pigeon Tour: Join us on our Italian Market Pigeon Tour. Your expert pigeon guide will bring you through the historic market and visit nearby established pigeon flocks. You’ll also get to see the market pigeons nesting in old buildings and braving traffic with confidence.

When:
Saturday, March 14th (11:00 AM - 12:30 PM)

Where:
Get A Gato
638 Christian Street
Philadelphia, PA 19147

➡️ Tree House Book Swap: Tree House Books is hosting seasonal book swaps this year! Bring your friends, family, kids, friend’s kids, kid’s kids and some books to swap! Don’t forget a tote bag, too, to carry all your new reads.

When:
Saturday, March 14th (2:00 PM - 5:00 PM)

Where:
North Philly Peace Park
2226 W. Jefferson Street
Philadelphia, PA 19121

#philadelphia #philly #phillysupportphilly #eventsinphilly #phillyevents #phillyevent #philadelphiaevents
For Ana, 19, of Brazil, and Jonathan, 17, of Guate For Ana, 19, of Brazil, and Jonathan, 17, of Guatemala, the southern border of the United States marks the line between life and death. Ana and Jonathan, both clients of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society of Pennsylvania (HIAS PA), a local humanitarian nonprofit that provides legal services to low-income immigrants in the state, now live in Philadelphia — but with looming uncertainty.

Ana’s journey began in 2019. Her mother wanted to reunite with Ana’s father, who had left Brazil for Philadelphia a few years earlier for work. Hard-pressed for money, Ana’s mother applied for visas and was denied. Instead of taking the U.S. government’s no for an answer, she hired a “coyote,” or guide, to smuggle her and Ana into America. Despite a difficult relationship with her parents, Ana, then 12, had no choice but to accompany her mother.

For Jonathan, gang violence and death threats forced him to leave his homeland. His mother, already living in Philadelphia, was unable to obtain a visa for him and hired a coyote to take him across the border in 2024.

Thus, Ana and Jonathan arrived without legal documents. They’re hardly alone in that status. Save The Children, a global nonprofit that works to improve the lives of children, reported that in 2022, the “Department of Health and Human Services received a record 128,904 unaccompanied, undocumented minors, up from 122,731 in the prior year.

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ Constance Garcia-Barrio
📸 Tracie Van Auken

#philadelphia #immigration #immigrantstories #immigrantrights #immigrationlaw #immigrationlawyer
It’s not easy to get to the Lankenau Environmental It’s not easy to get to the Lankenau Environmental Science Magnet High School. The school sits on 17 acres at the northwest border of Philadelphia, a pocket of land not served by SEPTA, forcing the district to bus students to and from school. In exchange for the long ride, however, students learn in an expansive outdoor classroom — the neighboring Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education has served as an extension of the grounds since Lankenau became an environmental magnet school in 2005. If the School District of Philadelphia is to be believed, students will be better served by Lankenau closing and having its programs merged into Walter B. Saul High School. (The original plan to merge the school with Roxborough High School was changed.) 

But “Don’t Sell Lankenau Environmental” was spelled out in bright yellow letters on the T-shirts worn by Lankenau students and teachers at a Feb. 4 open house and community listening session, addressing what they believe is the real reason the district proposes to close the school and send its students to another school.

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ Bernard Brown
📸 Chris Baker Evens

#philadelphia #environmentaleducation #environmentalscience #environmentaleducation #educationmatters #magnetschool
For roughly 20% of Americans who ride public trans For roughly 20% of Americans who ride public transportation, the Transit app is their guide. Displaying nearby routes and mapping step-by-step transit directions, it also asks users to give feedback on their rides.

But for SEPTA riders, their responses to Transit’s in-app questions about station and vehicle conditions during a trip and overall satisfaction at its completion aren’t seen by the transportation authority. That’s because SEPTA does not subscribe to Terminal, Transit’s customer experience platform.

Rather, it relies on its own methods to acquire customer feedback.

The agency conducts a quarterly customer satisfaction survey, which asks riders to rate cleanliness, safety, reliability and other aspects of the system.

“We are super focused on those numbers right now,” says Lex Powers, chief officer of customer experience. “It’s a whole rallying cry in the agency to improve these scores. And over the past year or two, for the most part, they have gone up.”

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ Gabriel Donahue
📸 Photo courtesy of Alga Serba

#philadelphia #septa #septaphilly #iseptaphilly #publictransit #publictransportation
Events happening in and around Philadelphia this w Events happening in and around Philadelphia this weekend!

➡️ Philly Homegrown First Fridays: Each month, we open our doors for an evening of local love: shop unique, handcrafted goods, meet the makers, and connect with your neighbors. Enjoy complimentary wine, light refreshments, and a vibrant atmosphere where art, plants, and people come together.

When:
Friday, March 6th (6:00 PM - 9:00 PM)

Where:
Plant and People
3952 Lancaster Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19104

➡️ Birding with Philly Queer Birders: It’s been a long winter, so come shake off the cold with queer community and #birdjoy! Join Philly Queer Birders and Audubon Mid-Atlantic as we check out early spring visitors, and perhaps some surprises along the way.

When:
Saturday, March 7th (9:00 AM - 11:00 AM)

Where:
The Discovery Center
3401 Reservoir Drive
Philadelphia, PA 19121

➡️ A Journey to Backyard Biodiversity: How do you transform a tangled mess of a backyard and a traditional lawn and into a thriving wildlife oasis? Join native gardening enthusiast Katie Fisk as she shares how she used native plants to turn her own yard into a haven for pollinators and birds.

When:
Saturday, March 7th (10:00 AM - 11:00 AM)

Where:
Jenkins Arboretum & Gardens
631 Berwyn Baptist Road
Devon, PA 19333

#philadelphia #philly #phillysupportphilly #eventsinphilly #phillyevents #phillyevent #philadelphiaevents
Across the nation, more and more youth are reachin Across the nation, more and more youth are reaching for a bicycle for recreation and as a means of transportation. In fact, the advocacy group PeopleforBikes found in a 2024 survey that ridership for children ages 3 to 17 increased from 46% to 56%, reversing a decline. And on March 14 and 15 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, the 15th Philadelphia Bike Expo (PBE) is working to instill cycling confidence in young people with its Kids Arena, aiming to build on that upward trend.

The kids riding arena features separated courses with skill and safety stations for a full range of experience levels. The program will be overseen by Sam Pearson, a lifelong cyclist and the Healthy Communities program manager at Pennsylvania Downtown Center. “It’s a skills course,” Pearson says. “We’re trying to get them to show how well they follow the signs and interact with each other as they’re circulating.”

The course “road,” as in years past, is halved by a center line, and riders must navigate cones and each other. There is also a roundabout where riders have to obey traffic signs, take turns and decide when to go straight or proceed around the traffic circle, Pearson says. There will be separate stations for riders to focus on a specific skill, and others where they must combine those skills in practice.

Pearson says there are numerous benefits to these kinds of courses, called traffic gardens. Beyond balance work, she says children can work on gliding, braking, staying in their lane and responding to road signs.

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ Dawn Kane
📸 Photo courtesy of Diana Steif

#philadelphia #safestreets #bikesafety #bicyclesafety #phillybikeexpo #bikephl
Amanda Parezo isn’t your typical bike lane advocat Amanda Parezo isn’t your typical bike lane advocate. For one thing, she doesn’t ride a bike.

Parezo once loved cycling around Philadelphia. But in 2021, after a game of kickball at Hancock Playground in East Kensington, she was struck in the back by a stray bullet and paralyzed from the waist down. Now, she gets around town using a wheelchair. She rolls from her condo in Old City to her job at Thomas Jefferson University, where she teaches occupational therapy. In a city where sidewalks are often damaged or blocked, Parezo often ends up rolling into a bike lane.

But bike lanes, she says, often aren’t free of barriers either. When a vehicle is stopped or parked in the lane, Parezo has to roll into the street, greatly increasing her risk of injury. “I feel like something’s going to happen as soon as I get into the street,” she says. “If it’s nighttime, that makes it exponentially worse, and then I just won’t go out because I’m scared. I’ll just stay home.”

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ + 📸 Jordan Teicher

#philadelphia #visionzero #safestreets #accessibilitymatters #accessibilityforall #bikelane
By all accounts, 67-year-old Harry Fenton was a mo By all accounts, 67-year-old Harry Fenton was a model of safe cycling.

He used hand signals when he was turning and stopped at every stop sign and red light, even when there wasn’t a car anywhere in sight. To be visible, he wore fluorescent jackets, vests and shirts, and he never left the house without his helmet or fully-charged lights. He found routes that felt safe and then stuck to them.

Fenton, in other words, did everything right. But he couldn’t prevent what happened to him on the morning of Sept. 2 while he was riding his bike in Fairmount Park. At the intersection of Belmont Avenue and Avenue of the Republic, a speeding driver struck him and fled. Fenton was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, making him the fourth cyclist killed in Philadelphia last year, and the eighth person killed in a crash on Belmont Avenue in the past six years.

Belmont Avenue has been part of Philadelphia’s “High Injury Network” — the 12% of roads that are responsible for 80% of the city’s total fatal and serious road injuries — for years. So why have the dangerous conditions there remained unaddressed? The answer is linked to the nearly decade-long history of Vision Zero, the City’s safe streets initiative.

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ + 📸 Jordan Teicher

#philadelphia #visionzero #safestreets #bikesafety #bicyclesafety #bikephl
New issue alert! Grid 202 has arrived and with it New issue alert! Grid 202 has arrived and with it comes another set of important stories to tell. Here are just a few of the ones you’ll find in this month’s pages:

• The efforts to eradicate traffic deaths in Philadelphia launched in 2016. Ten years in, the City is still far from its goal

• Could Philadelphia’s environmental science high school be for sale?

• For some undocumented minors living in Philadelphia, making it to the United States is just one step in a long journey to safety and security

➡️ Read the full issue now at gridphilly.com

📸 Cover photo by Jordan Teicher

#philadelphia #phillynews #sustainability #sustainableliving #environmentalnews #independentjournalism
📱 Shortly before my 24th birthday, I decided to re 📱 Shortly before my 24th birthday, I decided to replace my iPhone with a flip phone. I have abstractly considered making the change on numerous occasions, tired of the Internet following me around everywhere I go, always on the verge of being mindlessly lured to it.

During the short portion of my life when the Internet was stationary, I spent a lot of time sitting at the family computer. I was jealous of my older sister when she got a cellphone. I begged my parents for an iPod Touch, making do for a while with a hand-me-down Samsung that wasn’t connected to a phone number and only worked on WiFi. When I finally got a smartphone in eighth grade, I was congratulated.

Yet after a decade of smartphone ownership, I’m unsatisfied. It hasn’t improved my life, it’s made it worse. How much time has been lost to a bottomless feed? How often have I gone to check the weather, but instead open Twitter, browse for ten minutes before ripping myself away and locking the screen, only to return to my physical surroundings and realize that I still don’t know the forecast?

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ Gabriel Donahue

#philadelphia #technology #smartphones #digitaldetox #flipphone #offline
🏞️ The Fairmount Park Conservancy, Philadelphia’s 🏞️ The Fairmount Park Conservancy, Philadelphia’s largest parks-focused nonprofit, has tread perilous ground over the past several years as it leads one of the largest open space transformations in the city’s recent history: a $250 million overhaul of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) Park in South Philadelphia. The conservancy has caught flak from some community and advocacy groups that are critical of elements of the plan. As reported in Grid #187, it is just the latest chapter in a long history of controversy over public park management in Philadelphia dating back to colonial times.

Despite these circumstances, Anthony Sorrentino, who became chief executive officer of the conservancy in October, is taking a decidedly optimistic — and open — approach to the job. Even before his first day, Sorrentino was waxing poetic and engaging in conversation about Philadelphia’s park system in a LinkedIn post. During an interview with Grid at the conservancy’s West Fairmount Park offices in November 2025, Sorrentino opened with an offer to “call me Tony” and said he planned to serve as a “happy warrior” for Philadelphia’s parks, boosting not only their physical quality but their profile in civic life.

“The conservancy is 28, going on 29 years of age, and has been going through its own growth spurts all that time, and I think it’s matured into an organization that’s kind of ready to be more than one or two things,” Sorrentino said, noting that it has traditionally served in a fundraising capacity. “There’s a moment for greater, lower-‘a’ advocacy. That might be the next level of maturity for the organization.”

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ Kyle Bagenstose
📸 Albert Yee

#philadelphia #urbannature #urbanparks #phillyparks #fairmountpark #fdrpark
💍 Growing up, Maddy Hirsch wanted two things: to m 💍 Growing up, Maddy Hirsch wanted two things: to make useful things with her hands and to own her own business. Guided by those goals, she enrolled in Temple University’s entrepreneurial studies program, only to feel disillusioned with what she saw as its narrow focus on traditional and tech startups. She transferred to the Tyler School of Art & Architecture, but found it too centered on conceptual art.

“I wanted to understand how my work moves through the world on a very physical level,” Hirsch says. “I like making tangible things that people can interact with every day.”

Before dropping out of Tyler, she took a jewelry-making class that helped bring her path into focus. Here was a medium that blended art and craft and opened up a feasible avenue toward entrepreneurship.

“Making jewelry made perfect sense to me: It’s practical, fun and pretty,” Hirsch notes. “So in 2017, I started working for a jeweler in Philly, and I’ve been doing this ever since.”

After a few years working her way up — from running errands on Jewelers’ Row to setting diamonds at a hip-hop jewelry store on South Street — Hirsch opened her own brick-and-mortar shop, Tshatshke Jewelry Studio (Tshatshke is pronounced “CHOTCH-kee”) in Philadelphia’s Port Richmond neighborhood.

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ Emily Kovach
📸 Tracie Van Auken

#philadelphia #jewelrymaker #jewelryshop #phillyartist #supportlocalartists #supportlocalbusinesses
Events happening in and around Philadelphia this w Events happening in and around Philadelphia this weekend!

➡️ Elkins Park Library Winter Seed Sowing: Join Tookany/Tacony-Frankford Watershed Partnership and Penn State Extension Master Gardeners to learn about the importance of native plants and how to grow them ourselves. Attendees will learn how to start seeds outside in containers, protected from wildlife, while also benefiting from the cold temperatures.

When:
Saturday, February 21st (11:00 AM - 12:30 PM)

Where:
Elkins Park Free Library
563 Church Road
Elkins Park, PA 19027

➡️ Meeting of the Griots: Join us for an unforgettable intergenerational celebration of story and local history during the 100th anniversary of Black History Month. February 2026 marks the centennial celebration’s theme: “A Century of Black History Commemorations.” Meeting of the Griots Exhibition is a free, family-friendly gathering bringing together elders, youth, artists, scholars, and community members to share stories, preserve heritage, and experience culture and connection.

When:
Saturday, February 21st (11:00 AM - 3:00 PM)

Where:
1501 North Broad Street
Philadelphia, PA 19121

➡️ Big Rocks, Big Trees: Some of the biggest Tulip trees in the Wissahickon await you on this 3.5 mile hike using a lesser traveled footpath in the Lower Wissahickon. On the way we will see other Wissahickon iconic landmarks such as Kelpius Cave and 100 Steps.

When:
Saturday, February 21st (9:00 AM - 11:30 AM)

Where:
Hermit Lane Trailhead Kiosk
2RG2+44G
Philadelphia, PA 19128

#philadelphia #philly #phillysupportphilly #eventsinphilly #phillyevents #phillyevent #philadelphiaevents
🍬 Emily Grossman and Alyssa Bonventure, co-owners 🍬 Emily Grossman and Alyssa Bonventure, co-owners of All Aboard Candy, opened their Rittenhouse Square store last June with a clear mission. “If you’re an adult, we want you to feel like a kid again,” says Bonventure. “And if you’re a kid, we want to introduce you to the joy of feeling like a kid in a candy store.”

People of a certain age will recall when penny candy stores were as common as convenience stores are today. Luckily for candy lovers of all ages, Grossman and Bonventure believe “candy is having a moment,” in large part thanks to social media.

Friends since the sixth grade, the two 30-somethings saw their peers experimenting with cool hobbies when the COVID-19 pandemic began. They brainstormed business ideas, giving jewelry making a try, but found it way too complicated. Then Bonventure remembered a bachelorette party she had attended in New York where the hostess created a “charcuterie” tray of colorful bulk candies. She and Grossman thought they could have fun with the candy board concept and maybe even sell some. Both women grew up in “fun food” households where candy was taboo-free. Grossman’s great-grandmother kept chocolates in her bedside table, and her mother “never went to synagogue without a bag of Haribo gummies in her pocket.” Bonventure, meanwhile, fondly remembers frequenting the Candy Kitchen in Ocean City, Maryland, as a child. Partnering on a candy business just felt right.

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ Marilyn Anthony
📸 Tracie Van Auken

#philadelphia #allaboardcandy #candyshop #candystore #supportlocalbusinesses #shopphilly
📝 Publisher’s Notes: Controlling the Past 📝 Last 📝 Publisher’s Notes: Controlling the Past 📝

Last Thursday, National Park Service employees pried loose the plaques at the slavery exhibit from the President’s House where Judge’s story, and the story of other slaves of our first president, were on display. The exhibit had been there since 2010, but it fell victim to the Trump administration’s goal to have only parts of our history on display.

Unfortunately, being patriotic in this country is complicated. Our history includes slavery and our profoundly cruel and barbarous treatment of Native Americans. We aspire to be the land of the free, so examining our roots causes cognitive dissonance. Yet there is no choice but to accept that cruelty is in our creation story. These are the facts.

The deluge of lies that comes from our highest office recalls this chilling quote from George Orwell’s character Winston Smith in “1984”:

“Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present, controls the past … Past events, it is argued, have no objective existence, but survive only in written records and in human memories. The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon. And since the Party is in full control of all records, and in equally full control of the minds of its members, it follows that the past is whatever the Party chooses to make it.”

➡️ Read the full note from our publisher at gridphilly.com

✍️ Alex Mulcahy

#philadelphia #publishersnotes #ushistory #historymatters #environmentaljustice #environmentaljusticematters
🫙 When people walk into SHIFT Sustainable Goods + 🫙 When people walk into SHIFT Sustainable Goods + Services, after the aroma of eucalyptus welcomes them in, they might find themselves looking at the chalkboard and wall of glass jars, feeling like they’ve stepped into a general store from a previous century.

But at SHIFT, rather than creating nostalgia, reducing waste and protecting the earth for future generations is the number one goal.

Tucked on Haverford Avenue in Narberth, SHIFT is a refillery, where customers can bring their own containers (or purchase one at the store) and buy any of more than fifty liquid household products by weight, such as laundry detergent, deodorant and hand soap.

When it comes to the containers customers bring to fill, Eagle and Bezak have seen it all: glass jars, an old whiskey growler — one customer even ran over from a nearby laundromat with a drinking glass, filling it with just enough detergent for their load of laundry.

These small, individual choices to avoid buying products packaged in single-use plastics are at the core of SHIFT’s values. “Every shift counts,” Bezak says.

➡️ Read the full story at gridphilly.com

✍️ Julia Lowe
📸 Chris Baker Evens

#narberth #refillery #refillshop #refillrevolution #zerowaste #wastefree
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