When Kiera Thompson lost her job at a consignment store at the onset of the pandemic, she looked for something to occupy her time. She decided to invest in a candle making kit and try it out as a possible hobby. “This was literally just a little tiny kit, and I just found it really
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On a rainy day in early October, clear water flows from the downspout draining the roof of Peter Zettlemoyer’s livestock corral, bound for Manor Creek just down the hill. Two black and white Holstein heifers that Zettlemoyer is raising for a nearby dairy farmer, amble over to the railing that pens them in to check
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As Don Shump, the owner of the Philadelphia Bee Company, prepares to move a bald-faced hornet nest from the side of a large grave marker at Fernwood Cemetery in Lansdowne, he offers some advice. “These girls tend to run and gun. So when they’re mad, they tend to hit you and spin back off for
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Convicted of attempted murder at age 17, Philly performing artist and musician Andre Simms, or DayOneNotDayTwo, his stage name, spent eight years in an adult prison. Released in 2021, he’s now the lead youth organizer with the Youth Art & Self-Empowerment Project (YASP), 924 Cherry Street, a group of young people working to reform the
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One behemoth of a building in Eastwick looms large, both literally and in discussions about food recovery in Philadelphia. At 700,000 square feet — about 12 football fields — the Philadelphia Wholesale Produce Market (PWPM) is the largest refrigerated structure in the world. Eighteen of the largest produce vendors in the Mid-Atlantic share warehouse space
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Christa Barfield, the founder of FarmerJawn Agriculture, a multi-pronged organization that aims to feed wholesome food to marginalized communities while educating the next generation of Black and Brown farmers, will begin leasing the 123-acre farm at the Westtown School in Chester County. “This land is not a gift, it’s an opportunity,” Barfield says of her
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When COVID-19 suddenly disrupted supply chains, leaving grocery shelves empty, local farmers joined the short list of essential workers. Yet, despite their critical importance, many farmers remain low-wage workers. A report recently released by Pasa Sustainable Agriculture revealed that farmers in our region earn about $10 per hour and family farm households struggle to reach
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It can be easy to get discouraged these days. Everywhere we look, there are signs of a struggling planet and, often, it’s difficult to see a clear path to an effectual response. 2022 may well eclipse recent years as the hottest on record. Rainfall has alternated between being absent or violent in Pennsylvania, one of
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Yellow chili peppers grow pointing up from the bushy plant in a raised bed at the Emily South section of the Growing Home Garden in South Philadelphia, looking a bit like a miniature tree decorated with Christmas lights. Leafy green mustard plants sprout from a nearby bed that had apparently been turned over recently for
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Enter through the gilded green gates of The Woodlands Cemetery in West Philadelphia, take the road through to the right passing the grave markers and mausoleums, and you’ll find new life growing on a verdant stretch of grass just past the stand of plane trees. This is where the Philadelphia Orchard Project (POP) has been
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