Closing the Gap is a four-part series by Grid highlighting education nonprofits working to make sure Philly’s literacy gap doesn’t get bigger during the Covid-19 pandemic. This is the first installation. When seven-year-old Aki Mir passed by a lemonade stand in South Philadelphia with her mom, she heard someone calling her name but wasn’t sure
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An assortment of bees were hard at work on native flowers at Wyalusing and Belmont avenues in the Belmont neighborhood of West Philadelphia in late July. A colorful row house-sized mural of Ed Bradley, the late award-winning journalist and West Philly native, towered overhead, blending into the bright yellow of the sweet coneflowers, the pink
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When times get tough, the tough get baking—at least that’s the plan for Crust Vegan Bakery owners Meagan Benz and Shannon Roche. When the pandemic hit, their team was in a tough position, working out of a small, 250 square-foot commercial kitchen in Manayunk where it wasn’t possible for all eight of their fulltime employees
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It’s no secret that the COVID-19 pandemic has radically impacted how festivals operate in 2020—but at least one artist, Jacques-Jean “JJ” Tiziou, is taking advantage of the shift. For the 2020 Philadelphia Fringe Festival, he’s bringing a socially-distanced outdoor experience to the table: a walk around Philadelphia’s perimeter. Born from a 2016 collaboration with Ann
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Around 200,000 ash trees stand in the city of Philadelphia’s watershed parks. But in the next five to 10 years, most will be gone—killed by the emerald ash borer, an invasive species of beetle that has destroyed tens of millions of American ash trees in the Midwest and Northeast since it arrived in Detroit from
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Everything is a mess. I need to remind myself, consistently, that I am strong enough to be part of cleaning it up. In a world that seems to be falling apart, I am experiencing many low moments. With the feeling of being trapped at home, I’ve decided to take a good look at the personal,
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On May 25, Christian Cooper, birder and member of the New York City Audubon Society’s Board of Directors, was birding in Central Park. He asked Amy Cooper (no relation) to follow the park rules by putting her dog on a leash and then recorded what happened next: Amy, who is white, called 911 to report
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Gardening quickly grew from a hobby to a passion for Pamia Coleman and Latiaynna Tabb. The friends founded the organization Black Girls With Green Thumbs (BGWGT) in 2016 after they’d spent a few years sharing their daily victories and obstacles with urban gardening via a joint Instagram account. The community-based organization focuses on education and
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While the early days of COVID-19 changed our way of life overnight, those in at-risk communities instantly lost access to vital resources — a reality that prompted a handful of Stanford University students to create a Los Angeles- based organization called LA Helping Hands. Originally designed to match volunteers with seniors who needed grocery and
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For years, bicycle-advocacy organizations across the country and the world have supported a policy called Vision Zero as a push for safer streets for everyone. Emphasizing the five E’s of planning—engineering, education, encouragement, evaluation and enforcement—the Sweden-born safety policy has proven effective where implemented. Utilizing police departments for the enforcement part of Vision Zero has
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