Photograph courtesy of Unsplash.com By: Maddie Clark  Much of the United States is wary and quite uncertain of what it would actually mean to defund the police. But according to Nicholas O’Rourke, organizing director of Philadelphia’s Working Families Party: “It’s less about harming the police and more about investing in our community.”  His party, which

Photography By Rachael Warriner Bulking Up By Nic Esposito When Pennsylvania ordered its citizens to start socially distancing in mid-March, one West Philadelphia resident formed a wholesale buying club as a way to keep friends and neighbors connected in the midst of the chaos. The founder of the Pandemic Pantry, who prefers not to be

Photograph Courtesy of Unsplash.com Should Businesses Allow Voting on the Company Dime?  By: Jaclyn Zeal There’s a growing movement of businesses recognizing their role in empowering their employees to participate on election day. It’s no secret that large swaths of the voting-age population do not turn out to the polls. In 2018, only 51% of

By Meredith Jones Grid has received a number of inquiries from readers interested in combating systemic racism who are looking for lists of local black-owned businesses they can support in their daily lives. As a jumping-off point, we have started a list of vegan businesses with black or bi-racial ownership that we hope will grow

Photograph courtesy of the Philadelphia Bicycle Coalition Bike Talk By Randy LoBasso Philadelphia’s bicycling community woke up to interesting news in 2017: someone (or someones) had glued nearly three blocks of toilet plungers to 22nd Street to create a makeshift protected bike lane.  The 22nd Street lane—well-used by commuters and recreational cyclists on the daily—had

Photograph Courtesy of Retrievr SmartCityPHL Launches E-Waste and Textile Recycling Pilot By: Francesca Furey Looking to dispose of old cell phone models that live in a drawer and collect dust? How about piles of outfits that no longer fit? The City of Philadelphia’s new partnership with Retrievr lets you do just that, all while abiding

Josh Yeboah Gyasi at the May 30 protest Photography By Allie Ippolito By: Grid Staff The last week of protest gatherings in Philadelphia have been nothing short of historic. In an effort to get to know some of the movers and shakers behind the movement, Grid interviewed 22-year-old Drexel Hill native Josh Yeboah Gyasi, who

Subway Dancers By Constance Garcia-Barrio At Broad and Erie, with luck, you’ll board a subway car where veteran street dancers from the Motion Monarchs and Project Positive stand poised to burst into action. “What time is it?” one dancer asks. “Show time!” another says. As the train roars toward City Hall, one dancer grabs the

Photographs Courtesy of The Tasty Double Duty By: Alexandra W. Jones You have to love what you do to work 60 hours plus per week, like Sofia Baltopoulos and Kate Hiltz. The pair are co-owners who double as line cooks, marketers, and managers for Philly’s vegan diner The Tasty. “Kate and I both work pretty