Grid Magazine

05/11/2024

🎁 It’s that time of year again! ‘Tis the season for giving and supporting local artists along the way thanks to NextFab’s Holiday Gift Guide, the annual list chock-full of gift ideas that are sure to bring your loved ones joy as you gather together to celebrate the holidays.

Shop:
For the Philly Phanatic
For Your Home Office
For the Lovebirds
For the DIY Enthusiast
For the Fashionista
Luxury Lifestyle
For the Holiday Spirited
Dress Up Any Outfit
For the Sentimental
For the Cozy Homebody
Home Décor
Uniquely Eco-Conscious
For the Adventurous Spirit

➡️ Visit https://gridphilly.com/ to view the full 2024 NextFab Holiday Gift Guide!

04/11/2024

🥬 As a kid, Wyatt Piazza connected with the natural world by helping his dad out in the family vegetable garden. He holds dear the memories of foraging with him in the woods of Vermont during summer vacations.

In his work as a chef today, Piazza creates vegetable-forward recipes for Kiddo, the restaurant he and his wife, Elizabeth Drake, opened last year in Washington Square West. The pair agrees that it isn’t enough if a dish looks, smells and tastes good; it must also make the world a better place.

At Kiddo, food strengthens ties between the Earth, the local community and Pennsylvania producers. Earlier this year it was ranked as the number five top new restaurant in the country by USA Today.

➡️ Learn more about the sustainably-conscious ideas that inspire Kiddo and how the restaurant is making a difference locally at https://gridphilly.com/blog-home/2024/11/01/veggie-forward-restaurant-kiddo-brings-passion-and-enthusiasm-to-fresh-sustainable-dishes/

✍️ Dawn Kane
📸 Chris Baker Evens

02/11/2024

“CLIMATE REVIVAL: THE TOUR” COMES TO PHILADELPHIA TONIGHT!

“Climate Revival: The Tour” is a multi-city gospel concert tour strategically timed to encourage congregations and community members to consider climate change as a critical issue on the ballot 🗳️

When: Saturday, Nov 2, 2024 | Doors Open: 7:00 PM | Event: 7:30 PM

Where: Grace Community United Methodist Church | 1213 Central Ave, Chester, PA

Performers & Speakers:
• Antonique Smith - Climate Revival, CEO & Cofounder / Grammy-nominated artist, Actor (Faith Evans in Notorius), Broadway breakout star (Rent)
• Rev Yearwood - Climate Revival, Cofounder / Hip Hop Caucus, President & CEO

About Climate Revival:
Climate Revival is a new nonprofit organization founded by Antonique Smith and Rev Yearwood, dedicated to mobilizing communities of faith and people of color to combat climate change through the power of storytelling, art and culture. It works to educate the public on environmental issues, solutions and inspire the transition to a healthier planet.

01/11/2024

NEW ISSUE ALERT! We hope you’re hungry — we’re dishing up all you need to know about food 🍽️

Grid has been writing about food since our beginning. It’s not just because we enjoy eating and thinking about what we’ll eat next, though we do. It’s because it matters.

It takes a lot of resources to produce the food we eat. More than half the land area of the United States is devoted to growing crops and grazing livestock. Irrigation comes in second on the list of water uses, and agriculture is responsible for 10% of our country’s greenhouse gas emissions. Out in the oceans, 90% of the world’s fisheries are maxed out or overfished. The impact continues through the food supply chain, with more than a third of our food (and the resources that went into it) wasted. Changing how we eat can change the world.

IN THIS ISSUE:

🍅 Veggie-forward restaurant Kiddo brings passion and enthusiasm to fresh, sustainable dishes

🍅 Most of Philadelphia’s unused food ends up in landfills. Composting holds great potential to change that

🍅 Local and state laws are making community ownership of gardens more attainable

…and more on the way food affects the world we live in locally and beyond.

➡️ Visit https://gridphilly.com/ to read the full Food Issue now!

31/10/2024

🚮 As the 13 weeks of Mayor Parker’s block clean-up plan came to an end and another is set to begin, I was incredibly disappointed with the Mayor’s press conference on the subject last month. She touted the impact of so many thousands of blocks cleaned with no real context as to how many needed to be cleaned or were missed, and then gave a rallying cry with only vague allusions as to what happens next.

I’ve heard my fellow residents try to square the Mayor’s actions with the fact Philly is still filthy after the cleaning campaign by saying, “At least she’s doing something.” But in my opinion that “something” is nothing more than a sleight of hand.

As the Inquirer reported on July 31, litter complaints through 311 are actually up since the cleaning began. And I’m thankful for the Inquirer’s recent report on the before and after results of the Mayor’s 13-week cleaning program. However, I feel like those examples don’t do the incredible failure of this initiative justice. Here are some pictures I took in the parts of the city I traverse for life and work to prove the point.

➡️ View the full gallery of photos and policy ideas that could improve the City’s clean-up initiative based on our observations at https://gridphilly.com/blog-home/2024/10/14/clean-and-green-is-not-quite-clean-but-it-could-be/

✍️ + 📸 Nic Esposito

30/10/2024

🌿 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 leadership at the organization, Shabazz helps community members who have an environmental project — just like his father’s garden — connect to grant opportunities to fund their work.

The Overbrook Environmental Education Center is currently part of a national, five-year program in which local partners provide technical assistance, training and capacity-building support to community groups so they can get grants to fund their environmental justice projects. The program, launched in April 2023, is specifically focused on reaching low-income and marginalized communities.

➡️ Learn more about the Overbrook Environmental Education Center’s work at https://gridphilly.com/blog-home/2024/10/04/overbrook-environmental-education-center-is-the-local-hub-for-organizations-to-secure-environmental-justice-funding/

✍️ Jenny Roberts
📸 Chris Baker Evens

29/10/2024

🌿 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

• The Center for Community Engagement, Environmental Justice, and Health

• The Environmental Protection Network

• The Environmental Justice Mapping Screen

• The EPA’s Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Centers Program

• The Green and Healthy Homes Initiative

• The Institute for Sustainable Communities

• The Inflation Reduction Act Disadvantaged Communities Map

• The National Wildlife Federation

• The Renewable Thermal Collaborative

• The William Penn Foundation

➡️ To learn more about how each of these resources can help you, visit https://gridphilly.com/blog-home/2024/10/04/resources-for-environmental-justice-communities/

28/10/2024

🌿 As the need for environmental justice solutions becomes more urgent, a new federal program is aiming to help more communities find support. The EPA’s Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Centers program was designed to bridge the gap between environmental justice communities and the funding they need by providing education and support on the grantmaking process.

With the help of local partners, including West Philadelphia’s Overbrook Environmental Education Center, the program will use $12 million to reach communities across the Mid-Atlantic that are ready for change but need support to make it happen. Nationally, the program features 17 centers and $177 million in total funding from the Inflation Reduction Act.

In the Philadelphia area, the TCTAC program is focused on engaging communities in Grays Ferry, Germantown, Nicetown-Tioga, Elmwood, Port Richmond and South Chester, which Ortiz says are among those with “the most exposure to environmental stressors and the least means to fight back.”

➡️ Learn more about the EPA’s TCTAC program and how it aims to support Philadelphia’s communities at https://gridphilly.com/blog-home/2024/10/04/new-epa-program-set-to-help-under-resourced-organizations-build-climate-resilient-communities/

✍️ Ben Seal

25/10/2024

🌿 If you run an environmental justice organization, you know the obstacles to success are significant. There is never enough time, money and expertise to tackle the problems the way you would like. The federal government recognized this when they passed the Inflation Reduction Act, the largest environmental funding in the history of the country.

They knew that EJ organizations on the frontlines and fencelines are doing great work, but might not have the infrastructure in place to become a legally-recognized nonprofit, or to fill out the grant paperwork. They knew that resources were needed to get these essential organizations ready to apply for grants, and that is what inspired the Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Centers program.

The Overbrook Environmental Education Center is proud to be part of this program, and we are here to help.

So, whether your community organization is seeking to clean up potentially hazardous substances, monitor air quality in your community, or any number of energy and environmental enhancement projects, we want you to know that the TCTAC program can assist you with this work.

➡️ Learn more about the OEEC and how it serves as a resource for tackling environmental and climate issues locally at https://gridphilly.com/blog-home/2024/10/04/the-hard-work-of-environmental-justice/

✍️ Jerome Shabazz

24/10/2024

📝 Editor’s Notes: Hold Your Applause 📝

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 staying up late. But I was lured downstairs by the sound of the television and, once there, was trapped by a voyeuristic inertia: an object on a sofa watching a performance that would be funny if it weren’t deadly serious tends to stay on that sofa. When I finally achieved escape velocity during a commercial break, I trudged upstairs tired and disheartened.

➡️ Read the full note from our editor at https://gridphilly.com/blog-home/2024/10/04/editors-notes-hold-your-applause/

✍️ Bernard Brown

23/10/2024

📕 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 in the novel “Dry Lands” by Philadelphia-based author Elizabeth Anne Martins.

The climate-fiction tale follows a mother-and-son duo through the trials of their journey as they flee the East Coast, which has become submerged by water, in search of dry land and safety in Tennessee, where an extended family member lives.

“Dry Lands,” which came out in May, was recently chosen as a 2024 pick for Great Group Reads by the Women’s National Book Association.

➡️ Learn more about “Dry Lands” at https://gridphilly.com/blog-home/2024/10/04/cli-fi-novel-depicts-a-dystopic-flooded-future-from-the-perspective-of-a-young-mother/

✍️ Jenny Roberts
📸 Jo Schofield

22/10/2024

🔥 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 ecosystems could benefit. So I set off to find out why, in Philadelphia, we can’t have more fire.

Darin Groff, regional manager of land stewardship and fire management coordination for Natural Lands, says fire is particularly useful in meadows, where it can keep trees and shrubs from taking over and can remove thatch — accumulated dead grass — allowing new growth to sprout from the soil. “Grass loves fire,” Groff says. Natural Lands also sets fires to maintain serpentine barrens habitat in Chester County as well as to keep oak-dominated forests healthy in the Poconos.

➡️ Learn more about the purpose (and limitations) of prescribed fires at https://gridphilly.com/blog-home/2024/10/04/land-managers-in-the-suburbs-use-fire-to-maintain-healthy-ecosystems-why-not-in-the-city/

✍️ Bernard Brown
📸 Mae Axelrod for Natural Lands

21/10/2024

🎒 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, Word moved to her birth father’s home in Philadelphia to attend high school. What happened there sank her hopes. “My father drank heavily and was abusive,” says Word. “I would run away from home, stay with a friend, and at rare times, in a shelter. People steal there.”

Word became one of 40,003 Pennsylvania students experiencing homelessness.

➡️ Learn about the resources made available to students struggling with inadequate housing in Philadelphia and why reaching out for support is so difficult at https://gridphilly.com/blog-home/2024/10/04/more-than-10000-students-in-philadelphia-dont-have-adequate-housing-funding-and-stigma-can-get-in-the-way-of-them-getting-what-they-need/

✍️ Constance Garcia-Barrio

18/10/2024

Thank you Grid Magazine for spotlighting the environmental message behind “last year at elf camp,” the last track of our new EP “everyone’s having more fun than me.”

🎶 🌎 STREAM NOW 🌎 🎶

https://open.spotify.com/track/6Iz6VBwt1UhABBVVYexrmu?si=X2XzGCjJSoyz7GENIaA77w&context=spotify%3Aalbum%3A0PnpiJiogeVVMCaZ9IOU8k

18/10/2024

Once upon a time, our good friend Randy Lobasso painted Grid’s pages with impassioned words regarding bike safety, legislation, and a more sustainable Philadelphia in our now retired Bike Talk column. He has since taken to environmental activism in a new way, most recently with his band, Quiet Time, and their song, “last year at elf camp.”

🎵 ABOUT QUIET TIME/“LAST YEAR AT ELF CAMP” 🎶

Philadelphia bubblegrunge 5-piece Quiet Time recently released “last year at elf camp,” the third single off their EP ‘everyone’s having more fun than me.’ The single is a meditation on fighting to save the planet and all the self-doubt, criticisms and hypocrisies that come with it.

MaiAda Carpano, the band’s lyricist, was inspired to write the song after her time volunteering as a climate activist, specifically what she learned at a weekend direct action training camp held by the Earth Liberation Front. The song is a dialogue in three parts, inspired by conversations and arguments she had with a fellow activist.

“The first takes place in youth: A tangled conversation that ping-pongs between external criticism and high-handed professions to change the world,” says Carpano. “The second is ten years later, confronting the hypocritical act of growing up, selling out and settling down, trading in idealism for pragmatism.”

The song ends with a monologue recalling the hopes and dreams of a better future and a rallying cry to reclaim our power over the powers that have had such detrimental effects on our planet.

➡️ Quiet Time’s brand new EP, ‘everyone’s having more fun than me,’ is available NOW! Listen here: https://open.spotify.com/album/0PnpiJiogeVVMCaZ9IOU8k?si=HHg_Njn1Sa6RhNM-7Oirew

18/10/2024

📢 On a chilly night in February, a group of young people gathered on the steps of City Hall, armed with hand-painted artwork, prepared speeches, chants and community speakers; the Philly Thrive interns had organized a press conference to support housing justice in Grays Ferry. They were calling on City Council to support affordable housing legislation and hold a public meeting to discuss increased development and displacement.

Though just a handful of people showed up to listen, the direct action still made a significant impact. Impressed by the teens’ initiative, City Council president Kenyatta Johnson contacted a Philly Thrive organizer that evening, expressing interest in meeting to discuss the campaign’s demands. “It reached the person it was meant for,” 16-year-old Nyla Bilaal says.

Bilaal was among 10 Philly high schoolers who last spring completed an internship organized by Philly Thrive, a multiracial, cross-class environmental justice organization based in Grays Ferry.

➡️ Learn more about Philly Thrive’s mission to empower teens in the fight for environmental and housing justice at https://gridphilly.com/blog-home/2024/10/04/internship-program-empowers-teens-to-learn-lead-and-organize-around-environmental-and-housing-justice/

✍️ + 📸 Kristen Harrison

17/10/2024

🛶 On a dock where Wissahickon Creek meets the Schuylkill River, LandHealth Institute deputy director Mayci Shimon steadies kayaks as paddlers carefully shimmy in, some for the first time.

Despite the rumble of SEPTA traffic on a nearby bridge, the Philadelphia Canoe Club offers a serene escape. Nestled away, the historic, 119-year-old house aglow with the twilight sunset serves as one of LandHealth’s bases for their inaugural summer paddling events. Through this new program, anyone can hop in a kayak and explore the water at no cost, no experience necessary.

This year LandHealth set out on a mission to increase public access on Philadelphia’s upper Schuylkill, thanks to a grant from the William Penn Foundation. Shimon recalls that the process of finding launch points was more challenging than expected. “It’s been a lot of trial and error, but something that we’ve been really passionate about trying to improve and provide.”

➡️ Learn more LandHealth Institute’s mission to make the upper Schuylkill more accessible at https://gridphilly.com/blog-home/2024/10/04/a-new-paddling-program-gets-philadelphians-onto-the-schuylkill-free-of-charge/

✍️ + 📸 Kristen Harrison

16/10/2024

🌿 On yet another wet weekend, a group of ten braced a downpour to walk along the trails of Strawberry Mansion’s Discovery Center for a wild plant tour.

The walk was part of one of many programs organized by fellows from the Alliance for Watershed Education of the Delaware River (AWE), a coalition of environmental education centers increasing their collective impact in the watershed, this summer.

The fellowship assigned 17 young adults to different centers to develop a project that would lead to increased engagement in the protection of waterways and parks. Some fellows created park toolkits with interactive games and guides, while others, such as Charlotte Spence and Jayla Clark, focused on urban botany. Spence and Clark’s projects gave community members a hands-on opportunity to access useful plant knowledge and foster connection to nature in urban environments.

➡️ Learn more about the work Spence and Clark accomplished thanks to the AWE summer fellowship at https://gridphilly.com/blog-home/2024/10/04/watershed-fellows-teach-practical-knowledge-and-artistic-expression-at-environmental-centers/

✍️ Siani Colón
📸 Chris Baker Evens

15/10/2024

🛝 Many Philly schools are nested in overly hardscaped neighborhoods, and their schoolyards share a lot of the same traits — edge-to-edge blacktop, a lack of shade, no vegetation and limited playground equipment. Environmentally, impermeable concrete surfaces contribute to the urban heat island effect and to combined sewer overflows into our rivers.

Sara Schuh, founder of the landscape architecture firm Salt Design Studio, aims to transform these spaces to facilitate active learning, exploration and play. She has worked with the School District of Philadelphia to redesign five schoolyards and has more projects in the pipeline. “There is a lot of interest,” she says. “More and more of these schools are seeing the benefit of rethinking their outdoor spaces.”

➡️ So what does revitalization include? Learn about the features that can make neighborhood schoolyards better at https://gridphilly.com/blog-home/2024/10/04/infographic-schoolyards-can-be-a-lot-more-inviting-and-engaging-for-kids-adults-and-even-pollinators/

✍️ + ✏️ Bryan Satalino

15/10/2024

When shootings skyrocketed in Philadelphia during the pandemic, teenagers were among those most affected. In the face of this crisis, students at Dobbins Technical High School in North Philly set out to unearth the root causes of the violence sweeping the city. “Future Visions” is the result —...

14/10/2024

🚮 On a drive through Tacony Creek Park in the spring of 2020, Lawncrest resident Dallas Herbert Sr. could barely get around illegally-dumped construction debris and tires. He was appalled. An executive board member of the Lawncrest Community Association, Herbert asked his older neighbors about this particularly trashed stretch called Snake Road; many informed him that they had been regularly cleaning the area for the last 25 years.

Aminata Calhoun has been waging a similar battle against illegal dumping from her home in the Belmont neighborhood of West Philadelphia. “​​The magnitude of illegal dumping has brought me to the depth of environment distress,” Calhoun decries. “The fact that this behavior continues to surface unchecked and not dealt with stringently by the City of Philadelphia systems leads to independent small haulers’ continuous contribution to environmental injustices.”

But it doesn’t have to be this way; several organizations in Philly, including one that I co-direct, have come up with solutions the City could implement today to end illegal dumping in communities.

Calhoun and Herbert are both part of Clean Philadelphia Now, a grassroots campaign to end illegal dumping by 2028. This initiative is a consortium of organizations and activists across the city who are working to uplift the challenges and experiences of the many frontline community members who face the uphill battle of “legacy dumping.”

➡️ Learn more about Clean Philadelphia Now at https://gridphilly.com/blog-home/2024/10/04/with-a-little-political-will-city-hall-can-curb-the-scourge-of-illegal-dumping/

✍️ Nic Esposito
📸 Jordan Teicher

11/10/2024

Events happening in and around Philadelphia this weekend!

SATURDAY, 10.12 and SUNDAY 10.13
Philadelphia Birding Weekend: On the weekend of October 12 and 13th, Audubon will host its third annual Philadelphia Birding Weekend. Over two days, Audubon staff and volunteer guides will lead bird tours in some of the Philadelphia’s iconic green spaces. Every tour is free and family friendly!

➡️ Learn More: https://gridphilly.com/event/philadelphia-birding-weekend-2/

SUNDAY, 10.13
A Family Day inspired by Unhoused and Unseen - Our “Invisible” Neighbors: DVAA invites families to join us for an inspirational afternoon of crafting and casual conversation about those who are experiencing housing challenges. Families are encouraged to bring new hats or gloves to donate to Broad Street Love, an organization focused on helping those experiencing deep poverty in Philadelphia.

➡️ Learn More: https://gridphilly.com/event/a-family-day-inspired-by-unhoused-and-unseen-our-invisible-neighbors/

SUNDAY, 10.13
Death & Life at Mt. Moriah Cemetery: Mount Moriah is the largest cemetery in Pennsylvania, and home to some of our city’s finest grave architecture. Trees and vines have engulfed the gravestones in some areas, giving the place the atmosphere of a lost city in the jungle. Almost every style of tomb can be found here, from Egyptian Revival to Art Nouveau. Guests will learn about the role of cemeteries as a place for leisure in the Victorian era, as well as the influence of the Freemasons. Part wilderness and part sculpture-garden, this city of the dead is by turns eerie and poignant. Join Hidden City as we peel back the canopy and reveal the wonders below.

➡️ Learn More: https://gridphilly.com/event/death-life-at-mt-moriah-cemetery-8/

10/10/2024