Grid Magazine August 2020 [#135]

AUGUST 2020 / ISSUE 135 / GRIDPHILLY.COM

T O W A R D A S U S TA I N A B L E P H I L A D E L P H I A

BUCKETS OF LOVE

Matthew George of I ♥ Thy Hood is cleaning up Germantown, one trash can at a time

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Why police enforcement is bad for cyclists

Black women gardeners teach and inspire

Queer Eye’s Fab Five get a lesson in sustainability

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WISSAHICKON TRAILS CONNECTING LAND, WATER, AND PEOPLE

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Working with individuals and communities we’ve protected 1,300 acres of open space and care for 12 nature preserves and 24 miles of trails in Montgomery County.

We monitor the health of the Wissahickon Creek and implement on-theground projects to improve its health.

People are the heart of our work. Volunteers, supporters, program attendees, and partner organizations all play a crucial role in fulfilling our mission.

Photo: Scott Tantino

WissahickonTrails.org

Lauren Stamegna Wilmington, DE etsy.com/shop/thefoxandsun @thefoxandsun TELL US ABOUT YOURSELF I am a small-town Ohio girl who has brought a little bit of that farmhouse style to the east coast. I have always loved creating things from a young age. That carried through into high school where I fell in love with ceramics and then earned a BFA in Jewelry from the Savannah College of Art and Design. I moved to Wilmington about 6 years ago and I found myself with a creative void. I was busy being a new mom and didn’t have much time to do things I enjoyed doing. Desperately needing some creativity in my life, I happened to discover NextFab and the rest is history. I started The Fox & Sun about a year ago and I’m happy to see how much it has taken off in just a short period of time.

WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY WORKING ON? I make custom farmhouse-style signs. I have a variety of designs, but my favorite signs are of people’s handwriting. It is always heartwarming to hear the story behind a sentimental note that people would like to turn into a piece of art and enjoy everyday.

WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS? To work in a creative atmosphere all the time-- that’s when I’m happiest. I am hoping to make enough money off my signs to support my family. Eventually it would be awesome to have more of a production line of my signs and home decor where I would wholesale to stores and boutiques across the country.

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EDI TO R ’S NOTES

managing editor Alexandra W. Jones associate editor Timothy Mulcahy copy editor David Jack Daniels art director Michael Wohlberg writers Bernard Brown Francesca Furey Constance Garcia-Barrio Siobhan Gleason Alexandra Jones Randy LoBasso Claire Marie Porter Lois Volta photographers Drew Dennis Linette Kielinski Rachael Warriner illustrators Sean Rynkewicz Lois Volta published by Red Flag Media 1032 Arch Street, 3rd Floor Philadelphia, PA 19107 215.625.9850 G R I D P H I L LY. C O M

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AUGUST 2020

alex mulcahy

Change Is In Our Hands

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hank you, Matthew George and Bria Howard of I ♥ Thy Hood, for interrupting the news cycle that produces fear, anger, despair and disbelief.

You know what I’m talking about. Is it really possible that a pandemic hit and we are unable to organize ourselves nationally to combat it? It seems likely that hundreds of thousands of people in the United States will die from this, and yet there is no coherent, unifying plan on a national level to address this emergency.

Small businesses, especially restaurants, will be obliterated. Without meaningful aid from the federal government, all that will remain are corporate eateries like KFC and TGI Friday’s.

Because we have failed as a nation, our schooling situation is impossible. It’s terrifying to think a teacher or a janitor or a school administrator anywhere in this country could die doing their jobs. At the same time, it is crushingly sad that in-person classes in Philadelphia have been postponed until mid-November at best. Let’s be honest: What are the odds that they open at all before the fall of 2021?

Back to Matthew and his fiancée Bria.

They are the classic blueprint for a Grid story. They are everyday people like you and me who see a problem and decide that they are going to make a difference. Sometimes that means changing careers. In this case, it means devoting copious amounts of free time to a passion project. Because of their vision and commitment, the community benefits. (They do, too, because it’s incredibly rewarding to do something good

for other people.) The work they do inspires us, and it is beautiful.

So we must “think globally, act locally” as the saying goes, because real change comes at a grassroots level.

But we also need effective government and policy on a national level. It would be amazing if every Philadelphia neighborhood had a chapter of I ♥ Thy Hood in it, but we also need to ask ourselves, why is there so much trash in the first place?

In addition to waste, we need national answers to address systemic racism, child care, healthcare, food production, hunger alleviation, housing and energy. Not to mention climate change...

Our current national philosophy of every man for himself and valuing freedom above all else has been a disaster for decades, and the pandemic has displayed it in stark relief.

Let’s be inspired by all the people who are doing such positive things in this month’s issue, but let’s do everything we can in the next three months to change the complexion of our national government.

ALEX MULCAHY Editor-in-Chief alex@gridphilly.com

COV E R P HOTO BY L IN ETTE K I ELI NSKI

P O R T R A I T BY J A M E S B O Y L E

publisher Alex Mulcahy

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by

lois volta

DEAR LOIS,

How do you clean up your emotional and behavioral messes?

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verything 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, internal trouble—because it’s becoming a problem and contributing to the mess.

I’ve been trying a new approach to “self-fixing.” The new way is to shut up, listen and accept the harsh realities that are being put in my lap. In an open, honest, vocal family, there is a lot of information that is particularly painful as it taps on wounds of the past.

With a tendency for being defensive and protective, I force myself out of denial and into the present. I can do better, I am not defined by my mistakes. I remind myself that I am strong and want things to change.

I also have been receiving a massive amount of encouragement from my family and close friends. It’s a familiar tune, but we really find out who shows up for us in dark places. Curiously, I feel like I am going through the pains of labor while simultaneously being born. When I am in this space, I feel called to action and feel a willingness to participate in life’s clean-up.

Still, I’m having trouble processing the amount of work that has to be done on a cosmic level. In other words, I’m totally stressed out inside and out. In an attempt to not be complacent with the change that is happening in our world, I have to address 4

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reality. Now seems like a good time to start checking off the emotional to-do list by cleaning and healing up.

When I start to do emotional cleaning, I remind myself of the end goal. Everything feels better when things are organized, clean and high functioning. In order to do this, I need to know how I feel and what I want. Examining indifference, decluttering negative patterns and taking an honest look at my dirt can be the perfect catalyst for change.

For instance, my sarcastic tendencies have become a hurtful coping mechanism that

I use to find levity during a day of horrific news. I’ve been too hard on my family and have been using sarcasm to get my feelings out. It’s hurtful to everyone, including myself.

I need to look at my sarcasm, decide if I want to keep it, accept that I’ve been careless, clean it up and either move on without it or only use it when it “brings me joy.”

When I apply this attitude toward soap build-up in my bathtub, I make a conscious effort not to cut corners. I accept that my dirt slowly reveals itself every time I take a shower. The act of living makes things dirty, and our home is very lively right now. Am I willing to live without washing myself to avoid scrubbing my shower? No. Scrubbing the tub symbolizes a fresh start if I am willing to do the maintenance and put in some elbow grease. If my sarcasm is analogous to the soap scum, it seems to me that I have a lot of self-acceptance to do. My dirt isn’t a problem if I accept that life brings mess and work. My sarcasm becomes a problem if I ignore that it’s not always funny. I’m okay the way I am, I just have to keep things in

P O R T R A I T BY J A M E S B O Y L E

TH E VO LTA WAY

IL LUSTRATIO N BY LO I S VOLTA

check and accept the process.

Insider tip: With this approach to cleaning the tub, I keep my eyes focused on the slow build. When I wipe the shower down with a sponge every other time I’m in there, it never really gets dirty. I keep washing soda in an amber glass bottle next to the tub if I need an abrasive—it’s safe for me to use while I’m in there and I don’t mind it sitting out. I make it easy by doing most of the scrubbing with my feet. I feel proud of my continued maintenance until I form a habit.

These habits ebb and flow as I ride the emotional rollercoaster, but ultimately they call me back to balance and control.

To contrast, when I start to notice how ingrained my sarcasm is in all of my communication, I start to recognize it more and more and see what areas I have been letting the tension build up. The more I pay attention, the more I can make conscious choices about using it. This ultimately calls me back to balance and control. Self-control.

Emotional cleaning and house cleaning go hand in hand for just about any chore.

Really.

The chore I hate the most reveals the most about me. The more I clean, the more I develop relationships with the things that I am cleaning, but also with myself. Thus, adding meaning to the mundane. But, it doesn’t happen overnight and I have to be open to the process. Looking at my own dirt, and having a strong grip on reality, is laborious and exasperating. But it doesn’t mean that I should look away.

When we do the work—the self-work and the housework—we have the keys to start changing the world around us. We expand from the heart and push out of our homes, through our communities and into the cosmos.

Dream big and wisely. As always, the broken record sings: one step at a time, you’re stronger than you think. lois volta is a home consultant, musician and founder of Volta Naturals. loisvolta.com.

Send questions to thevoltaway@gmail.com

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sponsored content

Designing The Future Today

Architect envisions smart cities that will be efficient, agile and resilient

S

mart cities are made possible by technology, but the core philosophy behind them is ultimately humanistic.

“The person has a different role in a smart city, and it is at the center,” says Dr. Edgar Stach, a professor of architecture at Thomas Jefferson University.

Supported by data and smart technologies, smart cities is an emerging paradigm in the development of urban environments in an attempt to build more efficient, healthier and livable cities. It’s the intersection of the built environment (urban planning, infrastructure, buildings, recreational spaces), population health (public health, environmental issues) and technology. Integrated in buildings and city systems, sensors and controls monitor all aspects of life and are set to transform the urban landscape.

Stach is an architect with a wide range of experience. In addition to teaching since 1999—the past eight years of which have been at Thomas Jefferson University—he co-founded eHOMES, a company that creates natural disaster-resistant modular

shelters. He also served as program manager for energy efficiency and building efficiency for the King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy (K.A.CARE) in Saudi Arabia.

“You can ask the question: why is Saudi Arabia going green when they have so much fossil fuel? And the reason is that they see that the world is going to go green and they want to capture that technology, so they heavily invest into solar fields, green desalination and hydrogen production.”

Last year, Stach was drawn back to the Middle East, this time to Israel, as part of a faculty leadership team working with Israeli institutions, including the Sheba Medical Center in the Tel Aviv district.

The hospital, which was built in 1948, was ranked the ninth best hospital in the world by Newsweek. It has a sprawling campus, with multiple hotels and shopping malls; it’s like a little city unto itself.

The question that Stach posed to his students was:

What should the Sheba Medical Center look like in 25 years?

“I think it was a successful concept to look at the real city, the state medical city, and apply all the aspects of what a smart city is on that campus and come up with a new blueprint for future changes. And then students picked up individual projects and applied smart building technology in their design. The project was from an urban scale all the way down to wearables.”

Back here in Philadelphia, Stach is the co-founder and director of the Jefferson Institute for Smart and Healthy Cities, which focuses on research across disciplines, colleges and institutions to advance the development of the urban environment into smart and healthy cities. The Institute works across seven critical domains: Population Health, Data Acquisition and Processing, Architecture and the Built Environment, Transportation, Energy, Smart Systems and Devices, and Ecology. Research projects crosscut the domains at different scales (urban, building and component scale).

“I think we’re uniquely positioned with the Institute,” says Stach. “Being a large hospital system, being located in Center City, we have a big footprint down there. That means, we have access to a lot of data. Our program can really make a change, not only for Philadelphia but also for institutions in other cities.”

THE MISSION OF Jefferson’s College of Architecture and the Built Environment is to educate the next generation of design and construction professionals to create an equitable and sustainable future.

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bike talk

Biking Without Fear The city should drop police enforcement from its Vision Zero campaign

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or 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 always been the most controversial of the E’s, and many organizations that focus on

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safe streets, such as the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia, have cautiously chalked up armed police enforcement as necessary to save lives.

But, as the Bicycle Coalition and traffic safety groups around the U.S. stated earlier this year, that embrace of enforcement was wrong. Armed, police-centered enforcement has no place in traffic safety policy, and will not lead to safer, healthier neighborhoods.

It is past time to move beyond enforcement.

An alliance of organizations brought Vision Zero to the forefront of the

by

randy lobasso

Philadelphia mayoral race in 2015. It was quickly embraced by all mayoral candidates running to replace then-Mayor Michael Nutter.

Jim Kenney subsequently won the Democratic primary, then the general election and, soon after, signed the city’s first-ever Vision Zero executive order, creating the Office of Complete Streets.

Still, Vision Zero in Philadelphia has been a slow-moving process; many of the proposed changes, like 30 miles of protected bike lanes, have yet to fully materialize.

As the program moved forward, it did not focus enough on the potential negative impacts that issues like traffic stops could have on Black and Brown Philadelphians. Instead, as an organization advocating for traffic safety, the Bicycle Coalition pushed forward. Many bicycle advocacy organizations have fallen into this trap, driving some leaders in our movement, like former Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition executive director Tamika Butler, to call out the entire movement.

“Too often, advocates for Vision Zero stay focused on enforcement for safety and fail to acknowledge that enforcement is not safe for people of color; in fact, it too often results in death,” she noted in 2018.

Traffic stops that disproportionately target Black and Brown people are a problem in Philadelphia and around the country.

Black people are three times more likely to be killed by police than white people.

Black neighborhoods are policed more frequently, and, as a consequence, Black Americans are stopped more often by police—on foot, in motor vehicles and on bicycles. More interactions with the police mean more chances for violence.

According to statistics from Open Data Philly, Black people represented a full 68 percent of all pedestrian and vehicle stops in Philadelphia since 2014, but they make up about 44 percent of the population as a whole.

Even in majority-white neighborhoods like Fishtown and Northern Liberties (served by the 26th police district), Black drivers are IL LUSTRATIO N BY S EAN RY NKEWI CZ

stopped at almost four times the rate of white drivers and frisked more than twice as often, according to reporting by Billy Penn.

It stands to reason that Vision Zero can become an opportunity for discrimination if enforcement is part of the equation.

Broken-windows-theory-enforcement strategies that have been applied on behalf of Vision Zero elsewhere—like cracking down on not having a bike bell in Camden, New Jersey, or confiscating electric bikes from delivery cyclists in New York City—have led to negative interactions with police officers and disproportionately affected Black, Brown, Indigenous and immigrant communities.

Many of the worst crashes in Philadelphia are happening on poorly planned highways and pseudo-highways built during mid-20th century “urban renewal,” which, in addition to the danger they’ve caused road users, have contributed to further segregating our city.

Traffic violence is an engineering and equity problem. It’s not going to be solved with armed police enforcement.

Automated enforcement does a better job of deterring dangerous driving than armed, police-centered enforcement and, unlike

human beings, it does not discriminate.

In testimony to Philadelphia City Council last year on the potential of bringing automated enforcement cameras to Roosevelt Boulevard, I spoke in favor of the program because enforcement cameras have been shown to reduce traffic deaths and serious injuries in places where they are installed.

They additionally cut down on police-citizen interactions that could escalate and result in injury or death.

The problem with automated enforcement, though, is that it is not evenly distributed. Too often, automated enforcement, like speed cameras and red-light cameras, are designated to some of the most dangerous intersections and roads and act as Band-Aids that do nothing to solve larger, preexisting engineering problems.

Automated enforcement should be part of larger planning to remake streets.

Our role in making streets safer cannot amount to making them unsafe for certain communities. Policing and planning has historically been racist, and the fear of being unfairly targeted by the police has often been a silent barrier to people riding bicy-

cles in cities. According to an article published by the Better Bike Share Partnership, researchers Charles Brown and James Sinclair found that one in five Black and Latino males they surveyed felt they had at some point been unfairly stopped by police.

“In the focus groups, Black residents in particular discussed police harassment as a barrier to bicycling,” note Brown and Stefani Cox in a Better Bike Share Partnership blog post. “For many, bicycling felt like an activity that simply makes one too vulnerable to be worth it. In fact, participants said that they routinely avoided certain towns and certain routes due to fear of police profiling.”

Vision Zero is supposed to look holistically at traffic patterns and engineering in part because bicyclists will not be safe if people walking and driving aren’t safe.

The same holds true for racial violence: If Black, Brown, Indigenous and immigrant communities are not safe to enjoy their communities and streets, no one is safe. If Vision Zero in Philadelphia utilizes police enforcement and fear over equity and engineering, we are simply replacing one type of violence with another.

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urban naturalist

Brianna Amingma, a park ranger at the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge, looks for birds at Tinicum Marsh.

Birding While Black #BlackBirdersWeek gives visibility to the Black naturalist community by

bernard brown

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n 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 that an “African American man” was “threatening” her and her dog. It served as an example of how white people can wield a call to the police as a weapon against Black people. Occurring on the same day that George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer, it made clear that simply birding while Black could be lethal.

“It doesn’t matter what education or job you have,” wrote Melody Cooper, Christian’s sister, in a May 26 tweet, “every Black man is vulnerable.”

Keith Russell, program manager for Urban Conservation with Audubon PA says he was shaken up by the Central Park encounter.

“It was scary,” says Russell. “Those ... are dynamics I haven’t experienced while birding, but they’re dynamics I’m familiar with, and you know your life flashes before your eyes because once a door is opened, you don’t know how bad it could be.”

Social media users soon came up with a response: a campaign called #BlackBirdersWeek.

“Black Birders Week is the product of a group chat,” explains Brianna Amingwa.

Amingwa is a supervisory park ranger with the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at 10 GR ID P H IL LY.CO M AUGUST 20 20

Tinicum, #BlackBirdersWeek organizer and @Ranger_Bri on Twitter.

“The [#BlackAFinSTEM collective] is all Black people across the country, many of them young, early-career or graduate students, all in STEM. There’s a big contingent of birders and herpers in there, so when the incident with Christian Cooper happened we were talking about it and our frustrations,” she says. “It also put a spotlight on birding, and that’s when the idea happened.”

As the #BlackAFinSTEM community discussed how a #BlackBirdersWeek could respond to the incident in Central Park,

three themes emerged, Amingwa says.

The first was visibility and representation “so that Black people do have a space in this area,” Amingwa explains. “This is a thing we can do and should do.”

Secondly, they focused on “creating a dialogue within the birding community as well, to make it clear about what the experience is as a Black birder for people who usually don’t have to think about that sort of thing,” Amingwa adds. Lastly, they aimed to highlight diversity in the birding community and highlight the value of diversity generally.

“Diversity is valuable in any ecosystem,” P HOTO G RAP H BY D RE W DENNI S

says Amingwa.

On May 31, the #BlackInNature posts poured in on social media, kicking off #BlackBirdersWeek. Pictures showed Black people birding, fishing, hiking and enjoying the outdoors. Amingwa posted a photo of herself in middle school, riding a horse with a program that she says ignited her love for nature. #BlackBirdersWeek followed #BlackInNature with a #PostABird challenge on June 1, #AskABlackBirder Q&A on June 2, #BirdingWhileBlack live stream discussions on June 4 and #BlackWomenWhoBird posts on June 5.

“When the national conversation was on the Black experience, #BlackBirdersWeek made it clear that it’s not just about trauma, it’s about joy, resilience, pride, strength and style,” Tykee James, government affairs coordinator with the National Audubon Society and a #BlackBirdersWeek organizer, wrote by email.

Russell, who tuned into a live stream discussion on Facebook moderated by James, says he was happy to connect virtually with other Black birders across the country.

“It’s good to see the number of Black people who are into birding is increasing,” he says.

Russell also emphasizes the broader value of seeing the birders featured during #BlackBirdersWeek.

“If you think there are no Black birders out there, you might not even try [it],” he says, citing his own experience as a teenager in the early 1970s meeting James Carroll, a Black birder and naturalist, who worked at the National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum (now named after Senator John Heinz).

Amingwa agrees.

“I work with several groups of students for the entire school year. We got these awesome thank-you cards from the kids, and one of the kids, a 9-year-old, actually, wrote me a letter and drew herself, and she said: ‘Because of you, I can be a ranger too,’ ” she says. “I had it framed. It’s in my office.”

For James, he says, the campaign is also about changing the culture of conservation.

For example, the National Wildlife Federation announced that it is expanding its Conservation Fellowship and intern program with positions dedicated to young biologists of color.

Beyond that, “only a few organizations went further,” wrote James, “acknowledging that they cannot achieve their mission if they do not actively work against racism and rooting out white supremacy.”

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waterway protection

Testing The Waters

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lot of americans have a vague idea of where their water comes from, says Kayla Callender, a former participant in the Independence Seaport Museum’s River Ambassador program.

“We take water for granted,” she says.

“We assume it’s never going to run out.”

The River Ambassadors program is bridging the disconnect between citizens and their water, by equipping high school students to be water stewards and educators.

Ambassadors do everything from daily water-quality testing to caring for the museum’s Floating Wetlands to demonstrating Citizen Science Lab programs for the public.

They will also maintain the Delaware River’s two new seabins, which collect floating garbage.

Ali Stefanik, assistant director of waterfront and community programs, says the River Ambassadors program looks for students with an interest in water, but it’s often not necessary. The relationships built and culture of inclusion is often more than enough to engage the students, says Stefanik. The program maintained 80 percent of its ambassadors from last year.

Callender was in the program’s first cohort in 2015. She found out about the opportunity through the Philly Youth Network (PYN), a nonprofit that connects youth with work opportunities. (River Ambassadors is part of WorkReady, managed by PYN.) After graduating high school in 2018 and starting college, she came back last year to work as an alliance education fellow.

While in high school, Callender had initially enrolled in a four-year STEM program that emphasized the sciences for Black women at the Seaport Museum. She had always enjoyed working with kids and thought the science experiments that the River Ambassadors conducted sounded interesting. She joined the program and quickly began to care about 12 GR ID P H I L LY.CO M AUGUST 2020

water and the litter seen frequently clogging Philly’s storm drains.

“When you litter it seems like it doesn’t matter,” she says, “because you can’t see the consequences. But then you see pictures of trash islands and realize all water is connected.”

Callender’s main focus through her many roles in the program has been water advocacy.

She continued returning to the program year after year because of her relationships with the program leaders.

“They treated me like an adult,” she says.

“I felt free to express who I was.”

As a fellow, Callender’s main duty was education, and her fellowship culminated in the development of a community-engagement project for the museum.

Most people walk past the museum without noticing it, she says, so she designed a cart with projects and information for passersby about the museum and its mission, in hopes of sparking their curiosity and coaxing them in.

“You get what you put out,” says Callender. “We want people to understand that something needs to change.”

Like most environmental programs during the pandemic, River Ambassadors has had to get creative with remote programming.

This led to a period of reflection and addressing questions. “What is the core of our program? What is it that excites youth?” says Stefanik.

The clear answer: water advocacy. “[The program decided] to shift the focus to all of our neighborhoods in the blocks where the youth actually live,” says Stefanik.

Everyone involved in the program lives in Philadelphia, so they decided to address the ways the students, along with their families and community, can have an impact in their immediate surroundings.

The leadership gave students the

opportunity to choose their own projects.

“We don’t want to limit them in any way,” says Stefanik, “so they are able to choose whatever project they want.”

Stefanik and other directors of the program are also participating in the remote project, and some group projects as well, such as a storm drain-labeling endeavor.

Students and leaders will all identify the storm drain on their block and check for labels. If the drains don’t have one, the program will send the ambassadors kits with stickers and information for labeling their community’s storm drains.

“It’s an effort to get people to think,” says Stefanik. Adding that with most Philly storm drains, all contents end up in large bodies of water.

“It’s about making people make that connection,” she says, “that if they leave their mask and gloves on the ground, it will end up in our water.”

Other proposed remote projects include rain-barrel building, greening outdoor spaces, and block and park cleanups.

The ambassadors will also be encouraged to participate in testing the tap water in their house.

“We’re going to have them all test it, to dispel the myth that it’s unsafe to drink,” says Stefanik.

She says that both the program and Philadelphia Water Department maintain that our tap water is safe to drink. If the results of the tests support this, the ambassadors can advocate for their communities to use less single-use water bottles. With ambassadors from all different zip codes throughout the city, advocacy campaigns can be designed around the results, says Stefanik.

While it feels like environmental progress is taking some steps back during this pandemic, Philadelphia can rest assured that many advocates aren’t sitting back— they’re getting creative and leaning in.

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Museum program teaches high school students about watershed and tap by claire marie porter water research in their communities

A student in the River Ambassador program pulls a water sample from the Delaware.

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HOOD AND HEART

A Germantown couple couldn’t stand the litter piling up on their streets, so they took matters into their own hands

• Matthew George and his fiancée Bria Howard founded I ♥ Thy Hood in 2019 in an effort to reduce the amount of litter on Germantown’s streets,

story by photos by on august 19, 2019, Matthew George decided he had siobhan linette enough of the litter lining Germantown’s streets. ¶ He gleason kielinski created a GoFundMe campaign for a trash-can program he called “I ♥ Thy Hood.” He reached out to his neighbors in the hopes that he could raise enough money to buy 10 44-gallon trash cans for the neighborhood. ¶ “I definitely got fed up,” George says. He felt responsible for the litter he kept seeing on his drive home. “This trash wasn’t my trash, but at the end of the day it was my trash,” he says. ¶ In his post, George admitted that he, too, used to litter because he saw trash already on the ground, and his environment had influenced his actions. ¶ To combat this learned behavior, he proposed that if Germantown made trash cans more accessible, residents wouldn’t throw as much trash on the ground. ¶ George knew each 44-gallon trash can would cost $50, so he set the original

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GoFundMe goal for $500. The response from his community took him by surprise.

In just 24 hours, he’d raised $690 dollars.

Since the creation of the campaign, George has raised over $4,000 for I ♥ Thy Hood, far surpassing his original goal.

Shortly after the donations came pouring in, George got to work planning out the next steps to put I ♥ Thy Hood in motion.

“I canvassed the area within that week,” George says.

He reached out to business owners in Germantown to better understand trash pickup and street cleaning in the area. Through these conversations, George uncovered a major reason why street trash cans were not being emptied and why litter was building 16

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up. Many of the over-full wire trash receptacles in Germantown are emblazoned with the words Germantown Special Services District (GSSD), a defunct neighborhood organization. The GSSD was in charge of keeping Germantown Avenue litter-free from 1995 until 2011 when it ceased operations. In 2013, the GSSD was revived by Councilwoman Cindy Bass. Like special services districts in other Philadelphia neighborhoods, it funded the majority of its budget by collecting fees from local businesses.

In 2019, Germantown business owners voted to block the GSSD from reauthorizing, which meant that the trash cans they provided were not being maintained.

“The service was terminated because the

funds weren’t being allocated properly,” George says. George was frustrated by the overflowing GSSD trash cans, even posting pictures of them on the I ♥ Thy Hood’s Instagram page, @ilovethyhood. He found it hard to get answers about who was now responsible for cleaning the cans out.

“Ready Willing & Able were previously responsible for picking up the GSSD trash,” George says. A contract between the GSSD and Ready Willing & Able required the cans to be emptied three times a week, but once the GSSD dissolved, George noticed that the cans were not being emptied frequently.

According to Scott McGrath, environmental planning director for the Philadelphia Streets Department, when a special

Some people’s logic is that if you put more trash cans out there will be more litter. What kind of logic is this?

If you didn’t have a trash can in your home, where would you put your trash?

—bria howard, I ♥ Thy Hood co-founder

Left: George collects trash around Germantown.

Right: George pulls more cans from a storage unit.

services district stops operation, Streets workers will either fill in for trash pickup or remove the trash cans if trash pickup is not possible.

“In some cases we’ll either remove the containers or provide collections ourselves,” McGrath says. “In some cases we can fill the void until the community can get something up and running.”

The frustration George felt about the GSSD trash cans served as another reason why I ♥ Thy Hood is invaluable.

“Our city says we’re supposed to have these resources, but where are they?” Bria Howard, co-founder of I ♥ Thy Hood and George’s fiancée, says.

Both George and Howard believe that the

overflowing trash cans in Germantown create an environment where residents don’t think twice about littering.

In addition to the overflowing cans, George also noticed an abundance of litter and a lack of trash cans in front of fast-food businesses in Germantown. With food wrappers and to-go boxes from McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Dunkin’ Donuts, copious amounts of packaging gathered in the street.

Residential areas are hurt by the trash generated by these businesses, George says.

In 2015, Philadelphia passed a law that requires all businesses selling to-go food to have a trash can within 10 feet of the business entrance during hours of operation.

Though this law has been in effect for 5 years, businesses do not always follow it.

According to McGrath, “If a resident has a problem with a business that is not complying, they can call 311. One of our SWEEP

[Streets & Walkways Education and Enforcement Program] officers will come out and inspect.”

Officers meet with business owners and may issue citations if businesses are not complying with the law. McGrath notes that during COVID-19, response rates from the Streets Department may be slower than usual, but calling 311 is the best way to alert the city to any persistent trash problems.

George and Howard believe the litter they see in their communities is caused by a lack of access to trash cans and that the answer to less litter is more trash cans, serviced more frequently—not fewer.

“Some people’s logic is that if you put more trash cans out there will be more litter,” Howard says. “What kind of logic is this? If you didn’t have a trash can in your home, where would you put your trash?”

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ing residents multiple options for disposing of their waste. According to Howard, this would work the same way on city streets.

Howard’s idea is backed up by data.

In 2011, New York City launched a study to determine if a lack of cans would reduce litter. In the first phase of the study, trash cans were removed from two subway stations. In the early stage of the study, litter appeared to decrease. However, litter increased dramatically after the experiment was expanded and cans were removed from 39 subway stations. The experiment was abandoned completely in 2017 and the cans were reinstalled.

That same year, to determine how trashcan availability would affect littering in Philadelphia, GovLabPHL and the Zero Waste and Litter Cabinet created the 2017 Trash Receptacle Placement Study. At the time there was an “area of pretty active discussion about whether trash receptacles should be reduced,” Crystal Reeck, collaborator for the study, says. Other cities and government officials had responded positively to the NYC study when it first launched, but “the outcome from removing cans had been overlooked,” Reeck says.

The study focused on MLK Recreation Center, Powers Park, Athletic Square Park and Campbell Square Park, as well as the Francisville, Fairmount and North Broad Renaissance commercial districts.

The three conditions of the study were: no change in number of trash receptacles, increased availability of waste receptacles and decreased availability of waste receptacles.

The period of no change in receptacles was considered the control for each location.

During each condition of the study, researchers measured the amount of trash collected from receptacles, the percent of trash collected as litter, total staff hours spent cleaning trash and any changes in the litter index for each site.

The study findings were dramatic.

When the number of trash cans remained unchanged, 39.37 percent of trash in the Francisville corridor was collected as litter, but once the number of receptacles was decreased, the percentage of trash collected as litter jumped to 95.84 percent. In Powers Park, there was a 13.1 percent increase in litter when the number of cans was decreased. The average amount of staff time spent cleaning also increased. When the number of trash receptacles decreased, staff time spent cleaning increased by an average 18

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of 0.4 hours each day.

Reeck notes that increasing the number of trash cans in public areas “makes economic sense. Deploying more receptacles saved employees’ time.”

In addition to these data sets, the 2017 study also included responses they received from some Philadelphians, who were bothered by the decrease in trash cans in their neighborhoods. Several Philadelphians wrote furious social media posts directed at the Streets Department. Others placed dog waste in a USPS mailbox to express their anger about the missing trash cans.

The responses were “not something we had planned on collecting. There were some really strong responses,” Reeck says. “The communities had a strong preference for more trash cans.”

George and Howard have noticed a similar desire for more trash cans in their community. Neighbors and local business owners immediately started requesting trash cans for heavily trafficked streets.

George bought more than 20 orange trash cans from Home Depot for commercial streets in Germantown, West Philadelphia and North Philadelphia.

The white decal on the cans was designed

by George and printed by Germantown Bike Supply. The eye-catching cans help attract residents’ attention, making them more likely to use them. Howard says the bright color “brings a sense of community.” The cans also serve as an advertisement for I ♥ Thy Hood.

In November, Howard found another way to call attention to the work George was doing. While browsing her email inbox, she noticed a new email from Omaze, an online fundraising platform, about the Standing O Award. The contest was open to any organization or individual who was making a difference in their community. Howard immediately nominated George. She had her friends and family nominate him as well.

“I had this theory that if I wrote in and got all my friends to write in, maybe they would notice,” Howard says.

Her plan paid off. On December 3, 2019, George learned he had won. The Standing O Award prize included $5,000 and a short video on the Omaze YouTube channel explaining his initiative. In the video, George shows the work he puts in to keep the trash cans clean. Often, the cans have to be emptied out every two days. George carries the bags of trash, which can be 10 or more

George tosses a bag into a dumpster after emptying cans around town on his bike.

pounds, on his bike and deposits them in the nearest dumpster.

The video has brought quite a bit of community attention to I ♥ Thy Hood. According to Howard, since the video was posted many people have come up to George and said, “Oh, you’re responsible for the orange trash cans!”

The Standing O Award prize did not just spread the word about I ♥ Thy Hood. It also gave George the opportunity to expand his vision and begin donating trash cans to

local businesses. Howard and George first began reaching out to businesses “that we feel are also doing their part in giving back to the community,” Howard says.

They focused on businesses in high-foottraffic areas or businesses that appeared to be struggling with littering outside their storefronts. Howard and George found it was easy to first reach out to businesses that they frequented, which made it easier to build rapport. The response they got was overwhelmingly positive. Over time, George

There were some really strong responses.

The communities had a strong preference for more trash cans.

—crystal ree ck , Trash Receptacle Placement Study collaborator

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Your surroundings affecting you is such a seemingly simple idea. I had always complained about trash but I’d never done anything besides sweeping the sidewalk.

—sue quinn, owner of Bargain Thrift Center

was supplying business after business with cans of their own.

“I was pulling up on businesses saying this is yours, make sure it is empty,” George says. He provided business owners with cans, trash bags and locks to keep the cans secure. In exchange, business owners agreed to keep the cans clean.

Sue Quinn, owner of Bargain Thrift Center, has noticed the difference the I ♥ Thy Hood trash can has made on litter outside her store. George first reached out to her through Instagram. She already knew him as a regular customer and was immediately interested in getting a can of her own.

“He asked for permission to help set up the trash can and trash bags and attached it to the fence outside,” Quinn says. Bargain Thrift Center has been on Germantown Avenue since 1985. It’s near several churches, an elementary school and along the route of

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the 23 bus, all of which adds up to constant pedestrian activity, and lots of trash.

“The I ♥ Thy Hood can is sidewalk visible,” Quinn says. She notices that much of the trash is made up of food waste, such as wrappers or takeout containers. Before Quinn received the can from George, she had one can for the store, but it didn’t seem to be enough. Now, both cans fill up quickly and keep the street clean.

“It has been a marked difference,” Quinn says. She considers George’s initiative to be deceptively simple. “Your surroundings affecting you is such a seemingly simple idea.

I had always complained about trash but I’d never done anything besides sweeping the sidewalk.” Now she has the tools to combat litter on a daily basis.

Carly Mayer, co-owner of jewelry store Forge & Finish, is also happy with the new I ♥ Thy Hood trash can outside her home in Germantown. She received her can a few weeks ago and can already see a difference while she works from home.

“I live between two bus stops and a train stop and there is a lot of commuter traffic and an apartment building across the street from my home. Having the can has definitely made a difference. It was filled within a week. It’s bright orange and hard to miss, so

no excuses can be made,” Mayer says.

George has also donated cans to The Random Tea Room, Hafiz Sisters Beauty Supply, Attic Brewing Company and Philadelphia Hair Company, among others, and George and Howard plan to begin providing trash cans to schools in the near future.

They also hope to expand to other neighborhoods “that don’t seem to be supported by the city,” Howard says.

In February, George spoke at West Catholic Preparatory High School, sharing the mission of I ♥ Thy Hood with its students. He considers education a central part of fighting back against littering. He and Howard have noticed parents littering in Germantown, which they believe sends a message to children that littering is acceptable.

“Parents’ behaviors inadvertently teach kids to litter. I wanted to educate the youth to prevent that,” George says.

Though COVID-19 has delayed some of George and Howard’s plans, considering how quickly I ♥ Thy Hood got up and running, the group does not show any signs of slowing down.

I ♥ Thy Hood “is more than trash,” Howard says. “It’s about helping the community. Matt has created something that has the potential to grow to amazing heights.”

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From libraries to homeless shelters, two friends teach youth and adults how growing food can be a path to health by claire marie porter and resilience

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ardening 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.

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The community-based organization focuses on education and tools for urban gardening, food sovereignty and plant-based cooking, particularly in Black and Brown communities in Philadelphia.

“We’re trying to essentially increase the health literacy of people in our community,” explains Tabb, “specifically of people who look like us.”

P H OTO G R A P H Y C R E D I T B L AC K G I R L S W I T H G R E E N T H U M B S

BLACK GIRLS, GREEN THUMBS

Tabb herself has been growing food her whole life.

“I’ve always had gardeners around me,” says Tabb. Her grandparents ran a halfway house in Montgomery County, and her family would share the food they harvested from their garden with members of the house.

While in college, Tabb worked at an overnight summer camp in Downingtown that prioritized connecting children to the wonders of outdoors. There she learned how disconnected both children and adults are from the environment.

In the spring of 2019, Coleman began working with Global Leadership Academy charter schools through Get Fresh Daily, a plant-centric social enterprise that manages the after-school programs and gardens at two charter schools in West Philly. Through this experience, she was introduced to Greener Partners, a nonprofit organization that connects Philly communities to healthy food, and they decided to partner with BGWGT.

The kids are always so excited about it because they actually planted these plants, and now they’re cooking with them.”

—pamia coleman, BGWGT co-founder

“The kids are always so excited about it because they actually planted these plants, and now they’re cooking with them,” she says.

T

Left: Pamia Coleman and Latiayanna Tabb build a raised bed for a BGWGT supporter.

Right: Coleman plants herbs and vegetables at the Darby Free Library.

During school and summer sessions at the charter school, BGWGT used garden boxes to introduce children from kindergarten through 8th grade to soil testing, planting, harvesting and cooking with the food that they grow.

“It’s been really amazing,” says Coleman.

“A lot of these kids never understood the connection between the food that they eat and where it actually comes from.”

BGWGT has been able to illustrate a garden-to-table mentality with the students, as they’ve introduced them to cooking with the vegetables grown. Some recipes they’ve tried with the students include chana masala, hummus, fresh juices and smoothies, collard greens, ratatouille and Indian cabbage.

“We’ve always made sure that we implement our programming in high-need areas,” says Coleman. Though she says she can’t think of too many parts of Philadelphia that don’t need programming like theirs, especially when it comes to school-aged children.

he group has also been teaching classes throughout Philadelphia.

Danielle Lewis, a former school secretary in Yeadon, was just starting to garden in the spring of 2019 when she heard about BGWGT through social media.

“I thought it was something I should check out because I always wanted to really learn how to grow plants and food,” she says.

Lewis grew up with lots of indoor plants.

Her grandmother gave her plants to take care of while she was in college, but she struggled to keep them alive.

“Since then, I think I’ve always wanted to redeem myself in a way,” she says.

Lewis participated in BGWGT’s “Green Thumbs in Your Library” workshop at West Oak Lane Library.

She said the classes were on diverse topics in gardening and health and they were preparing to start a community garden when COVID-19 happened.

“I really loved how hands-on the classes were,” says Lewis.

She particularly appreciated the making and testing of different foods and drinks with herbs.

“It was really set up in such a thoughtful ... practical way, and it really gave me the confidence to come home and try dishes on my own,” she says.

It also gave her ideas for ways to include her children, ages 7 and 3, in the kitchen.

Now, cooking at Lewis’ home is a family affair.

Lewis’ daughter also took classes at the Darby Free Library where BGWGT hosted a free workshop for children. She loved it.

“They are phenomenal,” says Lewis, “and their impact is being felt in a major way.”

I

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n many black and Brown communities we’re not learning to grow food,” says Karen Peterson, executive director of Women of Harmony, Inc., a nonprofit organization that supports homeless women and their children as they transition in and out of shelters.

She started the program in 2000, after experiencing a period of homelessness as a single mother with a one-month-old.

In Delaware County, there are at any given time 600 homeless families. Women and children make up 60 percent of this population.

Peterson heard about BGWGT and thought they should give presentations at all of the shelters.

“It was flooring to see how involved and interested the families were in gardening,” says Peterson, “and in what seems so simple as growing seeds and planting something from scratch.”

Peterson brings life skills to the shelters, from trauma-informed care to special education—but says she’s never received the kind of response that BGWGT got from teaching the women and children how to grow and prepare food.

“These moms were so into it,” says Peterson. “It blew my mind.”

She says that seeing Black women running an organization they had founded was also enlivening for the women in the shelter.

When Peterson was homeless 20 years ago, there was more funding. Now, she says, if a mother moves into a shelter with a young child, that shelter will likely be home to the family for several years.

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“So, if they can plant a garden, it gives a sense of hope,” says Peterson. “When you are homeless and feel powerless, [growing food] allows these families to have some power back.”

Reconnecting to the Earth is reconnecting to something you can give yourself, she says.

She adds that even the act of planting a seed can act as a helpful metaphor for homeless women and children.

“Planting seeds, being patient, adding water, adding sun,” she says. It offers hope for a day.

“You plant a seed and there’s just a little life,” she says. “Then two weeks later there’s a little more life.”

Shelters don’t often have access to fresh food, because it’s much easier to store and serve processed foods. Processed foods are cheaper, easier to transport and easier to prepare, says Peterson.

But BGWGT taught the women that you don’t need an acre of land to have a garden.

You can grow it on your windowsill or in a plastic box.

“There’s a lot of trauma associated with homelessness,” says Peterson. “I’ve never met a woman who planned to be homeless.

[BGWGT] brought joy, peace and a sense of self-care.”

I

n 2019, Black Girls With Green Thumbs received their first grant from the Network of the National Library of Medicine (NNLM). That grant was renewed again for 2020.

They are also sponsored by The Race and Green Tree School & Services, a nonprofit that provides education, therapeutic and clinical support to children with autism spectrum disorder and severe emotional disability.

“My child and I actually attend their family support group meetings,” says Coleman of Green Tree, “and I just developed a really good relationship with [the] administration and some of the staff there.” She is the mother of a 9-year-old with autism who has benefited from these programs and felt she wanted to give back to some of the organizations that helped her child.

Along with the Woman in Harmony, Inc. and library workshops, BGWGT has done workshops with Autism Cares Foundation and Variety, the Children’s Charity, a program for children in inner-city areas with special needs.

The sponsors and support BGWGT has 24 GRID P H IL LY.CO M AUGUST 2020

Coleman and Tabb prepare to teach a seed sowing class at West Oak Lane Library.

received happened more easily than Coleman and Tabb expected.

“It’s an abundance of riches,” says Tabb.

“We feel so blessed that people are seeing our vision and that we are able to share our passion and our knowledge with our people.”

With the NNLM grant, the organization is going to build a community garden at the Darby Free Library. They will be working with the librarian and leadership team to create a sustainability plan for the garden.

“It really requires community buy-in and work from the organization and from the community that lives in the area for the gardens to thrive,” says Tabb.

Their mission is as much about wellness as it is about gardening.

“Even when we’re doing seed saving classes, or we’re talking about how to specifically plant or build a garden box, we’re always talking about self-care,” says Coleman.

Coleman says she and Tabb know how therapeutic gardening can be for many people.

“During classes and activities we like to

remind participants that gardening allows us all to be nurturers,” says Coleman. “We let participants know that it doesn’t matter what age we are, what sex we are or what our socioeconomic state is, when it comes to gardening we are all nurturers.”

The benefits are manifold. Working in nature releases endorphins, and can help with depression and anxiety, notes Coleman.

“Being amongst plants and flowers reminds us to live in the present moment,” she adds.

She says that they’ve received much feedback from participants of all ages about how gardening and the classes have positively affected their mental health. One alum from the West Oak Lane Library classes reached out to them to let them know that her family has been making healthier food choices thanks to the classes.

“All of our work is really personal,” says Tabb. “It’s an extension of our lived experiences, and people tend to be very interested in working with us because they just see the genuineness in the work that we’re doing.”

Get Back to Exploring America’s Garden Capital Our gardens have missed you

Many gardens in America’s Garden Capital are open again. Be sure to check each garden’s individual website prior to visiting for hours and safety guidelines.

Visit AmericasGardenCapital.org/updates @AMERICASGARDENCAPITAL

@AMERICASGARDENCAPITAL #AMERICASGARDENCAPITAL AUGUST 20 20 G R I DP HI LLY.COM

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QUEER EYE, CALM MIND

One year post-makeover, the Sunrise Movement’s Abby Leedy speaks on the Fab Five, by francesca furey sustainability and the power of youth activism

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Tell me about yourself. I’m Abby. I’m 19 and I am an organizer for the Sunrise Movement. I am where I am today because Sunrise came to my environmental science class my junior year of high school.

Sunrise was the first place where I found young people suggesting solutions at that scale and also saying this isn’t a pipe dream, things could be radically different.

What is the Sunrise Movement? Why did you get involved? We’re a movement of young people fighting to stop climate change and create millions of good jobs in the process. But I think the core of our movement is young people fighting for a Green New Deal in the United States, which is a governing agenda that says we can stop the worst effects of climate change and we

can become a country that’s carbon neutral, and net-zero greenhouse emissions by the 2030s.

A lot of organizations have a mixed bag of participants. Why is it important to have a coalition of youth? Young people have the most to lose from the current climate crisis.

We are the people who are going to have to deal with the effects of really terrible decisions made by those older than us in power.

I think it’s important to give young people a voice in the way that other groups often don’t. Truth is, when you’re in a space that’s mostly 40- and 50-year olds, people just don’t take you seriously. Sunrise is a place where young people—like 10- or 14-year-olds, or those like me, at 19—can share their ideas and their contributions are really taken seriously.

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f you ’ ve been binging Netflix shows while social distancing at home, you might’ve come across “Queer Eye’s” fifth season—based right here in Philadelphia. The Fab Five spruced up the lives of 10 inspiring Philadelphians, including 19-year-old Abby Leedy, a staff organizer at the Sunrise Movement. The episode focusing on Leedy, titled “Anxious Activist,” shows her tirelessly working to engage youth, speak out against corporations and politicians and fight for a Green New Deal.

“Queer Eye” hosts Antoni Porowski, Tan France, Karamo Brown, Bobby Berk and Jonathan Van Ness teamed up with Leedy last summer for a week of self-care and sustainability awareness. Below, Leedy spoke with Grid about youth activism, her experiences with the Fab Five and what’s next for Sunrise.

From left to right: Karamo Brown, Tan France, Abby Leedy, Jonathan Van Ness, Antoni Porowski and Bobby Berk stand in the Sunrise Movement’s remodeled fellowship house.

You were featured on “Queer Eye.” Tell me about your experiences. Being on “Queer Eye” was great—it was my vacation week. I got a week off work to do it, so it was really relaxing straight off the bat.

The guys were incredibly nice and really kind. They really cared about me but also helped me in a way that would help the movement, which was really special. They were especially into sustainability. You can kind of tell in the episode that we had some disagreements about what it really means to be “sustainable.” In the beginning of the episode, they said, “Abby, we biked here!” and I responded, “Oh, don’t worry, you can drive.

It’s really not a big deal, you driving isn’t actually the problem.” That came up a few times and I was really excited that they were so willing to learn and reconsider their beliefs and work with me. [Editor’s note: In the episode, Abby clarified to the Fab Five that 100 companies create 70 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, so although biking is good, in order to create systemic change, we need to dismantle the fossil fuel industry in addition to making greener lifestyle choices.]

The episode shows you as a fellow living and working with others in a Sunrise house in Philly. How did that work? I think that the fellowship houses were very powerful and also really hard. It’s hard because you live where you work and [live] only with the people that you work with—we actually discontinued them in the winter because of that.

All of the people who were fellows became staff members with paid salaries instead of stipends. A lot of us decided to continue to live with Sunrise people, but the organization also invested in a physical office, so we didn’t have to work from our houses. Movement houses are an expression of intentional communities that’s part of all of the organizing Sunrise does and that has continued even after some of us don’t live together.

I think that one of the most important things about movement houses is that they’re part of forming a really intentional community of people who work together that also cared about each other as friends.

Antoni says in the episode, “Youth were given a world that’s on fire and are now trying to save it.” Does this ring true with you? And if so, why do you think that youth feel as if everything is on their shoulders? I was born in 2001. I think we’ve been at war the entire time I’ve been alive. It’s not just that we’re at war—we’re also at war with oil and the profit of American companies. I experienced the recession in 2008 and I saw my parents not being able to sell or buy a house. The minimum wage hasn’t increased significantly during the time I’ve been alive. The cost of college has skyrocketed.

One of the reasons I started working for Sunrise instead of going to college is that even though my mom has a really good job, I couldn’t afford to go without taking on massive amounts of student debt. We young people have massive amounts of student loans and can’t afford health insurance, and I think it’s a generational thing because older people, like middle-aged and older Democrats, are still not broadly supportive of the kind of policies that would make our lives any better. Young people, like Gen Z, are the ones pushing for a country that actually works for all of us and not just the upper class.

The overall goal of the Fab Five was to help you reduce pressure and anxiety, while still fighting for the planet. In fact, Philly Councilwoman Helen Gym said that one has to be free in order for a movement to shine even brighter. Why take time for yourself? Why do you think it’s important to be less anxious for activists? Obviously, as documented on “Queer Eye,” I had to learn the hard way.

What it comes down to for me is that I know that creating an America that works for all of us is going to be the work of my entire life. A “perfect world” just isn’t going to happen and when you do what I was doing—work, work, work, work, work, without ever taking a break—you burn out really fast.

Sunrise organizers and those at other organizing spaces do that, where they work to the point where their mental health has deteriorated and their physical health has deteriorated. They aren’t able to find joy in the work anymore and they leave. You go back to school or you find another job or you stop spending any of your time on organizing. What it comes down to is if we don’t take care of ourselves, if we don’t ask for help when we need it, if you don’t take

breaks, we’re not going to be around to help the movement.

A part of showing up as your best self is taking breaks and not pushing yourself to burnout. Part of the mission of the Green New Deal is we all have well-paying, signified work without having to destroy our mental health. If we think that people should be able to live healthy, happy lives, then we should try to fix that for ourselves, too.

Have you continued any of those regimens or lessons they taught you? Yeah, I put in a hard day off on my calendar. I found that taking entire days off every week works well for me. Setting artificial limits on my time during the week wasn’t really helping. I’ve been much better about taking time for that, plus saying no to evening calls so I spend more time with my friends and family.

Since your time on “Queer Eye,” has your voice grown as a mover and shaker? The impact of the episodes coming out and hearing from all of these young people who saw it and were inspired or who joined or started Sunrise chapters has been incredible. The “Queer Eye” episode just existing has grown the movement, which is really special and exciting. There’s definitely been a huge uptick in traffic on our website and our social accounts, but it’s hard for us to figure out between our involvement in Black Lives Matter and the episode.

The pandemic has shaken our world. But one thing still is consistent amongst the chaos: global warming and the threat of climate change. What are Sunrise’s next steps?

What are the short-term and long-term goals? We’re still very much organizing for a vision of the Green New Deal.

Part of the Green New Deal has always been a deep commitment to racial justice and repairing the deep harms done by white supremacy in the U.S. Part of being able to fund the Green New Deal is diverting funds away from government programs that harm our communities like the fossil fuel industry and the police. Most of our work right now is our partnership with the movements for Black lives and pushing to defund the police. Our hub has been working on local campaigns around that, and honestly, we’re not sure exactly what comes next. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about 2020, it’s that we should stop making plans longer than a few weeks ahead of time.

AUGUST 20 20 G R I DP HI LLY.COM 27

RISE FROM THE ASHES

An invasive pest may kill most of Philadelphia’s ash trees—but hope remains for their future story by alexandra jones photography by rachael warriner

A

round 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 China in 2002.

“They’re all doomed, pretty much,” says Dhan Parker, an environmental scientist with Philadelphia Parks and Recreation.

But Parker and other foresters around the region are working to save the species and mitigate the cost and damage of this pest. He and his staff have spent this summer doing their best to save a carefully selected list of 1,379 ash trees in the city’s parks.

The jewel-toned beetle with a bright green shell harms ashes by laying eggs beneath the trees’ bark. When they hatch, the larvae feed on the tree’s conductive tissue, which carries water and nutrients from the roots to the crown. While Asian ash trees are naturally resistant to the pest, American ashes are defenseless. The destruction takes place hidden under the bark and the 28 GRID P H I L LY.CO M AUGUST 2020

symptoms of damage often first appear high in the crown of the tree, making it very hard to defend these trees from the pest.

It’s Parker’s hope that biannual treatments—a systemic insecticide injected into the tree’s roots—will help weather the wave of voracious insects wreaking havoc on the trees since the bugs were first spotted in Philly in 2016.

In addition to factors such as age and size, the lucky trees on the Parks and Rec

treatment plan were singled out to be saved because they’d pose a safety threat if they were killed by the emerald ash borer. Dead ash trees become extremely brittle and unstable, with a heightened risk of limbs or whole trees falling onto park pathways or roads and damaging property or hurting people.

While Parker is optimistic that the treatments will work, he and other tree workers and researchers in the region are looking

further into the future of the species.

“The main goal for me is preserving the local genetics of the ash population, which is important—this might blow over in the future,” he says. “We’re collecting seed from these trees to store, so if the beetles ever run out of hosts, maybe the pest population will crash and we can replant.”

Once the dead trees are gone, the city’s work still isn’t done. Ashes make up a relatively small portion of the trees in city parks—around 7 percent, Parker estimates—but the loss of a few hundred thousand trees would still be significant. Aside from hazardous dead ash trees, the spaces created by the loss of mature trees provide an opening for invasive trees to grow in their place. Once affected ash trees are removed, city arborists will identify areas for reforestation of native species to shade out the encroaching invasives.

It’s not only the urban canopy that’s in danger as ash trees bite the dust. More than 150 native lepidoptera species—butterflies and moths—rely on ash trees for food and habitat, and the seeds provide food for many species of birds and small rodents.

The emerald ash borer can create problems for homeowners, too. Just as municipalities and arboreta have to balance the cost of treating and saving the trees against the risk of potential damage and cleanup costs, residents have to weigh the same decision.

While treating the trees in hopes of saving them can be costly, it may make more financial sense in the long run.

“They’ve found in areas where a lot of ash trees have been lost, the main thing that happens is people’s air-conditioning bills go up,” says Tony Aiello, director of horticulture and curator at the University of Pennsylvania’s Morris Arboretum in Chestnut Hill. “That’s part of the calculus people need to consider.” And, of course, there’s the danger of a dead or dying ash tree falling on a person or structure on the property. If a tree must be removed, it’s typically more affordable to do so while it’s still relatively healthy.

There is hope for the American ash, though: in addition to spot-treating key ash stands with systemic insecticides, arborists and forestry officials across the state are identifying stands of what they call “lingering ash”—native trees that have somehow withstood the emerald ash borer’s onslaught—in hopes that they might be able to use seed from those trees to breed

Left: An ash tree.

Right: Injecting Mectinite into their trunks protects them from emerald ash borers.

resistant varieties in the future.

And those dead trees don’t go to waste.

The city is making good use of the wood.

Trees that have fallen to the emerald ash borer are identified using a geographic information system (GIS) app so that city crews can remove them before they become hazardous. Then they go to the Organic Recycling Center in Fairmount Park, where they’re assessed to see which trees can be turned into lumber.

“There are so many factors that have to line up for a tree to be salvageable,” says Daniel Lawson, sustainability and quality control manager at Parks and Rec. “It seems simple enough, but you look around and start to realize how many trees diverge from that.

You have to do the math, figure out what sizes to generate, and how much you can salvage.”

Only straight, even, sections of trees— think telephone pole-shaped trunks—can be milled into boards that can then be used as building material. The rest of the trees, which may include rotten or damaged portions, are ground up into wood chips or mulch.

Lawson estimates that the city was able to have 9,000 board feet of reclaimed lumber cut by a mobile miller over just two days. Though the number might seem impressive, “it’s probably less trees than

you’re thinking,” he says, “but that highlights how amazing of a resource that these trees are.” One good 50-foot tree can be made into all the cubbies and bookcases in a rec center, for example, or enough benches to fill the beer garden in Eakins Oval.

Right now, the program Lawson heads is developing a plan to systematize the reclaiming of quality wood from ash and other trees taken down by crews in city parks. So far, the program has been opportunistic, bringing in a mobile sawmill for a couple of days at a time when there was enough good wood to process, but Lawson sees the potential for much more—maybe even offering reclaimed wood from city parks to local carpenters and hobbyists alike to build furniture and other projects.

“It’s very preliminary, but we’re breaking down the market and what the wood waste stream looks like in our city and our region—where we can plug in and optimize the process and upgrade the products that come from wood waste,” Lawson says. “If we can successfully come up with an awesome system to rescue these trees, taking what is going to be an incredible challenge for our local ecosystem and turning into a new resource, it will be a testament to the resilience of our community.”

AUGUST 20 20 G R I DP HI LLY.COM 29

GRAVEYARD SHIFT Volunteer gardeners tend to cradle graves at The Woodlands

story by constance garcia-barrio — photography by rachael warriner

I

f tombs are the clothes of the dead, as one poet said, permanent residents of cradle graves at The Woodlands Cemetery wear vivid garments indeed.

Marble headstones, footstones and low sides form these graves while pansies, bleeding hearts, and other flowers bloom atop them and brim with color.

In Victorian times, when cradle graves became popular, family members tended the gardens in a kind of reunion with the deceased. But as relatives themselves died or moved away, weeds moved in.

Enter Jessica Baumert, 42, executive director of The Woodlands, and her staff, who launched the Grave Gardening program in 2015. Local gardening organizations provided funds, still the staff thought they might have a hard time getting people interested.

Luckily, that was not the case.

“When we first asked for volunteer gardeners, we thought 20 people might respond,” 30 GRID P H IL LY.CO M AUGUST 20 20

Baumert says, “but over 70 showed up.” The staff stretched its budget to accept everyone.

The Grave Gardening program accords with The Woodlands’ horticultural heritage.

In the 1760s William Hamilton (1745-1813), scion of a rich family of colonial lawyers, inherited 356 acres of land on the west bank of the Schuylkill River. Hamilton, though an amateur, became a megastar of botany, like William Bartram (1739-1823), author of “Bartram’s Travels” (1791), who lived 1 mile downriver. Hamilton built the nation’s first Federalist mansion, still extant, and a massive greenhouse, now gone.

He gained such fame that “…Lewis and Clark sent him two crates of seeds from their exploration of the western United States,” Baumert says. “Hamilton collected 9,000 native and imported plant specimens and introduced plants like the ginkgo tree to this country.”

Between 1813 and 1840, the Hamiltons

went bankrupt. The property stood at the brink of being industrialized when some foresighted Philadelphians formed The Woodlands Cemetery Company in 1840 to “…preserve the beautiful scenery …” of the remaining acres of Hamilton’s estate, according to the articles of incorporation.

Members of the company—which included William H. Moore, who directed the funerals of Presidents Harrison, Taylor and John Quincy Adams—had the cemetery laid out in the rural cemetery style of meandering pathways and ornate monuments.

The Woodlands soared in popularity—at one point visitors needed a ticket to enter—with grave gardens one of its prime attractions. Well-heeled Philadelphians such as international art dealer Charles Haseltine (1840-1915), who handled some early works of controversial painter Thomas Eakins (1844-1916), including the “Gross Clinic,” has family cradle graves here, as

The Woodlands is so peaceful, and that’s important now during COVID-19.”

—em drucker, grave gardener

does tooth manufacturer Samuel S. White (1822-1879), an inventor and businessman who employed a Black chemist when such a choice seemed radical. The author of a Victorian guidebook to Philadelphia deemed the graves “in the French style” a must-see.

His description sparked Baumert’s idea for the Grave Gardening program.

Today’s 150 grave gardeners range from age 6 to retirees, and from master gardeners to novices. They have different reasons for volunteering.

“I have a reverence for the history of the space,” says Em Drucker, 28, who works in career services at Temple University.

“I also run, picnic and spend time here with friends, and I’ve attended programs like Bat Night and the Tree Tour,” Drucker says of the 54-acre site, now a National Historic District.

Something else moved Candice Thompson, 39, an unemployed nonprofit administrator, to volunteer. “It was part of my grieving process,” says Thompson, who

sought to balance sadness she’s felt with her parents’ deaths in recent years.

“The Grave Gardener program sounded like pure joy, and, as it turns out, totally is.”

Memories of gardening with her mother led Katharyn Coleman, 34, who teaches English to international students at Temple University, to try grave gardening. “Sometimes I would help my mother garden, and sometimes I would wander off,” Coleman says.

But The Woodlands’ graves had long interested her. “My students would research and act out the lives of famous people buried here, then visit their graves on field trips.”

Each gardener adopts one, or occasionally more, graves, and spends on average two to four hours weekly gardening.

“Introductory workshops on horticultural history, the rural cemetery movement, and Victorian plants, give participants context,” says Robin Rick, 42, The Woodlands’ facilities and landscape manager and a grave gardener. “The program also provides soil, seeds, tools, everything gardeners need. About 185 of the 250 graves are being gardened. The rest are [far] from the water supply or in ill repair.”

A Planting Day—which took place in modified form this spring due to COVID-19—gets gardeners off to a good start and builds community. “We were far enough apart for social distancing guidelines,” Coleman says. “Robin and Jessica had stations where we consulted them with questions.”

Gardeners pick from many plants appropriate for Victorian times. “I chose blackberry lilies for their height and structure, ... [and] Kiwi Blue Cerinthe for its indigo bells which are attractive to pollinators…”

Thompson says. “I’m a first-year gardener, so I tried to jam everything they were offering that liked sun into my plot.”

While the grave gardeners create visual delights, they sometimes find unexpected joy.

Some say that gardening frees them to think through problems. Others, like Drucker, take pleasure in “…the tactile experience of putting my hands in the dirt.” Katharyn Coleman had a different surprise. “A fox came up to me while I was gardening,” she says. “He wasn’t expecting to see me there.”

Thompson’s rare experience of gardening at the grave of an ancestor leads her to quiet reflection. Jennie Lister, Thompson’s paternal great-great-great aunt, was interred at The Woodlands in 1876. “My father was the black sheep, so I knew little about that side of the family,” she says. “To be creating a garden in the family plot feels like an opportunity to connect … and linger in the halls of remembrance.”

The biggest challenges, gardeners say, are remembering to water the plants in summer—“I feel thirsty and recall that my plants may be thirsty,” Drucker says—“and keeping the plants safe from groundhogs,” Coleman says.

Despite these blips, gardeners feel rewarded, especially with the pandemic’s limit on in-person contact.

“The Woodlands is so peaceful, and that’s important now during COVID-19,” Drucker says. “It’s spread out. You can run, walk and rest, following distancing guidelines. The other day, another gardener was working nearby, but far enough away that we could talk. It was a gift.”

AUGUST 20 20 G R I DP HILLY.COM 31

A NDRE W A B B OT T A LON A BRA MSON CH A RLES A DZ EMA CA RINA A HR EN G REGORY ALOI A VICTORIA AQU I LON E CH RIS A RG ERA KI S

Dear readers: Like many other small businesses, Grid has been adversely and dramatically affected by the economic fallout caused by the coronavirus. We will continue to post COVID-19 related resources online at gridphilly.com, and to devote the pages of our print publication to sustainability, which has never felt more relevant. I’d like to thank all of our subscribers for supporting us, and I’d like to invite anyone who has considered subscribing—$2.99, $4.99 or $9.99 a month—to do so. Thank you.

—alex mulcahy, publisher

CH RISTINA A R LT CH A RA ARM ON MA RY A RMST RONG A LL A N ASH A MA NDA AS HMOR E DE NIS & JUDY ASS ELI N AWBURY AR B OR ET U M KYLE BAGE N STOS E G RE TCHYN BA I LEY DYLAN BA IR D A MA NDA BA KER BRIA NNA BA KER SUZANNE BA KEWELL JE F F RE Y BA LI FF HE NRY BAR N ES HE IDI BARR NANCY BARTON E L ISA BATTLE DOTTIE BAU MGA RT EN A NNA BE A LE BRE NT BE E R LEY P. BE HRE NS JOY A BE RGEY JOSE PH BE R NST EI N BRUCE BE R RYMA N NINA BE RRY MA N CH A RLOTTE B ETA N COU RT KATHRYN BI RST ER MICH E L LE BLOODWELL BARBA RA BLOOM DAV ID BLOOVMA N LINDA BLYT HE MICH A E L C B OCCAC I N O JAMIE BOGERT NICOL E BOI C E HECTOR BO N ES A LE XA BOSS E A NNE BOYD COLL E E N BOYD JANE BOYD BRACKE N L EA DERS HI P HE L E NE BRENN A N CL IF FORD B R ET T A NDRE A BR ET T I NG SUSAN BRE TZ LINDSE Y BR I T T SOPH IE BRONST EI N BE RNA RD BROWN ROBE RT BROWN RUTH BROWN

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Subscribe online for as little as $2.99 a month, or make a contribution in any amount at gridphilly.com 32 GR ID P H IL LY.CO M AUGUST 2020

ALB E RT YE E J E N YUAN H I LLE L ZARE M BA BARBARA ZARSKY JACLYN Z E AL CURTI S Z I M M E RMANN

ON VIEW JULY 20 THROUGH JANUARY 10, 2021

Commemorating the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, this exhibition will feature works by contemporary artists from the Bucks County and greater Philadelphia region that are investigating the effects of global warming, climate change, pollution, and related environmental concerns on bodies of water and aquatic species.

1. Diane Burko, Novaya Zemlya II, 2016-17. Oil and mixed media on canvas. 42 x 42 inches. Courtesy of the artist. 2. Janet Filomeno, As the Sea Rises—Blue Crystals Revisited no. 7, 2018. Ink, acrylic paint on canvas. 72 x 72 inches. Courtesy of the artist, Janet Filomeno. 3. Marguerita Hagan, Frustule Flower, 2018. Ceramic. 4 1⁄4 x 7 1⁄4 x 6 1⁄4 inches. Loan courtesy of the artist, Marguerita Hagan.

Rising Tides: Contemporary Art and the Ecology of Water is generously supported by Visit Bucks County.

Media support is provided by Grid Magazine.

Changing the landscape— for good A local expert teaches Penn students the art of land conservation “To create change you must understand the constituents, and how they integrate with the resource,” says John Goodall, Senior Outreach Associate for the Brandywine Conservancy. Goodall looks forward to joining the faculty of Penn’s Master of Environmental Studies (MES) program to teach an upcoming course on conservation land management. With 25 years of environmental grassroots experience, Goodall knows that protecting land means “reading the landscape” and balancing its natural resources with the landowner’s goals and the environmentalist’s vision. “Land management decisions cascade into improved water quality and wildlife habitats,” he adds. “It takes a team approach to succeed.”

John Goodall

Brandywine Conservancy

VIRTUAL CAFÉ Join the MES program

With field trips and case study reviews to explore applications outside of the classroom, Goodall’s Conservation Land Management course exemplifies the program’s hands-on approach to complex environmental issues. “I am excited to delve into past and current preservation efforts with the students,” says Goodall.

“Environmentalists are passionate about their projects!”

director from 12-1 p.m. on the first Tuesday of every month for an online chat about your interests and goals.

Log in with us.

www.facebook.com/UPennEES @Penn_MES_MSAG

To learn more about how the Master of Environmental Studies program combines experience with education, visit:

www.upenn.edu/grid