MOMENTUM

The Momentum Continues

As I think about the work we all do each year to support our mission, I’m humbled by the undeniable strength of our partnerships and residents, and the heart with which everyone works together. Building a community of allies who share a vision for the future of our watershed brings me happiness and energy, every single day.

Many of you are aware that this is my final year as Executive Director of TTF. To say I’ve enjoyed my time with all of you would be an understatement, as it’s been my honor to have worked tirelessly together to make a real difference. I may be leaving, but I promise that you’ll all be in good hands throughout this change in leadership and into the future.

Thank you again to the TCP Keepers, Streamkeepers, volunteers, donors, Board of Directors and Advisors, and all our dedicated constituents for your ongoing support, day in and day out. From the bottom of my heart.

Julie Slavet, Executive Director

905 Volunteer Hours

440 Free Programs Hosted

205 Individual Donors

Stories

The Power of Early Learning

Last year, families found exciting ways to engage with our new interactive River Alive! Learning Trail. The creation of this unique bilingual environmental education and playful early learning experience, based on the exhibit at the Independence Seaport Museum, was led by Victoria Prizzia of Habitheque, with lots of neighborhood input. This special project was made possible by the William Penn Foundation.

Located next to Ferko Recreation Center along Tacony Creek Park in Juniata Park, the unique installation includes six stations, each featuring an animal sculpture, seating, and English/Spanish bilingual signage for families to learn about the local watershed, nearby Tacony Creek, and the water itself!

The sculptures feature six animals that live in the watershed: fox, fish, turtle, heron, watersnake, and otter. Each sculpture includes an interactive water feature and an animal song, written by City Love and accessed via QR code, to demonstrate that the animals are part of our diverse urban community. Crosswalks leading from the closest Tacony Creek Park gateway to the animals were painted with colorful fish by local artist Jay Coreano, with the help of neighbors.

Neighborhood kids and their families explored and engaged with the six animals that swim, fly, and live in our streams and green spaces. They created the mosaic bases for each animal, celebrated the opening of the trail, participated in activities using a special Learning Trail Discovery kit, Seek and Find map, and water poetry. Families even visited the exhibit that inspired the trail at the Seaport Museum, traveling together by bus, chaperoned by TTF. While the families reluctantly said goodbye to their adopted animals as the weather got colder, we’re all looking forward to welcoming them back each summer.

How special was this project? In October 2022, Chelsea Clinton of the Clinton Foundation visited the Learning Trail on a Philadelphia tour of playful learning experiences led by the William Penn Foundation and Too Small To Fail, a Clinton Foundation initiative.

Learn more about the Learning Trail and how educational activities like River Alive! contribute to our community.

“The park is a retreat from city life. It’s a nice green space and helps me clear my mind.”

— Seri Chao, Chef

be in tune with nature, to be able to hear the birds chirping, the water running, to look

around and be amongst the trees or on a trail tucked away from a main street. That access creates a safe haven for me to decompress and ground myself.”

— Dr. Rhoda Moise; Epidemiologist, Artist, Yoga Instructor

BOTTOM Visit park lover Dr. Rhoda Moise on the sign near the Adams Avenue bridge.

Maria Vazquez is featured on a sign in the park across from her home

Our People of the Park Prevail

This year we introduced People of the Park , a pilot project composed of a permanent series of physical portrait signs along the Tacony Creek Park Trail. As part of this unique community engagement opportunity to honor the ethnically, linguistically and culturally rich surrounding constituents, we selected four very different neighbors coincidentally connected by their relentless love and deep appreciation for this green space. Through images, words and sound, these unique and quite personal installations not only promote advocacy for protecting the land, but also serve as a heartwarming, engaging storytelling vehicle for the park itself.

Visit the signs between Cheltenham Avenue and Tabor Road. We’re hoping to secure funding so we can work with our partners at Olney Culture Lab to tell more stories from additional neighbors.

Doing Your Part to Stream Smart

Over the last ten years, many of our residential constituents have done their part to improve and maintain the health and vitality of our watershed. Through the Stream Smart program, we’ve provided both recommendations and assistance to upstream residents to improve their properties through Green Stormwater Infrastructure (GSI) –nature-based solutions – to manage stormwater runoff pollution, cleaning the water before it enters the creek and helping to reduce future flooding.

As part of the Delaware River Watershed Initiative and through a generous grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, we’ve helped residents create rain gardens and bioswales, plant native trees, and install rain barrels. We’ve kept the momentum going by not only offering evaluations of residential needs, but by selling over 200 barrels in the TTF footprint over the last 10 years. Really, we’re just getting started.

As true ambassadors for the watershed, these neighbors continue to make a very symbolic difference through their commitment to keeping their landscape healthy, while also tackling stormwater runoff at their homes and in their yards.

“TTF did an audit and calculated how much runoff they would catch off [my property]… the grant was approved and not only did we get our hands dirty but our two kids did, too. Plus... we got a snapping turtle walking down our driveway!”

— Timothy Voit, Homeowner & TTF Bioswale Advocate

We can’t wait to share future projects with you, like our Alverthorpe Park restoration in Abington.

Stream Smart Success

Stream Smart features 13 residential projects: rain gardens, bioswales, creekside plantings, live staking.

We’ve been selling rain barrels since 2015. We have sold over 250 rain barrels across our Montgomery County communities. We estimate that these barrels held back over 1 million gallons of rain from the stormwater system in the last year.

250 rain barrels sold since 2015 — that’s over 1 million gallons of rain!