Grid Magazine February 2019 [#117]

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5 reasons our bicycle community is thriving

The city swoons for natural wine p. 12

p. 6

FEBRUARY 2019 / ISSUE 117 / 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

THE SPORT OF KINGS in Fairmount Park

Work to Ride celebrates 25 years of polo for urban youth Looking for the perfect gift? Our guide to quality gifts made by Philly artisans

CREATING PHILADELPHIA’S NEXT GREAT DEVELOPERS

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+ + Turn Turn your your ideas ideas into into reality reality at at NextFab, NextFab, a a network network of of makerspaces makerspaces + +

RAPID RAPID Heartbeat Heartbeat NextFab’s accelerator puts start-ups on the path NextFab’s accelerator puts start-ups on the path The event was standing room only, and the audience was rapturous.

The event was standing room only, and the audience was rapturous.

A Silicon Valley expat relayed his impression of the showing. “Philadelphia today feels like A Silicon Valley expat relayed his impression of the showing. “Philadelphia today feels like Silicon Valley did at the beginning.”

Silicon Valley did at the beginning.”

This kind of excitement permeated NextFab’s graduation even on December 13th at the Venture This kind of excitement permeated NextFab’s graduation even on December 13th at the Venture Café, which celebrated the completion of the 5th cohort of the RAPID Hardware Accelerator Café, which celebrated the completion of the 5th cohort of the RAPID Hardware Accelerator program. program.

It all started in September with four ideas, and three months later, finished with four companies It all started in September with four ideas, and three months later, finished with four companies and prototypes. The Fall 2018 cohort was diverse, developing hardware in the fields of addiction and prototypes. The Fall 2018 cohort was diverse, developing hardware in the fields of addiction remediation, prosthetic limb calibration, gardening and gaming. The graduates ran the gamut remediation, prosthetic limb calibration, gardening and gaming. The graduates ran the gamut from experienced entrepreneurs to first-time developers and business owners. from experienced entrepreneurs to first-time developers and business owners.

The accelerator provides consultation on product development, business coaching and pre-seed The accelerator provides consultation on product development, business coaching and pre-seed funding to startups. In a broader sense, it launches entrepreneurs into the dynamic startup funding to startups. In a broader sense, it launches entrepreneurs into the dynamic startup ecosystem in Philadelphia through networks and partnerships. ecosystem in Philadelphia through networks and partnerships.

Venture Services Manager Todor Raykov reflects, “I’ve been fortunate enough to be a part of Venture Services Manager Todor Raykov reflects, “I’ve been fortunate enough to be a part of [this] program since its inception in 2016. Back then I was tasked with...implement[ing] the lean [this] program since its inception in 2016. Back then I was tasked with...implement[ing] the lean startup and customer development methodologies popularized by Eric Ries and his mentor startup and customer development methodologies popularized by Eric Ries and his mentor Steve Blank. We’ve been running RAPID as a startup since day one.

Steve Blank. We’ve been running RAPID as a startup since day one.

Marvin Weinberger is the driving force behind Philly’s Makers Meetup and Maker Faire. He and Marvin Weinberger is the driving force behind Philly’s Makers Meetup and Maker Faire. He and Todor saw the opportunity to bring the RAPID event to the Venture Café, a non-profit networking Todor saw the opportunity to bring the RAPID event to the Venture Café, a non-profit networking hub that provides programming to innovators and entrepreneurs. By holding the event in hub that provides programming to innovators and entrepreneurs. By holding the event in tandem with the Maker Meetup at a venue that draws a broader crowd, program awareness can tandem with the Maker Meetup at a venue that draws a broader crowd, program awareness can increase. increase.

Todor says, “We know that we can’t deliver everything that the startups in our cohorts need to Todor says, “We know that we can’t deliver everything that the startups in our cohorts need to survive and thrive, but we can connect them to our network of partners and resource providers survive and thrive, but we can connect them to our network of partners and resource providers that can supply what’s needed. For next year, our plan is to expand this network even further and that can supply what’s needed. For next year, our plan is to expand this network even further and make sure that the selected startups take advantage of the available opportunities.” make sure that the selected startups take advantage of the available opportunities.”

Have a product idea but lack the experience or facilities to produce a viable prototype? The Have a product idea but lack the experience or facilities to produce a viable prototype? The RAPID Hardware Accelerator might be a great fit. The deadline for applications is February 15th RAPID Hardware Accelerator might be a great fit. The deadline for applications is February 15th and accepted teams will receive up to $25,000 in funding. and accepted teams will receive up to $25,000 in funding.

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F E B RUARY 20 19

1

EDI TO R ’S NOTES

by

alex mulcahy

We Need You

publisher Alex Mulcahy associate editors Vince Bellino Timothy Mulcahy art director Michael Wohlberg writers Bernard Brown Constance Garcia-Barrio Alexandra Jones Emily Kovach Cynthia Kreilick Randy LoBasso Claire Marie Porter photographers Kriston Jae Bethel illustrators Frito Bastien Zach Manbeck advertising Santino Blanco santino@gridphilly.com 215.625.9850 ext. 112 distribution Alex Yarde alex.yarde@redflagmedia.com 215.625.9850 ext. 107 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 J U M P P H I L LY. C O M

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A

fter a decade, it’s time for Grid to change. Our product and our business model need some adjustments. First, the magazine itself.

Grid was designed to inspire, educate and build community. (Let me assure you now that these three pillars will remain.) We wanted people to feel empowered to make changes in their lives, the city and the world. We wanted to make heroes of people doing work right here in Philadelphia. This was exemplified when, somehow, we talked the Water Department’s Howard Neukrug into donning a cape and posing like Superman.

Approaching journalism from a positive perspective has been both fun and rewarding. And highlighting solutions and people making a difference has allowed us to take an unblinking look at the most important issue facing us: climate change.

But we haven’t always been as critical as we should be.

Ten years ago this month, we ran a feelgood cover story about a start-up solar company with a charismatic owner. Not long after it was published, I began hearing reports that the company was incompetent. A couple years later, the owner was arrested for taking money from homeowners and never installing solar panels.

Going this route of building a groundswell of support is going to take a long time, probably years.

But if we do this groundwork, then Grid will have a healthy long-term plan.”

Much to my regret, we never followed up on that story, even after his arrest. And that’s not the only story we missed.

Last month, we ran a story by Samantha Wittchen about the recycling crisis in Philadelphia, and I’m really proud of it. While the optimistic and enthusiastic outlook of Grid will continue, you can also expect more investigative journalism, and, when it’s time, holding people accountable within the community. We have some interesting stories in the queue that we’re eager to share with you.

Now, on to business. After a decade of relying exclusively on advertising, we need to lean on you, our readers, for support.

While our model currently sustains us, we are vulnerable. We count on too few people to feel secure.

I need you to support Grid on a monthly basis. We’re asking for readers to subscribe for $2.99 a month, with an option to pay $5, $10 or more if you can. We’re also going to be introducing some advertising options that will cost between $25 and $100.

Going this route of building a groundswell of support is going to take a long time, probably years. But if we do this groundwork, then Grid will have a healthy long-term plan.

So please visit our website with a credit card in hand. And if we’ve crossed paths in the past 10 years, don’t be surprised if you get a phone call. I’m viewing this as a great opportunity to reconnect with everyone I’ve met and worked with in the last decade, and to take the message of Grid back on the road. Let’s build this together for the next ten years.

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

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3

L ETTERS

recycling

A Big Waste: The City Responds Last month, Grid’s cover story, “A Big Waste,” reported on the city’s recycling crisis and why 50 percent of the city’s recyclables are being incinerated. Below is the City’s response.

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he city would like to thank Grid for the opportunity to set the record straight regarding its January article entitled “A Big Waste.”

The Streets Department, Mayor Kenney and the Zero Waste and Litter Cabinet remain committed to recycling and to securing the best-value contract on behalf of all city taxpayers. There is no time like the present for the city to negotiate the best-value contract for Philadelphians, not the best contract for private companies looking to capitalize on a weak recycling market.

The article correctly reported that roughly 50 percent of recycled materials are currently recycled, while the remaining 50 percent are processed as waste-to-energy in Philadelphia. Startling, yes. Cause for alarm, no. Considering the global market has impacted cities everywhere, Philadelphia is not in a unique position when compared to other municipalities with single-stream collections.

As for our planning, regardless of staffing levels or the availability of “extra” tax-payer dollars in a rainy-day fund, the market swing was so dramatic that shifting an entire recycling operation for 1.5 million residents was nearly impossible. Every recycling processor in the country can attest that a 0.5 percent contamination rate is impossible to hit with current technology and systems. Some municipalities are getting rid of hard-to-recycle materials like glass.

Others are limiting how much recycling they can take. Philadelphia was forced to take only the cleanest recycling so as not to be penalized for violating contamination standards as we prepare for a contract that fits this new recycling marketplace.

Furthermore, Philadelphia’s Recycling Office was always staffed by a recycling coordinator as mandated by Act 101. In fact, the Streets Department just elevated its recycling coordinator to a director-level position to 4

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understand what can and can’t be recycled, wash and clean out recyclables being set out curbside and to reduce single-use plastics.

When we reduce what goes into our landfills, it’s a win-win for our planet and the city’s bottom line. carlton williams, Commissioner, Philadelphia Department of Streets nic esposito, Director, Zero Waste & Litter Cabinet

grid responds:

encompass a greater level of responsibility congruent to the needs of the Department and Recycling Office. The position the article questioned was not left vacant for two years, as a very capable coordinator held the role through July 2018. The director position was advertised shortly after the coordinator departed and was filled December 2018 by a highly-qualified candidate.

Finally, the Streets Department and the city have never solely emphasized that education and outreach to residents was the only means for addressing contamination in recycling. Contamination is costly, and the Department is addressing it from many angles including calling for longterm solutions that require public-private partnerships in opening up more domestic capability, greater use of technology, the introduction of more products that can be recycled in current markets, and the possible modification of materials accepted curbside.

Our challenge to the readers of Grid and all Philadelphians is to join us in our recycling efforts in order to avoid “A Big Waste.” We encourage residents to better

Grid maintains its position that the current crisis is the result of the city’s lack of planning for the expiration of its recycling contract. Amid recycling markets that had been in turmoil for over a year, Philadelphia allowed its recycling contract to expire in September 2018. The process of seeking bids did not begin early enough to prevent this crisis.

The city’s minimal recycling staff, as compared to other comparably sized large cities like San Antonio and San Diego, contributed to its inability to respond to new market conditions that were announced by China in July 2017. Yes, Philadelphia had a recycling coordinator, but regardless of qualification, that position is not a substitute for a fully staffed Recycling Office with a director-level leader who is empowered to make changes that respond to changing market conditions.

For over two years, Philadelphia had no such director, as originally reported in the article. The recycling coordinator lacked either the authority or skills to ensure that a new contract would be in place prior to the expiration of the old one.

Regardless of the reasons cited by the city, it has fundamentally failed to do its lawfully required job of responsibly disposing of the city’s recyclables. As of January 23, the administration has presented no concrete plan or timeline for how or when it will ameliorate this situation, indicating a lack of urgency and commitment from the Streets Department, Mayor Kenney and City Council to fix our recycling crisis.

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5

B IK E TA LK

by

randy lobasso

Trending Upward Our city’s bike community keeps getting stronger.

What are we doing right?

E

ach year, the U.S. Census conducts its American Community Survey, asking people around the country what sort of transportation they use to get to work.

Every time it’s released, it seems someone in the media attempts to use the numbers to come to a definitive conclusion about bicycling. For instance, bicycling in Philadelphia fell to 1.9 percent of commuters in 2015. So, one Philadelphia Daily News columnist concluded, predictably, that bicycling was “on the decline.”

Since that newspaper column, the trend has reversed. The census found bicycling to work in Philadelphia increased to 2.6 percent in 2017—a 20.5 percent increase over 2016—and a more than 350 percent increase since 1990.

This is happening as many cities around the country, including San Francisco, Oakland and Seattle, have seen decreases in their latest year-to-year numbers.

The City of Brotherly Love can count itself as the most-biked big city, per capita, in the country.

This upward cycling trend in Philadelphia can’t be explained by one particular factor. So here are five:

A Longstanding Tradition With the creation of new bike lanes, dockless bike share, e-scooter sharing and bicycle-friendly housing going up in cities, Americans are utilizing alternatives to motor vehicles like never before.

Twenty years ago, few would have dreamed that Los Angeles would be in6

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stalling protected bike lanes so residents could pedal through Venice Beach on their way to work.

Philadelphia, on the other hand, has had a strong bicycling tradition for decades. The people who would eventually form the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia, where I work, began meeting at 30th Street Station in 1972.

has only gotten stronger. The Philadelphia International Cycling Classic began running in 1985 and has utilized the river trail and Manayunk’s treacherous hills for more than 30 years. Today there are several Facebook groups, such as CycleScenePHL, which organizes monthly rides that are attended by dozens, and Kidical Mass Philadelphia, which arranges family-friendly bike rides.

One of their goals was simply to have more access for bicyclists on our streets, trails and bridges. Within a year, they found their first fight: allowing cyclists on the Benjamin Franklin Bridge walkway. By the following year, they’d won that battle.

Since then, Philadelphia’s cycling culture

Cycling is in Our Geography and the City’s Bones Bike advocate Russell Meddin likes to tell the story about traveling to Lyon, France, in 2006. While there, he noticed something familiar: A flat city whose downtown sat between two rivers. He saw cyclists everywhere, some using a bike-share system, and realized how easy bike rentals could be.

“While I was in Lyon, the person who I was visiting told me about how the system changed her life and had made it so much easier for her to get to her job at the university and saved her time from either taking the subway or driving,” Meddin told bikeshare.com in 2013. “I started thinking that it would be great in Philadelphia because Philly and Lyon are very geographically similar.”

A Philly native, he brought the idea for bike sharing back to his native city and, in 2015, Indego Bike Share became a reality.

Our small, Colonial-era streets are often pothole ridden and in need of a fresh dab of paint, but in some ways they’re perfect for cycling. Given how narrow they are—

randy lobasso is the communications manager at the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia.

IL LUSTRATIO N BY ZACH MA NBEC K

especially compared to those of West Coast cities—cars have to drive more slowly and, therefore, it’s easier to navigate on a bike.

Our Infrastructure Is Growing Philadelphia installed its first protected bike lane in 2015 on Ryan Avenue in Northeast Philadelphia. Since then, cycling advocates and avid supporters of safer streets have fought to bring about more changes on the ground.

A years-long advocacy battle concluded (for now) on Chestnut Street in 2016 with a new protected bike lane installed for 11 blocks in West Philadelphia.

Protected bike lanes were installed on John F. Kennedy Boulevard and Market Street in 2018 after nine years of advocacy, and last month, several Center City civic organizations unanimously voted to make both lanes permanent.

This year we will see improvements on Spruce, Pine, 10th Street, 13th Street, Amer-

ican Street, and, perhaps, Fifth, Sixth and Second Streets.

This is all happening now because of the relentless push cyclists—who just want to ride safely—have made over the years.

Cycling is Cheap Philadelphia is not only the most-biked big city in the U.S., it’s also the poorest. Sure, some of the most-ridden streets in the city are downtown, but many of the most frequent cyclists live in Philadelphia’s underserved communities.

Many don’t necessarily identify as “cyclists,” per se, but for the city’s working class and those living paycheck-to-paycheck, cycling makes the most financial sense.

Additionally, as I discussed in last month’s “Bike Talk” column, sometimes immigration status makes cyclists reluctant to answer census surveys; but those “invisible cyclists” are an important part of our community.

Trails If you only use Philadelphia’s unique trail system on weekends, boy, are you missing out. The Wissahickon Trail, Kelly Drive Trail and Martin Luther King Jr. path are some of the easiest ways to commute to and from Northwest Philadelphia.

Some of the biggest gains in bike commuting over the past five years have been happening in Germantown, Mt. Airy and Manayunk; and, in fact, the census found that Wissahickon Valley (the neighborhood in Northwest Philly that is accessible to the path and isn’t up any of the challenging hills) has the city’s largest percentage of people (27.3 percent) who commute by bike. Areas of East and West Mt. Airy and Germantown have also seen jumps in bike commuting over the last several years.

The work of bicycle advocates is often an uphill climb, and we can’t coast on our good statistics, but Philly is poised to keep the upward trend going.

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urban naturalist

Duck, Duck, Coot Birders document the impressive array of wintering by bernard brown bird species

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awn over the Delaware River painted clouds rose and orange in the frigid morning air as three participants in the Philadelphia Mid-Winter Bird Census stepped out of a hatchback.

Keith Russell, Shawn Towey and Patrick McGill stood at the base of the driveway for Pulaski Park in North Philadelphia, binoculars in hand, and confronted an unexpected construction fence. Undeterred, they found a gap to slip through and made their way to the water’s edge.

Pulaski Park covers a strip of land along the edge of a wide pier that pokes out into the river. Ducks, many asleep with their heads tucked back, bobbed softly in the water between the park and another pier downriver. Ring-billed gulls flew upriver as the sun emerged, dispersing from their 8

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roosts to forage across the city.

Russell, an urban conservation program manager with Audubon Pennsylvania, is the founder of Philadelphia’s census.

“The reason I started it, in 1987, was to draw attention to the fact that the city of Philadelphia has a thriving population of winter birds,” says Russell, who at the time worked at the Academy of Natural Sciences.

Winter bird censuses commonly take place as part of Audubon’s national Christmas Bird Count program. As Russell explains, though, it is impossible to fit a Philadelphia-exclusive count within the Christmas Bird Count rules, which require a 15-mile radius. The city might be 22 miles long, but it is as narrow as 4 miles in some sections.

Out in the field, Russell calls out duck species on the water as he sees them: lesser

scaup, mallards, buffleheads, ruddy ducks.

McGill spots double-crested cormorants flying low over the river. Towey chimes in with a few canvasback ducks she finds. In about five minutes, they have seen all the birds visible from the park, and everyone slips back through the fence and into the car.

The trio had started their day shortly after 4 a.m. in Wissahickon Park.

“We found six screech owls,” McGill says, locating them by their high-pitched, whiny calls. They planned to keep on birding until around 4 p.m., counting all the birds they saw.

Katrina Rakowski, an artist and art teacher who has been birding seriously since 2013, took part this year on a team covering the P HOTO G RAP HY BY KRISTO N JAE BETHEL

Septa_Grid_23Page_FollowTrain_Final_20181217.pdf 1 12/17/2018 12:24:35 PM

The sun rises over the Delaware at the Sanitation Convenience Center, as Keith Russell takes a gander at the avian creatures.

northwestern edge of Philadelphia. She first participated in 2014 as a novice birder, covering Temple University’s campus.

“We would not have gone out birding for pleasure ... but it got us out, so to speak, moving around and getting more acquainted with what’s outside when the weather is not as nice, and the birds are still out there,” Rakowski says, noting the extremely cold weather during the 2018 census.

“It’s so nice to have some sun,” Russell says gratefully as they again hop out of the car at a city recycling yard upriver.

They spot a coot among the ducks and geese just waking up on the water. A fish crow gives a nasal “caw” as it flies overhead, and McGill stops everyone to pinpoint a raven’s hoarse call in the distance. Soon he spots it on the roof of a decrepit factory.

C A kestrel, a small and colorful falcon, flies overhead and lands on a giant smokestack M Y closer to the car.

Towey, McGill and Russell down a quick CM snack in the car before heading over to the MY nearby Northeast Water Pollution Control Plant, home to a flock of famous (among CY birders, that is) rough-winged swallows. CMY Ordinarily swallows fly south to Latin K America for the winter, since their insect prey is not available in the cold. However, a flock of intrepid swallows chooses to skip the migration and stay all winter, eating midges that breed at the plant. Other normally migratory songbirds join them, and this year several teams of census participants converged on the plant to see what novelties might turn up. They were rewarded by three species never before documented in the winter in Philadelphia: Nashville warbler, Cape May warbler and a blue-gray gnatcatcher.

Based on preliminary results as of January 17, at least 80 birders took part this year and observed over 100 species of birds, “something that can’t be done in most other counties in Pennsylvania,” says Russell, “which means that Philadelphia has one of the most diverse populations of wintering bird species of any county in the state, despite its small size and large human population.”

Philadelphia’s census is co-sponsored by the Delaware Valley Ornithological Club and Audubon Pennsylvania.

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black history

A Word in Edgewise Rare firsthand accounts give insight into the daily lives of by constance garcia-barrio Civil War-era black women

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ilms, books and ballads tell of the South during the Civil War (April 1861-April 1865), but they seem struck dumb about black women in the North during those turbulent times. However, the Quaker City has lucked out. “Emilie Davis’s Civil War, the Diaries of a Free Black Woman in Philadelphia, 18631865, opens a personal window to daily life in the city’s vibrant black community,” says Judith Giesberg, 52, a professor of history at Villanova University, who edited, transcribed and annotated the diaries.

Emilie Davis (1839-1889), a lively young 10

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woman when the Civil War broke out, wrote short daily entries in three pocket-sized diaries, each no bigger than a cell phone.

Giesberg’s single-volume edition preserves Emilie’s spelling and lack of punctuation.

“To day has bin a memorable day and i thank God i have been sperd to see it,” Emilie wrote on January 1, 1863. Emilie missed few big social and political events. She attended speeches by Frederick Douglass and joined other African-Americans who crowded into black churches to cheer on the stroke of midnight, when the Emancipation Proclamation became law, Giesberg explains.

A seamstress so skilled that she made wedding gowns, Emilie felt the war’s effects on cloth prices. “I went out shoping … ” she wrote on February 19, 1863, “ … muslins [a kind of cotton] are frightfully Dear … ” With the South’s disrupted cotton production and the cloth’s use in uniforms, prices soared.

The conflict sometimes changed life’s daily rhythms, as when President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed “national fast days” during the war to pray for forgiveness from God. “Today is set apart as a national fast day … ” Emilie wrote on April 30, 1863.

In late June 1863, a battle seemed to loom on Philadelphia’s doorstep, when General Robert E. Lee, desperate to take the fight

E M IL IE DAV IS D IARY IN THE HAN DS O F J UD ITH G IES B E RG, 1863 (DAMS 141 8 ) , VO L . 1 O F DAV IS D IARIES [ 3030 ] , HISTO RICAL SO CIETY O F P E N N SYLVA NI A .

P HOTO BY E DWARD FI ERROS

We went [to school] every day ... with our books wrapped in paper to prevent the police or white persons from seeing them.” —Susie King Taylor

Left: The diaries of Emilie Davis give a glimpse of the life of a young, free, black Philadelphia woman during the Civil War. Right: Susie King Taylor, a former slave, aided the Northern cause as the first Black Army nurse.

out of war-weary Virginia, invaded Pennsylvania. “Refugees are comin from all the towns this side of Harrisburg the greates excitement Prevails. I am all most sick worrin about father [who lived in Harrisburg] … ” Emilie wrote on June 29 and 30, just before the Battle of Gettysburg.

“Emilie was right to worry about her father, because rebel soldiers kidnapped hundreds of free blacks and sold them into slavery,” Giesberg explains.

Pennsylvania began recruiting black soldiers, called United States Colored Troops (USCT), in 1863. Many of them trained at Camp William Penn, 13 miles north of the city in Chelten Hills (Cheltenham Township),

near the home of abolitionist Lucretia Mott (1793-1880). “This morning Jenie and I went up Chestnut St. to see the colored soldiers they went away to day,” Emilie reported on February 10, 1864. Black Philadelphians applauded the troops, who would fight at Yorktown and Petersburg, Giesberg says.

Philadelphians rode a wave of joy when Richmond fell on April 2, 1865. “The city is wild with excitement,” Emilie wrote on April 4, 1865, “ … flags are flying everywhere.” Just 11 days later, news of Lincoln’s murder crushed many Philadelphians. “The city is in deep mourning,” Emilie wrote.

People mobbed the streets and stood on rooftops on April 23, 1865, to watch Lincoln’s funeral cortège inch down Broad Street, then turn east to Independence Hall, where the body would lie in state. Emilie tried to glimpse Lincoln that day but was crowded out. She succeeded the next day. “I got to see him after waiting [two] hours and a half it was certainly a sight worth seeing … ” The Civil War had ended, yet struggles remained. Not one to miss good entertainment, Emilie and a friend went to see Blind Tom (1848-1908), pianist and composer extraordinaire, sometimes described as an “autistic savant.” Born into slavery, at age 10 he was said to be able to play two different tunes on two different pianos while singing a third song. “I was much Pleased with the preformance excepting we had to sit upstairs which made me furious,” Emilie wrote on September 14, 1865.

Black women in Philadelphia, including Emilie, continued to fight to ride horsedrawn streetcars, a battle begun during the Civil War. Some war-time camps for United States Colored Troops lay far from black neighborhoods. Determined to deliver supplies and tend to sick and wounded Af-

PUBLIC DO M A IN, O N WIK IP E D I A HTT PS : //EN.WIK IP EDIA .O RG/ W I KI / SUS I E _TAYLO R # / M E D I A / FI LE :SUS IE _KIN G _TAY LO R.J P G

rican-American soldiers, members of black women’s aid societies like the Ladies’ Union Association—to which Emilie belonged—at times rode horse-drawn streetcars to reach the troops. When white passengers objected, black women usually held their ground.

That stance could mean fights.

“Harriet Tubman (1822-1913), a former Union spy and scout, suffered injuries to her arm and shoulders in 1866 when a conductor and his friends threw her off a Philadelphia streetcar,” Giesberg says. Black women, who often faced these fights alone, sometimes sued streetcar companies. They helped gain ground for the whole community, and in 1867, a law ended streetcar segregation. susie king taylor’s memoir, Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33rd Colored Troops, Late 1st South Carolina Volunteers, makes a good complement to Davis’s diaries. Born into slavery in South Carolina, Taylor (1848-1912) became literate because her enslaved grandmother sent her to an illegal school for black children. “We went every day ... with our books wrapped in paper to prevent the police or white persons from seeing them,” Taylor wrote.

Thanks to that schooling, Taylor described not only the lice, hunger, wounds and celebrations among black Union troops in the South—“On the first of January 1863 … we had a grand barbecue … A number of oxen were roasted whole … ” —but also the little-known help Union soldiers received from southern black women during the war.

“Many people do not know what some … colored women did during the war,” Taylor wrote, “ … hundreds of them assisted …

Union soldiers by hiding them and helping them escape. Many [black women] were punished for taking food to the prison stockades for … [Union] prisoners … The soldiers were starving, and these women did all they could toward relieving the men, though they knew the penalty, should they be caught … These things should be kept in history before the people.”

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natural wine

TERMS TO KNOW

En Vogue Natural wine finds its place in Philadelphia’s restaurant scene by

emily kovach

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loudy in the glass and full of zingy life and pungency, a glass of wine shattered everything I’d previously believed about the drink. Wine had seemed boring or inaccessible, either anonymous and mediocre or interesting but wildly expensive. Then last year I tried a chardonnay from Australian natural wine producer Lucy Margaux Chardonnay.

I was mesmerized and instantly ravenous for more. Suddenly I had joined the growing legions of natural-wine converts.

Natural wine isn’t new to Philadelphia or the wine world at large, but thanks to a new wave of enthusiasts, natural wine has emerged in our city’s culinary scene. But what makes a wine natural? It’s more about 12

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what doesn’t. Most commercial wines are heavily processed and require significant intervention. Chemicals are present in nearly every step of the process, from pesticides in the vineyards to synthetic compounds used during fining and filtering. Mass-produced wine is an industrialized process.

Natural wine is its antithesis.

“I personally define it as wine that has nothing added, nothing removed,” says Sande Friedman, a wine and beer analyst at gourmet-food importer Di Bruno Bros.

“It’s the grapes; it’s the natural yeasts that are on the skin. The wines we grew up with, there’s so much more stuff in them than we realize, and there’s a reason they taste exactly the same bottle to bottle and year to year.”

carbonic maceration: A winemaking technique where whole grapes are fermented in a carbon dioxide-rich environment prior to crushing. This results in fruity, low-tannic wines that are easy to drink (see “glou-glou”). glou-glou: French slang for fresh, light wines that are easy-drinking. pétillant naturel (or pét-nat): Wine that’s bottled before it’s completed its first round of fermentation. It undergoes secondary fermentation inside the bottle. skin contact: Wine made from white wine grapes with skins left intact. The skins commingle with the juice for days or months. It’s sometimes referred to as “orange wine.” vin de soif: Translates from French to “wines for thirst.” zero-zero: Totally sulfite-free and with zero mechanical or chemical intervention.

For the past two years, Friedman has been managing the bottle shops at Di Bruno’s Franklin and Rittenhouse locations.

Both have a strong focus on natural wine.

Peruse their shelves and you might find a spicy syrah from La Clarine Farm in California’s Sierra Nevada foothills or a carbonic macerated red blend, like Best Haircut In This Or Any Universe, from Fossil & Fawn P HOTO G RAP HY BY KRISTO N JAE BETHEL

Jack Cunicelli, co-owner of 320 Market Café, is a champion of natural wines.

in Oregon’s Willamette Valley.

Many natural wines sport cool, well-designed labels, but there is substance behind that style. With low-intervention methods, such as picking and sorting grapes by hand instead of raking them with machinery, these wines are better for the Earth and, according to natural-wine proponents, your mouth.

Natural Wine, Natural Roots “This is grape juice: naturally fermented, end of story,” says founder of the famed Pizzeria Beddia, Joe Beddia, whose fullscale bar and restaurant, Pizzeria Beddia 2, is set to open in Fishtown in Spring 2019.

Beddia plans to build his entire wine list around natural wine. “Everyone cares where their food comes from, but wine’s another thing ... What’s in your glass? You probably couldn’t say what’s in there. I want wine that’s better for the Earth and better for people.”

Beddia’s passion for natural wine can be seen on his Instagram feed (@pizzacamp) and in a two-page spread in his cookbook, Pizza Camp. In October 2017, he went to Oregon to make wine with Ross and Bee Maloof (former Philly residents) of Maloof Wines.

He says that his hope for his wine program is that it’s approachable to everyone.

“I want it to be clear and concise and cover all the bases,” he says.

To do this, he’ll have to eschew the traditional restaurant model of marking up glasses of conventional wine nearly 400 percent to achieve large profit margins. Natural wines suffer high prices (as do conventional wines) because restaurants must purchase them at retail cost, and not wholesale, through the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board.

“How do you serve [natural] wine at an affordable price?” Beddia says. “That’s the real conversation.”

Dispelling Misconceptions “It’s a philosophy that’s grounded in history and agriculture,” says Chloé Grigi, general manager of The Good King Tavern in Bella Vista. “It’s about using all of our resources in the modern day to expertly create Old

WHERE TO FIND NATURAL WINE World wines in a really precise fashion and bearing in mind our environment.”

Grigi curates the deep wine list at this comfy French tavern that she co-owns with her father, Bernard. The wines that she chooses are vetted to meet her standards, and she can provide long and detailed biographies about pretty much all of them. Many come from the Loire Valley, the Savoie, Burgundy and other winemaking regions in France, though the list spans the globe.

She is careful to point out that there are lots of misconceptions about natural wine, including that it’s an “anti-establishment free-for-all.” She asserts that natural winemaking is extremely precise and scientific, not just leaving some juice outside to ferment.

Another misconception is that all natural wines taste “fun and funky”—some definitely do, and a lot of consumers love that about them—but some taste restrained and clean. But she does admit that the whole subculture has a punk glamour to it.

“There is this rockstar culture behind natural winemaking,” she notes. “Because [the makers] are risk takers; they are inherently pioneers.”

Not Just a City Face One might assume this is just a city phenomenon, but that’s not the case. Visit Teresa’s Next Door in Wayne for a vast natural wine program, or stop in to either of the 320 Market Cafés in Media or Swarthmore.

Jack Cunicelli, who co-owns 320 with his brother, has been growing a natural-wine bottle shop and bar program since 2015 (for which he’s now being recognized by outlets like Food & Wine and Philadelphia magazines).

Drawn to “wild and feral” styles, Cunicel-

By the glass: Fountain Porter, The Good King Tavern, Kensington Quarters, Martha, Oloroso, Townsend, Vedge, V Street, Vernick, Walnut Street Café Bottles to-go: Fishtown Social, Bottle Shop at Local 44, Di Bruno Bros. (Rittenhouse & and Italian Market), Fine Wine & Good Spirits at 1121 Chestnut St., 320 Market Café in Swarthmore and Media, Teresa’s Next Door in Wayne

li says he simply stocks and pours things he likes to drink. He says his audience, largely residents of Delaware County—though he claims many visitors from the city—have been receptive and open to natural wine.

“These are things that taste good, and people with taste buds understand that,” he says. “I call these ‘working-class wines.’ Fun, easy wine that you can tailgate with. You don’t have to get a box of Barefoot wine, it starts like garbage and ends up like garbage.”

Cunicelli plans to make more space in 320’s Media location for bottles, which range in price and style but mostly fit within his personal guidelines. He advertises new arrivals on Instagram (@320_wine), and coveted bottles from small wineries like Partida Creus and Lucy Margaux fly off the shelves.

“It’s a trend that’s post-hipster,” he says.

“It’s now mainstream.”

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The Sport of Kings in the the City of Brotherly Love

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SUCCESS P HOTO COU RT ESY O F L EZ LI E H I N E R, WO R K TO R I D E

very kid deserves food ,

water, shelter and a pony,” reads one of many slogans at the Chamounix Equestrian Center. Tucked into the North Philadelphia Strawberry Mansion neighborhood, low-income youth have the opportunity to experience English-style horseback riding through a long-term equine sports program called Work to Ride.

On a bright fall morning, mounted teenagers in jodhpurs move across the grounds.

More-experienced riders sit upright with ease; the less confident look flimsy in the saddle. Here, unmistakable snorts and whinnies and the sound of polo mallets connecting with wooden balls stand in contrast to the city’s traffic.

The entrance to the stables is hard to find.

A small path winds through bowing sunflowers, and overgrown butterfly bushes spill into the walkway. Inside the barn, retired racehorses line both sides of the corridor, reaching out their massive heads to nudge visitors with their muzzles.

The 35-stall barn was formerly McCarthy Stables, home of the mounted police force of Philadelphia. Now it’s a humble barn on a sycamore-lined dead-end street dedicated to employing and occupying underprivileged youth.

story by

claire marie porter

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these kids deserve ponies just as much as, if not more than, anyone else.

The road to polo is one of dedication and practice.

“I don’t just throw a kid onto a horse and give them a mallet,” says Hiner.

It begins with English-style riding, and a good “hunt seat,” she says, referring to a form of English riding based on the tradition of fox hunting.

Hiner teaches polo, and a trainer named Lisa Arnold teaches English riding.

Another Work to Ride slogan is wryly self-aware: “Polo: noun, a sport for royalty, millionaires and homeboys.”

O

ne of the program’s homeboys includes Daymar Rosser, who led his team to win the U.S. Polo Association National Championship in 2011.

It was the first all-black team to do so.

Rosser was five years old in 1999 when his older brother threw him on a horse and whipped it to run. His two older brothers had discovered the Equestrian Center earlier that year when wandering around Fairmount Park. His brothers had started riding under the instruction of Hiner—Jabarr was known as “Killer Bee,” and Kareem, “The Pelé of Polo.”

Before this moment of exposure, Rosser didn’t even know what a horse looked like.

“That’s how you learn to ride though,” he laughs.

The first time I see Rosser, he is walking down the stable’s corridor, bouncing a foot mallet against his leg. He is about 5 feet, 10 inches and nimble, wearing a kind smile.

He laughs easily and almost immediately invites me to go riding with him sometime.

Now at 24-years-old, he’s the barn manager. His day begins at 7 a.m., and it usually ends with a horse ride through Fairmount Park. He now cares for many of the horses he once rode in the arena. Cholo is his favorite polo pony, though he’s too old to ride now. As we sit at a table next to the arena at Chamounix, an orange tabby cat jumps onto his lap.

The stereotypes of polo aren’t beyond Rosser.

“Being black in a game for white people, by white people ... it’s pretty crazy,” he says, describing the crowds as mostly “people wearing big hats and drinking Champagne.”

Rosser says there comes a point when you don’t even think about the horse anymore—it becomes an extension of your body. I picture a centaur, the half-human, half-horse mythological creature. If ever a sport was played by the gods, it would be polo.

Every great athlete has a signature style.

“I’m a scrapper,” says Rosser.

He’s known in the arena for being quick

B A R B A R A S H E R F F O R C H E S T N U T H I L L LO C A L

It’s a quiet place for so significant a history.

Lezlie Hiner founded Work to Ride in 1994 as a nonprofit program to get the atrisk kids of Philadelphia off the streets and into the barn—a safer place. Initially leased to her for $1 a year by the Fairmount Park Commission, it’s now a nonprofit run by donation and patrons, including polo legend and Ralph Lauren model Nacho Figueras, who “adopted” WTR in 2010.

Retired racehorses were donated to the program, allowing Hiner to offer a variety of horse sports including polo. To enroll, the applicants had to write an essay. To ride, the kids had to do barn chores and keep up their school grades. They were taught proper English-style riding, and two years later, in 1996, Hiner introduced them to polo: the “sport of kings.”

Hiner is a busy woman, and her phone, which often goes automatically to voicemail, says she’s “probably out with the horses.” I find her, covered in dust and paint, at the south end of the stables. She leads me to her office telling me that she stopped using her email awhile ago. Too much spam, she says.

Unsurprisingly, Hiner’s team came as a shock to polo’s traditional world of upper-class elites.

“My kids from the ghetto just aren’t going to act the same way as the kids from the Main Line,” says Hiner.

And neither is she. I look around her cluttered office, which teems with cats and rough-looking mutts—all strays she’s picked up. A black cat with crossed eyes and its tongue hanging out clambers onto my lap.

“That’s Dark Vader. He drools a lot,” laughs Hiner, her weathered face pulling into a smile. Her desk and office corners are piled with horsey kitsch—ceramic horse statues and trophies with triumphant-looking horse toppers. Her office walls are covered with medals, multicolored ribbons, polo mallets, news clippings and pictures of her students.

What I already know about polo, and what most Americans know about polo, is that it’s associated with royalty and wealth.

It’s also one of the oldest known sports, though it began as a war game, and the stereotypes run deep. It certainly doesn’t conjure up images of poor black kids from Philadelphia. It requires time, money, a horse—privilege.

“We’re kind of an oxymoron,” says Hiner.

Now, the slogan makes perfect sense—

Left: Lezlie Hiner is the founder and executive director of Work To Ride. Right: Daymar Rosser started riding when he was just 5 years old and later led his team to win the U.S. Polo Association National Championship in 2011. He’s now the barn manager at Chamounix Equestrian Center.

“Being black in a game for white people, by white people ... it’s pretty crazy. At polo it’s a lot of people wearing big hats and drinking Champagne.”

—daymar rosser ,

barn manager at Chamounix Equestrian Center

and “handy” with his mallet. He always played the No. 1 position.

“Like the receiver,” he says, comparing his position to a football player’s.

“No. 2 is offense and defense, 3 is like a running back,” he continues.

Most polo players own a horse. The players on Rosser’s team, which included his older brother Kareem and friend Brandon, did not. They had a lot less practice than a typical polo player.

“For us, the games were our practices,” he says. “It only takes me about five minutes to get to know a horse, though.”

P HOTO GRA P H Y BY K R ISTO N JA E BETH E L

Without the proper equipment and only limited access to the horses at Chamounix, Rosser and his teammates found other ways to prepare for matches. “Horse tag” was one.

Rosser rolls up his pant leg to reveal a horseshoe-shaped scar below his knee. He gestures to the field across the road, where, when he was 12 or 13 years old, he says, his friend’s horse Genie kicked him. They were playing tag on “fresh” horses in the wintertime. He needed 62 stitches and took about four months to recover.

All great polo players get a mallet de-

signed for them, usually made of bamboo.

Rosser stands up and demonstrates holding the reins with his left hand and swinging the mallet with his right.

“This is a nearside shot, an offside shot ... ” he says.

In the stable, Rosser takes Teracita out of her stall, remarking on her beauty as he does. She is a shining chestnut-colored polo pony with a short cropped mane and unwrapped tail. Polo ponies are often taller and fitter than regular horses, he says.

Rosser receives his publicity casually.

Ralph Lauren is coming to the stables in a few weeks to do a second photo shoot with WTR. Rosser laughs, recalling how he used to think polo was just the name of a shirt.

“I just hope we get to keep the clothes,” he says.

Rosser recently graduated from Roger Williams University in Rhode Island, where he played polo and studied communications. Now he’s taking a break from polo, working in the barn and completing an internship while looking for a way to use his degree.

“My whole life has been polo, polo, polo,” Rosser says.

Now he’s ready for something normal.

His dream is to live in Boston and earn enough money to have a small farm where he can play polo after work, just for fun.

I

arrive for my first English-riding lesson on a Sunday afternoon. In the riding ring, a little girl, probably 6 or 7 years old, flops around on the back of a gray-flecked horse. As the trainer walks backward, the horse follows her—their steps in sync. The trainer wears muddied boots, a red cap, tan jodhpurs and a black T-shirt.

She grabs the reins and jogs alongside the student, who flounces in her saddle. “Heels down, toes up!” the trainer yells.

I walk to the whiteboard at the south end of the stables. I’ve been matched with a horse named Karusel, whose neighbors include Squidworth and Easy Ed—names from past lives as racehorses.

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the tacking area and the three different brushes I need to groom Karusel: the curry comb, hard brush and the soft brush.

I get started, feeling like a city girl more than ever. Arnold peeks into the stall.

“I’m Lisa,” she says.

Arnold has a soft, even voice and a serious presence.

“Did you use the curry?” she asks.

I nod.

She reaches under the front of the mare and smooths her hand over its chest.

“This is the most important spot. There’s still some dirt here,” she says.

I slip the curry back on my hand and rub vigorous circles. Any remnant of dirt or dust under a saddle can cause permanent damage. She points to a small white kidney-shaped spot—damaged tissue.

“That’s never going away,” Arnold says.

We groom the horse together, talking over its withers, the highest part of a horse’s back.

“I started riding as an adult,” she says. “English style. I love horses more than anything.”

She hands me the bridle. Karusel leans into it, and I place it gently over the ears.

Arnold is working toward “eventing,” she says. She has studied with some of the best, and she names a slew of trainers she has worked with. I nod, though I have no idea who these people are. By the way she says the names, I know I should be impressed.

She practices on the horses after her lessons are done for the day. She has never owned a horse.

“Owning a horse is terrifying,” she says.

Too many things can go wrong. Even a small oversight in hoof care could be deadly for a horse.

When Karusel, a bay-colored Anglo Arab horse, is tacked, I hold the reins on her left, and Arnold leads me to the ring.

She helps me mount, then walks backward in front of me, Karusel in sync with her footsteps.

“A walk has four beats, one for each individual foot. The trot is two,” she tells me.

“The canter is three beats, and the gallop is four beats.”

The mare nudges her and snorts.

“Now we’ll trot,” she says. I think of the flouncing child. “I think you’re ready.”

Arnold’s brown eyes indicate a deep knowledge of people and horses.

She demonstrates the position I need to be in for the two-point trot: Up on the toes, off the seat an inch, upright posture.

“In English riding,” she says, “it’s all about the body.”

“Grab onto her mane and lift,” Arnold says, giving the horse a tap on its hindquarters. “Now bounce.”

After the lesson, we lead Karusel back to the stables. “Do the horses get bored when they have a beginner?” I ask. “Are they ever like, ‘I just wanna run?’ ” “All the horses like different things. Karusel loves to jump… and so do I,” she says.

“My kids from the ghetto just aren’t going to act the same way as the kids from the Main Line.”

—lezlie hiner,

founder of Work to Ride

“.”

—,

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P HOTO G RAP HY BY KRISTO N JAE BETHEL

FRIENDS CENTER

The Quaker Hub for Peace and Justice in Philadelphia

Choose Friends Center for Your Eco-Friendly Event!

Since 1856, Friends Center has been a gathering place for business, community and private events. With our LEED Platinum green renovation, modern video and teleconferencing facilities, we are both historic, up to date and ready for your use.

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HAPPY

CAMPERS Whether your kid loves writing stories, sewing stuffed animals, paddling kayaks or exploring the forest, the perfect summer camp is waiting. story by

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alexandra jones

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Get Outside: Nature and Environment Awbury Arboretum Get your kids outside, unplugged and engaged with nature at Awbury’s summer day camps for youngsters. They’ll ramble through 55 acres of woods, fields and the new “AdventureWoods” natural play area, learning skills like wildcrafting, archery and cooking. AGES: 8-14; DATES: JuneAugust; LOCATION: Awbury Arboretum, 1 Awbury Rd., Philadelphia. awbury.org

Elmwood Park Zoo Choose between sessions built around themes like Fossils, Feathers and Fangs and Junior Zookeeper, where kids can learn the links between dinosaurs and modern-day critters or get hands-on experience feeding and training the zoo’s animal residents. AGES: 6-11; DATES: Weeklong sessions from June 17-August 23; LOCATION: 1661 Harding Blvd., Norristown. elmwoodparkzoo.org

P HOTO COURTESY O F RIV E RB E N D E N V IRO N M E N TAL E DUCATIO N C ENTER

Journey’s End Farm Camp This tech-free summer sleepaway camp in the Poconos gives kids the chance to get hands-on experience with tasks on a 210-acre farm like caring for animals, identifying weeds and helping out in the kitchen, in addition to singing, swimming and playing games. AGES: 7-12; DATES: June 23-August 17; LOCATION: Journey’s End Farm, 364 Sterling Rd., Newfoundland. journeysendfarm.org

Miquon Day Camp Kids get an old-school summer camp experience at this 10-acre valley in Montgomery County, swimming, interacting with wildlife, bird watching and learning ecological awareness through exploring the camp’s wooded environment. AGES: 4-11; DATES: June 24-August 16; LOCATION: The Miquon School, 2025 Harts Ln., Conshohocken. miquon.org

Riverbend Environmental Education Center During day-camp sessions at the 30-acre Spring Mills Preserve, kids can become conservation experts-in-training, learn wilderness survival skills or get experience caring for the camp’s resident reptiles and amphibians. AGES: 3-14; DATES: June 10-August 30; LOCATION: Riverbend Environmental Education Center, 1950 Spring Mill Rd., Gladwyne. riverbendeec.org

Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education Kids ages 3 to 9 have the chance to get hands-on with nature during day-camp sessions at the center’s 340 acres of woods, streams, ponds and fields. Youth ages 10 to 15 camp overnight at the center and go on field trips around the region during week-long sessions. AGES: 3-15; DATES: June 10-August 16; LOCATION: Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education, 8480 Hagy’s Mill Rd. schuylkillcenter.org

Waldorf School of Philadelphia Summergarten and Makers Camps At the Waldorf School’s sprawling historical campus, kids get an education in the natural world, with both structured and independent time built into every day-camp session. Activities include making plant medicines and pickles using the school’s vegetable garden, utilizing natural dyes and learning about bees. AGES: 3-5 and rising first through third graders; DATES: June 18-August 10; LOCATION: The Waldorf School of Philadelphia, 6000 Wayne Ave. phillywaldorf.com

Work to Ride Summer Camp Youth who love horses will learn to ride, groom and care for horses in addition to teamwork and responsibility, with activities like arts and crafts and walks around Fairmount Park to mix things up. Riders who want to learn or hone their polo playing skills can sign up for a weeklong session of polo camp. AGES: 8-15; DATES: June 24-AuP HOTOS COU RT ESY O F B U TCH E R’S S E W S H O P

gust 2; polo camp from August 12-16; LOCATION: Chamounix Equestrian Center, 98 Chamounix Dr. worktoride.net

Get Crafty: Making, Creating and Cooking Butcher’s Sew Shop Junior Summer Camps Crafty kids will sew age-appropriate projects like customized stuffed animals, upcycled accessories, costumes and even full-fledged garments. They’ll learn skills like hand stitching and machine sewing mixed in with playground visits, hula-hoop contests and sewing-themed scavenger hunts. AGES: 5-15; DATES: June 17-August 23; LOCATION: Butcher’s Sew Shop, 1912 South St. or 800 S. 8th St. butcherssewshopjunior.com

Opposite Page: Riverbend campers experience the wilderness. Butcher’s Sew Shop campers show off their fanciful creations.

Culinary Arts Summer Camp and Summer Institute High school students get a whirlwind orientation into the world of culinary arts in these two- and three-day sessions including hands-on lessons in pastry, tableside service, cooking and gardening.

Juniors stay over two nights, learn management lessons and take a cruise on the Spirit of Philadelphia. AGES: Rising freshman, sophomore and junior high school students; DATES: July 15-16 for freshmen and sophomores; July 10-12 and 17-19 for juniors; LOCATION: The Restaurant School at Walnut Hill College, 4207 Walnut St. walnuthillcollege.edu

Fashion Design Camp Campers sketch designs, learn machine sewing and construct their own projects like handbags and summer dresses or vests at this program from Lavner Camps. Projects emphasize designing F E B RUARY 20 19

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seaport summer camp

215-413-8655 phillyseaport.org/camp

Hiking, stream-stomping, and bug-catching are a few of the key ingredients that have made Riverbend's summer camp a sensation for more than three decades! Children have fun as they connect with nature and build upon skills and knowledge.

• Weekly program that runs from mid-June to Labor Day • Qualified and enthusiastic educators • Hands-on nature exploration and investigation, games, crafts, hikes and more Your child’s favorite summer memories await!

1950 Spring Mill Road | Gladwyne, PA 19035

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Honoring & empowering children to engage their whole selves in education

NOW ENROLLING children 18 mos–5 years part time and full time

1212 S 47th Street, Philadelphia, PA www.childrenscommunityschool.org

Wholesome summer camp fun for children ages 3 to 9.

Register your child at: phillywaldorf.com/summergarten F E B RUARY 20 19

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pockets with compartments to store and use items like cell phones and ear buds. AGES: 7-11; DATES: June 17-August 9 ; LOCATION: University of Pennsylvania, 3417 Spruce St. lavnercampsandprograms.com

Heart to Hand Culinary Summer Camp Kids have fun with food by learning kitchen skills, gardening, visiting international grocers and enjoying outdoor picnics. Recipes feature local, seasonal ingredients and culinary traditions from around the world, with small, six-camper sessions focusing on cooking, baking and global cuisines.

AGES: 7-12; DATES: Four one-week sessions in July and August; LOCATION: 4501 Spruce St. hearttohand.info

Our Mother’s Kitchens Summer Workshop for Black Girls This free, weekend-long day camp teaches creative writing and hands-on indoor and outdoor cooking lessons using the works of authors like Ntozake Shange, Zora Neale Hurston and Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor. Attendees share food stories and learn the significance of food in black history and culture. AGES: 12-17; DATES: Announced March 1; LOCATION: Sankofa Community Farm at Bartram’s Garden, 5400 Lindbergh Blvd. ourmotherskitchens.org

essential safety training so that kids can build with confidence and parents can have peace of mind. AGES: 9-14; DATES: TBD; contact info@ philadelphiawoodworks.com; LOCATION: Philadelphia Woodworks, 4901 Umbria St. philadelphiawoodworks.com

Sky Soup Summer Camp Young artists harness their creativity in weeklong camp sessions making collages or jewelry, building cardboard creations, mixing potions and slime, and constructing capes and accessories for their own mini superhero figurines. Days also include periods of free play and story time. AGES: 4-12; DATES: June 17-August 16; LOCATION: Sky Soup Art Center, 203 Bala Ave., Bala Cynwyd. skysoup.org

Young Chefs and Kiddie Cooks Summer Cooking Program Kids and young teens get the chance to learn basic culinary skills from local chef-instructors during week-long day-camp sessions. Programming includes kitchen safety; training in culinary, pastry and international cuisines; and nutrition.

Plus, they’ll get lessons in recipes for basic dishes easy enough to make at home. AGES: 7-14; DATES: July 8-August 2; LOCATION: The Restaurant School at Walnut Hill College, 4207 Walnut St. walnuthillcollege.edu

Philadelphia Woodworks Summer Woodworking Camp Beautiful wooden clocks, totes, bird houses and figurines are some of the projects campers construct using basic woodworking tools at this hands-on camp. The curriculum includes

Mighty Writers campers learn the essential skills to express themselves effectively.

Get Creative: Art, Music and Performance Al-Bustan Camp Daily language lessons are part of the curriculum at the camp offered by this Arabic cultural center in West Philly. Campers also learn music, visual art, science and culture with a focus on Islamic Iberia this year at Al-Bustan’s Center City summer camp. GRADES K-8; DATES: July 8-12 and July 1519; LOCATION: St. Peter’s School, 319 Lombard St. albustanseeds.org

Curio Theater Camp Budding drama kings and queens ages 7 through 17 get to step into the spotlight at Curio’s weeklong day-camp sessions—no audition required.

Campers explore all areas of stagecraft, like theatrical design, improv, theater games and playwriting, in addition to acting. DATES: TBD; LOCATION: Curio Theater, 4740 Baltimore Ave. curiotheatre.org

Fleisher Art Memorial Fleisher offers summer art classes in a variety of media for artists 5 through 18—think Creature Creation clay workshops for the little ones, mosaic making lessons for youth, and figure drawing and portfolio presentation for teens. Sessions include free morning and aftercare. DATES: TBD; LOCATION: Fleisher Art Memorial, 719 Catherine St. fleisher.org

Girls Rock Philly Summer Rock Camp Summer Rock Camp gives girls and trans or gender-variant youth and teens a place to flourish musically in an inclusive environment. Campers learn new instruments, form a band and write an original song during daytime sessions over the course of a week, then perform in a showcase at the Rotunda or World Cafe Live. Sliding scale tuition. AGES: 9-19; DATES: July 9-13 for teens 1319, July 16-20 for youth 9-12; LOCATION: Horatio B. Hackett Elementary School, 2161 East York St. girlsrockphilly.org

Mighty Writers Whether you’re looking to nurture your kid’s creativity or support their academic efforts, writing skills will serve them well. In this free program, youth learn to think and write with clarity at Mighty Writers’ four-day-a-week writing academies, writing workshops, classes and college-essay writing nights. AGES: 2-17; DATES: Multiple dates; check website calendar for more information; LOCATION: Mighty Writers locations in South, West, and North Philly and Camden, NJ, 24

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as well as select recreation centers around the city. mightywriters.org

Mural Arts Education Programs The city’s most visible public art organization runs arts education courses for youth and teens that continue through summer. Foundations and Innovations provides an entryway to artmaking, while teens in the Artrepreneurs program develop professional skills alongside their artistic talents and launch their own small businesses. AGES: 10-21; DATES: Ongoing; LOCATION: Sites around the city. muralarts.org

University City Arts League UCAL’s curriculum of three different arts activities (like 3D art, dance, theater and wearable art) per day of each week-long session will spark young children’s creativity and keep kids on their toes, while older kids get more advanced lessons in subjects like painting and wheel throwing pottery.

AGES: 6-14; DATES: June 17-August 16; LOCATION: University City Arts League, 4226 Spruce St. ucartsleague.org

Campers learn about ancient artifacts and make crafts at the Penn Museum.

National Inventors Hall of Fame. The curriculum aims to turn curious kids into innovative thinkers, with modules on designing light-sensing robots or robotic puppies or creating their own smart-home technology projects. AGES: Rising firstthrough sixth-graders; DATES: June 24-28; LOCATION: Springfield Literacy Center, 210 W. Woodland Ave., Springfield (other Camp Invention programs and dates held in Glenside, PA and Merchantville, Cherry Hill, and Moorestown, NJ). Invent.org

Wissahickon Dance Academy Little ones get an introduction to telling stories through dance with pre-ballet, while teens and tweens with more experience can study under internationally renowned instructors with expertise in ballet, jazz, tap, character and yoga. AGES: 4-22; DATES: July 30-August 3 for pre-ballet, July 15-26 for beginner dance, June 17-July 12 for ballet intensive; LOCATION: Wissahickon Dance Academy, 38 E. School House Ln. wissahickondance.com

Discovery Camp at the Franklin Institute

Get Technical: Science, Tech and Career Alexa Café Girls STEM Camp Endorsed by the Society of Women Engineers, this camp, with day and overnight options, gives girls the chance to explore technology, leadership and entrepreneurship in a unique collaborative setting. Courses focus on areas like 3D printing, coding apps and games, video production, photography, modeling and animation, and robotics.

AGES: 10-15; DATES: June 24-August 2; LOCATION: Bryn Mawr College idtech.com

Anthropologist in the Making and Junior Anthropologists Summer Camp Campers travel back in time with themed day-camp sessions using the Penn Museum’s collections as their guide. Kids can explore life in ancient Egypt, heroes of mythology and museum P HOTOS COU RT ESY O F T HE PE N N M US EU M

curation with hands-on activities like making clay tablets, designing a museum exhibit and building their own ziggurat. AGES: 6-13; DATES: June 24-August 16 ; LOCATION: Penn Museum, 3260 South St. penn.museum

This immersive day camp offers weeklong sessions focusing on scientific subjects like robotics, physics, chemistry, space exploration, engineering and even building arcade games. Kids get hands-on with the scientific method, performing experiments and observing results. AGES: Grades K-9; DATES: June 10-August 26; LOCATION: Franklin Institute, 222 N. 20th St. fi.edu

Business of Doing Good Summer Camp

Kids Bug-U Camp

Get your kids thinking about how they can change the world for the better at this social entrepreneurship summer camp. In one-week sessions, kids develop their ideas, learn about funding and pitching and meet leaders creating change.

Campers present what they’ve learned in an expo on the last day of each session. AGES: 10-14; DATES: July 29-August 9; LOCATION: WeWork, 1900 Market St. or Comcast Collaboration Studio at Oxford Mills, 100 W. Oxford St. thebusinessofdoinggood.org

Campers get up-close experience with exotic insects from around the world, with activities like building tarantula habitats and lessons on ecology at the Insectarium and outdoors at Pennypack Park and Pennypack on the Delaware. They’ll also complete the Junior Entomologist program during their session, earning them a free annual pass for future visits. AGES: 6-16 ; DATES: July 15-August 16; LOCATION: Philadelphia Insectarium and Butterfly Pavilion, 8046 Frankford Ave. phillybutterflypavilion.com

Camp Invention

Summerside on the Hill STEM Camp

This STEM-focused weeklong day camp is one of hundreds around the country run by the

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computers, drones and video equipment—to build, code, design, problem-solve and play. The school also offers camps focused on arts, outdoors, sports and academics. AGES: Grades 1-8; DATES: June 10-August 19; LOCATION: Springside Chestnut Hill Academy, 500 W. Willow Grove Ave. summersideonthehill.org

WHYY Summer Journalists and Summer Filmmakers Our hometown public radio station opens up the world of storytelling to middle and high school students with two- and three-week intensive day-camp sessions. High school programs focus on reporting and creating audio and visual news stories, while middle or high schoolers can practice scripting, shooting, acting and editing their own short film. AGES: Middle school and teens finishing grades 9-12; DATES: June 24-August 16; LOCATION: WHYY Studios, 150 N. 6th St. whyy.org

Get Active: Fun, Games and Classic Camps Campers explore the Delaware River by canoe at the Seaport Summer Camp.

Camp Dark Waters Nearly a century old, this riverside sleepaway camp offers all the traditional summertime fun—canoeing, drum circles, nature hikes, sports, cookouts—just half an hour outside Philadelphia.

Counselors foster a supportive, noncompetitive environment based on Quaker principles and encourage children to be themselves. AGES: 7-14; DATES: June 22-August 17 ; LOCATION: Camp Dark Waters, 26 New Freedom Rd., Medford, NJ. campdarkwaters.com

Camp Jamison This sleepaway camp, founded by a nature-loving, Philadelphia-born teacher, strives to provide an affordable classic camp experience to all youth. Kids swim, hike, build campfires and play sports during the day, with activities like bingo, an ice cream social and a camp carnival with games and crafts at night. Tuition is sliding scale.

AGES: 8-14; DATES: July 15-19 ; LOCATION: Pocono Environmental Education Center, 538 Emery Rd., Dingmans Ferry. campjamison.org

Camp Sojourner Girls’ Leadership Camp This camp busses preteen and teen girls out of the city for a weeklong sleepaway experience in the Poconos, with activities like boating, swimming, campfire building, team building, archery and climbing. Campers also participate in creative arts activities like singing, painting, woodworking and photography. Tuition is sliding scale. AGES: 8-13 (new campers), 8-17 (returning campers); DATES: July 29-August 3; LOCATION: Stokes State 26

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Forest at the New Jersey School of Conservation. girlsleadershipcamp.org

Dragonfly Forest The folks behind Dragonfly Forest believe that a classic sleepaway camp experience should be accessible for everyone. That’s why this YMCA program specifically serves kids with serious illnesses like sickle cell anemia and conditions like DiGeorge syndrome or autism. There’s one adult on staff for every two campers and high-quality medical care on site. AGES: 7-14, 13-25; DATES: June 23-July 26; LOCATION: Camp Speers, 143 Nichecronk Rd., Dingmans Ferry. dragonflyforest.org

Future Stars Sports Camp Campers learn teamwork and sportsmanship while participating in sports like flag football, tennis, volleyball, team handball and soccer in addition to daily swimming sessions. The air-conditioned Center City facility includes an indoor pool, tennis courts, a playground and playing fields. AGES: 7-13; DATES: June 17-August 16; LOCATION: Friends Select School, 1651 Benjamin Franklin Pkwy. Futurestarscamps.com

Philadelphia School of Circus Arts Kids get an education in performance, gymnastics and culture while working out all that boundless

energy. Lessons in aerial silks, juggling, unicycling, clowning, and even circus history with teachers and guest artists, with the option for more intensive coaching for more advanced students. AGES: 5-18; DATES: June-August; LOCATION: Philadelphia School of Circus Arts, 6452 Greene St. phillycircus.com

Seaport Summer Camp Campers learn a mix of history, science and seafaring skills on kayaks, rowboats and swan boats during weeklong day-camp sessions at the Independence Seaport Museum. Teens learn skills like Morse code and navigation before exploring the Delaware River. AGES: 6-12, 13-15; DATES: June 17-August 16; LOCATION: Independence Seaport Museum, 211 S. Columbus Blvd. phillyseaport.org

The School in Rose Valley Kids from preschool through middle school choose their own adventure on the school’s wooded campus. In addition to daily swimming lessons, campers pick from a wide variety of activities like arts and crafts, woodworking, sports, cooking and archery each day. AGES: 3-13, with counselor-in-training programs for older middle schoolers; DATES: June 17-August 2 ; LOCATION: The School in Rose Valley, 20 School Ln., Rose Valley. theschoolinrosevalley.org

P HOTO COURTESY O F THE IN D E P E N D E N CE S EAP O RT MUSEUM

2019

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ALL-DAY FUN ALL SUMMER! On the beautiful 62-acre campus of Springside Chestnut Hill Academy

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EV EN TS

february 2019

F ebruary 1-28

F ebruary 7

F ebruary 13

African American History Month at the Constitution Center

8th Annual Richard L. James Lecture: Environmental Justice in Pennsylvania: A New Vision

The Past Preserved: An Exploration of Plants and Archaeology

Allison Acevedo, director of the Office of Environmental Justice at the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, will give a presentation on environmental injustice, how it disproportionately affects impoverished communities and how it can be remediated. schuylkillcenter.org

Most archeological sites contain remnants of plants, which teaches researchers a lot about past societies and the people who lived in them. Penn Museum archaeobotanist Chantel White will discuss how plant remains are preserved and what they can teach us about Roman villages, as well as Philadelphia.

The Constitution Center hosts a variety of educational programming on the Emancipation Proclamation, Civil War and Amendments 13-15 in addition to the museum’s The Story of We the People exhibit. constitutioncenter.org WHEN: 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Saturday, 12 to 5 p.m. Sunday COST: $11-14.50 WHERE: National Constitution Center, 525 Arch St.

F ebruary 6 Awbury Night Enjoy drinks and organic, locally-sourced food at Earth Bread & Brewery. A portion of all sales benefits the Awbury Arboretum. earthbreadbrewery.com WHEN: 5 to 9 p.m. COST: Free WHERE: Earth Bread & Brewery, 7136 Germantown Ave.

F ebruary 7-17

WHEN: 7 to 9 p.m. COST: Free WHERE: Schuylkill Center, 8480 Hagy’s Mill Rd.

theatrephiladelphia.org WHEN: Varies by event COST: $0-$30 WHERE: Varies by event

WHEN: 2 p.m. COST: $15-20 WHERE: Morris Arboretum, 100 E. Northwestern Ave

Makers Meetup #23: Dr. Vijay Kumar and the Future of Aerial Robotics

Trend vs. Truth in Sports Training and Recovery

Dr. Vijay Kumar, Dean of the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, will host a presentation on the future of robotics including demonstrations from innovators and makers in the field. sciencecenter.org

There are always new trends in athletics caused by the desire to get ahead. The Franklin Institute hosts a discussion about the science behind popular methods of training and recovery, getting to the bottom of what is healthy and what is harmful. fi.edu

WHEN: 5 to 8 p.m. COST: Free WHERE: Science Center Venture Cafe, 3675 Market St

WHEN: 6 to 7:30 p.m. COST: Members free, non-members $10 WHERE: Franklin Institute, 271 N. 21st St.

F ebruary 12

2019 Philly Theatre Week A diverse array of over 100 theatre events are held during Philly Theatre Week, which celebrates the vibrant scene in Philly. Shows range from full-scale productions to readings and interactive events.

morrisarboretum.org

Urban Medicine Cabinet Learn to make first aid ointment, herbal steam and headache lozenges in addition to the properties of specific herbs and flowers using apothecary tools. Take home what you make at the end of the session. freelibrary.org WHEN: 6 p.m. COST: Free WHERE: Lucien E. Blackwell West Philadelphia Regional Library, 125 South 52nd St.

F ebruary 15-16 Big Philly Beerfest Craft beer breweries both local and from around the country will be at the Big Philly Beerfest, which promises unlimited samples and a variety of beers for all tastes. Proceeds benefit Animal Rescue Partners, a 501-c-3 organization that supports animal shelters, adoption groups and more. bigphillybeerfest.com WHEN: 8 to 11:30 p.m. COST: $45-65 WHERE: Philadelphia Convention Center, 1101 Arch St.

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Open House!

Saturday, March 9 10am–12noon theschoolinrosevalley.org

A P P L Y N O W F O R FA L L 2 0 1 9 31 WEST COULTER STREET, PHILADELPHIA, PA 19144 (215) 951-2345 • GERMANTOWNFRIENDS.ORG A Quaker, Coed, Independent Day School for Preschool through Grade 12

Social Entrepreneur Day Program for 10–14 year olds– We help kids put their passion into action!

Our programs are held in

BOSTON NEW YORK PHILADELPHIA thebusinessofdoinggood.org

email: info@thebusinessofdoinggood.org phone: 650-245-9218 F E B RUARY 20 19

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Spend the summer exploring, creating and, making new friendships. Our Day Camp includes a variety of activities.

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Designed for athletes of all skill levels, Malvern offers full day Wrestling, Football, Baseball, Basketball, Lacrosse and Soccer camps.

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MargotCamille in Old City Where Eyewear is an Art to Wear

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dispatch

A Kind Word A children’s book publisher reflects on the healing power of empathy

M

y 92-year-old mother was sitting in the dining room of her nursing home, eating her first breakfast there. Everything was unfamiliar—the food, the place, the people. When my daughter and I arrived, she was disoriented and emotionally unhinged.

As we tried to comfort her, a very frail, white-haired woman in a wheelchair rolled over, took her by the hand and said firmly, “Let me tell you something: You’re going to be fine.”

“This is a wonderful place,” she told my mother. “This is home.”

My daughter and I teared up at these words. They were exactly what we needed to hear: to know she would make new friends; that she would be welcomed and watched over when we couldn’t be there.

I am a writer, and a publisher of bilingual children’s books. A few days ago, I was

sharing one of our bilingual stories, “The Whispering Benches,” with a Haitian nurse at my mother’s home. It’s a love story, in English and Haitian Creole, about a young man who was airlifted to the U.S. after the 2010 earthquake near Port-au-Prince. I was inspired to write the story by Haitian refugees with whom I worked in Germantown and Olney, helping them open licensed child care programs in 2012 and 2013.

In “The Whispering Benches,” the main character invokes all of the religious and superstitious traditions he knows to bring his girlfriend from the island to Philadelphia.

He lights candles in a cathedral and prays, draws a Voodoo vèvè and calls on the Spirit of Love and tosses coins into a fountain. In the end, she appears, but only as a loving spirit because, unbeknownst to him, she had died in the earthquake.

The nurse read the story aloud in Creole and reflected sadly on the beautiful illustra-

by

cynthia kreilick

tions. They reminded him of the island he knew as a boy. He lamented the fact that his son would never see Haiti the way he remembered it. When asked by his church to fly down and help with the recovery effort, he had declined. He told me he would have been of no use because the magnitude of the suffering overwhelmed him.

I hope reading the story helped him heal, helped him bring to the surface the grief and sorrow that needed to be aired and released.

In both interactions, I, myself, came away healed. The old woman not only reassured my mother, she reassured me. The nurse, in reading my book and affirming its message, showed me how profoundly connected we all are in our suffering.

We all need people to acknowledge our suffering to help us heal. The greatest acts of empathy often come from the most unexpected places.

Stories shared are one of those places.

cynthia kreilick owns Morning Circle Media, which publishes bilingual children’s books and offers professional development on early literacy and cross-cultural understanding. morningcirclemedia.com.

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