Grid Magazine June 2019 [#121]

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Reflections on life from 100-year-old black women

How Philly crushed Tokyo in the City Nature Challenge

Lois Volta and her radical homemaking vision

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JUNE 2019 / ISSUE 121 / 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

CAN

DECADENCE SUSTAINABLE? BE

Three local(ish) chocolate(ish) businesses aim for the triple bottom line

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EDI TO R ’S NOTES

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alex mulcahy

What Do We Value? publisher Alex Mulcahy managing editor Alexandra W. Jones associate editor Timothy Mulcahy copy editor David Jack Daniels art director Michael Wohlberg writers Bernard Brown Constance Garcia-Barrio Alexandra Jones Steve Neumann Claire Marie Porter Estelle Tracy photographers Kriston Jae Bethel Ian Shiver Rachael Warriner Albert Yee 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

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an a business succeed if it puts its values first? In the cover story this month, we look at three cacao-plant businesses that focus on the welfare of the farmer as their primary goal.

(The Philly Foodworks ad on the inside back cover has a similar message, and it’s worth reading about their creative strategies designed to help local farmers succeed.)

Conventional wisdom says that a values-first business is a bad idea, or at least a risky one. By and large, this is true in a capitalist economy. Leading with values doesn’t mean you won’t be successful, but it certainly can be a hindrance. (Some would say it offers a marketing advantage, a differentiator in the marketplace, but for this approach to work, the majority of competitors must not share your values, and that does not bode well for the future.)

Better to make sure that your own business is profitable, this line of thinking would continue, and then after achieving stability, you might investigate ways to improve what you do, and pursue the triple bottom line of people, planet and profit.

The New York Times opinion writer David Brooks began a recent column about the growing detachment of working class men from work, family and church, with this assertion: “A society is healthy when its culture counterbalances its economics.”

His argument seems to be that at work, we should be self-interested and competitive, but outside of that, our culture should celebrate “cooperation, stability and committed relationships.”

This idea strikes me as counterintuitive, that our lives can be compartmentalized, that despite participating in a highly individualist and competitive setting, we can, at the end of the work day, suddenly feel a swell of benevolence for our fellow

man. It seems far more realistic that we will succeed when we align our economy with our values.

The argument for the central role of values can be extended in other directions.

One of the strategies offered to encourage people to change behavior is a financial reward. You can save the planet and save money. But in his most recent book, “There Is No Planet B,” British journalist Mike Berners-Lee advises that we should “not try to win an argument by appealing to unhelpful values.”

“Whilst you might get some immediate behavior change, more importantly you have strengthened the idea that all actions revolve around money. So, if it doesn’t feel financially worth it to take the next step, there is less overall reason for doing so. In the same way, it doesn’t work to sell environmental strategies to businesses purely on the basis of increased product sales. The reason has to be, without embarrassment, that it is the right thing to do.”

The conversation has to be shifted. It can no longer be, can a values-first business succeed? The real question is: what values do we need as a society, as a species, to survive?

Dorothy Davenport Alexander, age 100, featured in our story about black women centenarians on page 6, offers this wisdom: “The whole purpose of life is to experience love.” Can’t our economy be about that, too?

ALEX MULCAHY Editor-in-Chief alex@gridphilly.com COV E R P HOTO BY IAN SHI VER

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black history

Long Live the Black Woman Speaking on work, love and race after 100 years of life

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lack women centenarians have seen Philadelphia go from oil lamps to LEDs. Their recollections paint a spoken portrait of the faith that has leavened their lives, and of their bedrock work of homemaking, guiding children, nursing the sick and other tasks essential for a thriving city.

“I worked in the laundry room at Hahnemann Hospital on the sewing machine,” says Lillian Warren, 100, of North Philadelphia. “Whenever a uniform needed repairs or hemming, I did it.

“My life was normal, nothing special,” Warren continues. Married at 15, she worked at Hahnemann until her three sons were born. After raising them, she became 6

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a nurse’s aide and, later, a child helper at Green Tree School.

“Whatever I could do for the children, I did,” she says.

One memory still rankles. “There was a situation where a girl’s father was molesting her, but I couldn’t prove it,” Warren says.

After a century, faith and service still stand foremost for Mother Warren, as she’s known at St. Andrews Fellowship Baptist Church in Germantown, which she attends regularly. She also finds ways to help her neighbors.

“If they need a zipper put in or something mended or hemmed, they come to me. I’m glad to do it,” she says.

Ruth Hopson, 106, seems poised to start

constance garcia-barrio a new career: Not as a stand-up comedian, but a recliner comic.

“Didn’t you bring any men with you?” she asks when I enter the elegant apartment near City Line Avenue where she lives with her seventy-something daughters.

Born in South Philly in 1912, the year the Titanic sank, Hopson, her parents, five siblings, and her Aunt Fanny and Uncle Sam— the latter blinded in the Civil War—lived at 422 Quince Street.

“It didn’t have a bathroom but an outhouse, like many houses then,” Hopson says.

“Everyone had a horse and wagon—trash collectors, icemen, firemen. A dog used to ride on the horse-drawn fire wagons. He’d jump on the wagon before anyone else.”

P HOTO G RAP HY BY AL BERT YEE

LEFT PAGE: Dorothy Davenport Alexander is 100 years old and has been living an active life in Philadelphia since 1935. RIGHT PAGE, ABOVE: Ruth Hopson holds a gilded glass-print photo of her great-grandmother.

RIGHT PAGE, BELOW: Hopson, 106, was born in South Philadelphia in 1912.

Without the danger of cars, the Hopson siblings played volleyball and jumped rope in the street. “I was athletic,” she says.

Hopson recalled a favorite family outing.

“My father would take us to Camden on the ferry. When the Benjamin Franklin Bridge opened [in 1926], my parents decided we would cross [over to New Jersey] that way.

My brothers and sisters started to run onto the bridge, but I was afraid. I stood and cried until my family coaxed me to come on.”

Hopson had hoped to become a teacher, but her mother, widowed early, had herself and six children to support. Money was a barrier, and so was race.

“Black women had fewer opportunities in those days,” Hopson says. She graduated from high school, then did domestic work until her marriage in 1942. Homemaking

and caring for her four daughters and her husband, who died in 2008 at age 95, gave her joy. Hopson lived her dream of a career in another way. Three of her daughters became teachers.

Hopson’s faith continues to sustain her.

Clergymen from St. Thomas African Methodist Episcopal Church pray with her and give her communion at the apartment once a month since a fall last year keeps her close to home. Her mementos include a congratulatory letter from President Barack Obama, sent for her 100th birthday.

And Hopson had advice for young people: “Don’t be poor! Get a job.”

Encouraged by the jokes and winks that spice her conversation, I promise to take Hopson to a naughty destination next time I visit. She looks askance. “You won’t take me,” she says. “I’ll take you!”

Dorothy Davenport Alexander, 100, came to Philadelphia in 1935. By then, she’d already raised a ruckus in Charlotte, North Carolina, her hometown.

“I was 10 or 12 years old when I got on the bus that came through the black neighborhood,” she says. “All the white people were sitting and all the black people were standing. I saw one empty seat and sat down. The blacks looked frightened and the whites looked angry. One of the whites said I was uppity. Later, one of the black folks told my mother about the incident. She didn’t scold me, but she said, ‘Dorothy, don’t ever do that again!’ That was long before Rosa Parks.”

When Alexander’s mother died in 1935, she and her older brother came to live with relatives in North Philadelphia.

“I attended Gratz High School, but I didn’t graduate,” she says. “It was the

Depression, and my family was struggling financially, so I left school and started doing domestic work.”

She encountered prejudice and discrimination in Philadelphia, too.

“I said to myself, ‘So be it, I’ll find a way around it,’ ” she recalls.

Alexander sewed military uniforms.

“I was a hand-finisher. We had to make a high quota, and time was of the essence,” she says.

Meanwhile, she prepared herself for other work. She purchased a book on how to succeed on city, state and federal exams, and began taking vocational courses. Thanks to her studies, Alexander became a nursing assistant at the Veterans Administration Hospital. She also worked as an optical technician at the Frankford Arsenal.

Of the positions she held over the years, Alexander considers that of caregiver for the Reverend C.S. Griffin, a paraplegic evangelist, her most important one.

“He drove a car with hand controls,” she says, “and I accompanied him when he travelled to help him spread his message of God’s love.”

After Reverend Griffin’s death in 1985, Alexander found solace and comfort in doing volunteer work.

“I volunteered in the hospice program at Einstein Hospital, and later as a companion for other seniors at the Philadelphia Corporation for Aging,” she says.

Today, Alexander continues to give of herself through singing.

“I attend Zion Baptist Church on Broad Street,” she says. “I’ve sung in choirs all my life—even when I was in Charlotte—and I was asked to be a member of Zion’s comfort choir [which sings at funerals],” says Alexander, a longtime member of the National Association of Negro Musicians. “I’ve always loved singing. I sing myself to sleep at night.”

Alexander, who married twice but had no children, offered this advice about life: “The secret for keeping good health is gratitude and love,” she says. “The whole purpose of life is to experience love.”

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urban naturalist

City Nature Challenge participants search for creatures along the edge of a body of water at Fort Mifflin and discover a turtle.

The Internet of Beings Despite rainy weather, participants logged thousands of critters, plants and fungi by bernard brown in this year’s City Nature Challenge

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ust past midnight on Friday, April 26, a common greenbottle fly sleeping on a leaf was immortalized

by Navin Sasikumar in iNaturalist as Philadelphia’s first observation for the City Nature Challenge 2019.

Over the next four days, naturalists throughout the Philadelphia area took photos or audio recordings of plants, animals, fungi and slime molds in an effort to beat 158 other cities around the globe in three categories: people participating, observations and species observed. We had from April 26-29 to make observations and from April 30-May 5 to identify what we’d found.

The City Nature Challenge began in 2016 as a citizen science contest between the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles. They used iNaturalist, an online platform for citizen science that allows users to upload observations that are then viewed and vetted by other users. In 2017, the competition expanded to include other cities in the United States, and in 2018, 8

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it went international.

In Philadelphia, where I served on the CNC organizing committee with Sasikumar, Robin Irizarry and Tony Croasdale, we used the competition to encourage our neighbors to connect with the nature all around us, whether in parks or on our blocks. We also wanted to crush Tokyo. (Why go after a traditional rival like New York City when we could take on the biggest city in the world?)

We worked with partner groups across the region to reach out to their audiences and to organize more than 30 nature walks, BioBlitzes (where participants identify as many species as possible) and other events. Anyone could take part in the CNC on their own, but these events offered a guided introduction.

When the sun rose that Friday in Philadelphia, it did so behind wet, heavy clouds.

Three of our eight scheduled events were cancelled or postponed due to the weather, and the others saw poor attendance. Thunder and pouring rain marked the noon start time of a birding walk I had organized in

Independence National Historical Park. My fellow walk leader, George Armistead (president of the Delaware Valley Ornithological Club), and I logged 26 species of birds such as chipping sparrows and yellow-bellied sapsuckers, but no other humans showed up. The day was not a total washout, however, because in iNaturalist, 122 Philly observers made 2,043 observations of 577 species.

Saturday the weather cleared. We started the morning in 29th position for observations (1,821), 33rd for people (113) and 27th for species (462). We were trailing 16 other U.S. cities, but at least we were ahead of Tokyo in all three categories. With 14 events scheduled and the start of the weekend, we expected a strong turnout.

At Bartram’s Garden’s BioBlitz, seven of us snapped pics of living creatures throughout the park, everything from chocolate tube slime (a species of slime mold) to yellow-rumped warblers.

“We ended up having naturalists with a variety of specialties,” says BioBlitzer Amanda Chan, “so it was really awesome to learn P HOTO G RAP HY BY RACHAE L WARRI NER

and observe nature at multiple levels.” iNaturalist’s AI offers identifications based on the uploaded photographs.

“It’s really convenient to have a ‘nature Pokédex’ at hand to document and help identify what you come across,” Chan continues.

By the end of the day, we, along with 225 other Philadelphians, had logged 4,012 observations of 804 species.

On Sunday morning at Fort Mifflin, seven birders and native-plant enthusiasts gathered in light rain to walk through the grounds and document its natural history.

Bald eagles soared overhead and tree swallows zipped and glided over the water to catch flying insects out of the air. Five turtle species, including the adorably ugly stinkpot, swam and crawled through the fort’s marshy moat.

“I learned a couple new plants,” says attendee Kim Sheridan, noting deer tongue grass, sheep sorrel and water horehound.

“This is the most I’ve used iNaturalist in C one day, that’s for sure.”

M Awbury Arboretum in Philadelphia’s Y Germantown neighborhood hosted another of the 11 CNC events, a BioBlitz, CM that Sunday.

MY “It went really well,” says Beth Miner, grants manager for Awbury. “We hadCYa wide range of skill levels, from people who CMY wanted to get their kids involved in observK ing nature to master ornithologists with all the birding equipment.”

She estimated that 25 people attended, netting more than 400 observations.

We expected little progress on Monday, with only three scheduled public events, and as most Philadelphians resumed the work week, however, participation actually increased. That day 247 people made 2,628 observations of 703 species, capped by the final critter of Philly’s CNC: a house centipede that Doug Sponsler logged at 11:19 p.m.

The observation period was over, but the standings continued to shift as people loaded offline observations into iNaturalist and identified what other people had found. When the dust settled on April 6, Cape Town, South Africa, had the most observations and species, and San Francisco held the trophy for most people taking part.

Philadelphia sat at No. 23 for observations (13,693), No. 24 for species (1,584) and No. 16 for observers (565), but Tokyo ended up at No. 56, No. 65 and No. 58, respectively.

Not even close.

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THE VOLTA WAY

For this professional organizer, a better world starts with a better home story by claire marie porter • photographs by rachael warriner

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n a windy spring afternoon at the Quaker “Meeting Cottage,” a wide yellowish-brown house on the grounds of the Germantown Friends School, Lois Volta, 36, a musician, writer, mother and professional cleaning consultant gives a tour of her home—and her inner world.

“Home doesn’t have to suck,” says Volta.

“But a beautiful life takes work.”

Her home, which smells like wood and dough, is full of trinkets, instruments and art. There’s a wood stove in the dining room. There are fresh-cut flowers and 10

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cookies on the table. It is the epitome of cozy. In her living room, instruments are part of the landscape. There’s a table runner on a keyboard, which is decorated with framed photographs. Everything seems to have its place. Volta, in a mustard yellow dress, has a lilting voice and graceful mannerisms. She is one of those people you feel like you’ve always known.

In a sonnet, the “volta” is a turn of thought or argument. Often, the signpost is a “but” or “yet,” followed by a line that changes the entire meaning of the poem. Volta lives up to her surname’s meaning, flipping stigmas

of cleanliness and duty and undercutting domestic pressures on women by offering a feminist, meaning-driven service. Volta Naturals is a company that addresses the roots of mess and habit; one that emphasizes confronting indifference and dread.

Teaching someone to clean can be sacred, says Volta. When talking through the intimacies of a closet, or a pile of neglected papers, trust, vulnerability and humility are exchanged, and habits, fears and desires can safely surface.

“I wanted to flip the script on what it means to be a cleaning professional,” she

Lois Volta runs a cleaning consultation company out of her home on the grounds of the Germantown Friends School. Volta makes natural products using ingredients such as washing soda and castile soap.

She now produces zines (right) in an effort to promote her cleaning consultation services.

“Self care is washing your dishes.

I’ve learned so many spiritual lessons while washing dishes.”

—l ois volta says. “I don’t clean up people’s trash; I take care of people.”

For Volta, teaching someone to take care of their things is the equivalent of teaching them to take care of themselves.

“Self care is washing your dishes,” she says. “I’ve learned so many spiritual lessons while washing dishes.”

Cleanliness isn’t just about sanitation.

Volta emphasizes she is not a germaphobe and believes it’s okay to leave things undone. It’s about consciousness in the home: awareness-based living habits.

If you make a mess and leave it, someone else is cleaning it up, she says. It sounds simple, but actually internalizing the concept, as a child or a roommate or partner, can have radical effects.

“If you’re in control of what you do, you have more to give,” she says. “The person who’s cleaning up after you has more to give, and it can be harmonious.”

Health is contagious, she says: “Love draws love to itself. Healthiness draws healthiness to itself.”

V

olta grew up in Abington, Pennsylvania, and weaved her way through living spaces in Brewerytown, Fishtown and Northern Liberties as a young adult. She settled down in Germantown with her three daughters seven years ago.

She reflects on her duties as a child. She was taught to clean and care for her belongings while her brothers, she says, cut the grass.

“It’s really clear that girls are raised differently than boys,” she says. “Am I nurturing of the home because of who I am? Or was I taught that?”

She lived in a Germantown commune, but was kicked out for having “high expectations for cleanliness.” So, she started her own cleaning company.

In 2013, she brought on a staff of 10 women—the cleaning “misfits,” she calls them.

Those clean-freak roommates who wanted everyone to do their own dishes.

When Volta began feeling sick from using her client’s cleaning products, she

started making her own. She uses vinegar and water and an all-purpose spray that she makes from washing soda, castile soap and essential oils.

“The washing soda breaks down the dirt and the castille washes it away,” she says, “while the basil has an earthy smell, the peppermint keeps it bright.”

The smell is invigorating.

“It’s a different kind of cleaning smell,” she says, “I would like to change the smell of clean.”

This isn’t your typical cleaning service either, as you’ll read on Volta’s website. It’s a holistic service that might bring you fresh flowers, bake you cookies or teach you body awareness while you scrub the tub.

“If I can get people to see their own dirt, maybe I can get them to care,” she says.

“And if I can make it spiritual...or political, maybe I can get them to care.”

She also wants her clients to see that hiring a cleaning company can be a political statement—a feminist act that helps undercut the social systemic burden placed on women to clean, organize and manage the home.

“We keep talking about gender equality out there,” she says, in reference to the working world, “but our homes are still not equal.”

Not only do we need to work and fight for equal wages, Volta says, we’re still doing most of the child-rearing, housekeeping, grocery-shopping and carrying the mental load, she says.

“If anything, women are under different types of pressure,” she says.

I

n the era of tidying authority Marie Kondo, followers tend to go through a hazing period when they throw the contents from their closets onto the floor, sift out the items that “spark joy” and discard the rest.

While Volta takes some tips from the KonMari philosophy, and believes it’s a good place for people to start, her emphasis is on addressing the root of mess.

Like Kondo, she believes in organizing.

But she also believes in changing the way you live, by addressing capitalism, addressing spending habits and addressing gender inequality in the home.

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“Gratitude transforms laborious tasks into things that can and should be enjoyed.”

—l ois volta

Paring down your belongings is only one part of that.

“Mess is a byproduct of life,” she says.

“That work is never done. Just be patient with it.”

She points out some items in her bedroom, one of which is a pale yellow vanity her husband fashioned from discarded furniture pieces. Most of her furniture is found on trash day or in re-fab stores. The room is tidy but brimming with beautiful things.

In Volta’s own closet, she has a handful of hanging items. She swooshes them back and forth.

“You should have the space to look through your clothes,” she says.

Closet organizing is one of Volta’s specialties.

“It’s a really good place for people to start,”she says. “It’s very personal.”

She opens her dresser drawers. Shirts, sweaters, and pants are snugly lined up in little squares.

“When you fold upright, the stuff you don’t really wear gets pushed to the back,” she says. It’s important to regularly evaluate how many of each clothing item you need.

“Oh, and I don’t do socks,” she says, pulling out a basket of loose ones from under the bed. “The kids can come and get them.

Get your own socks, pair ‘em up. I can’t do everything.”

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fter a few years in the cleaning business, Volta was dying to make some real changes and produce more long-term effects.

“That’s when I got into the idea of ‘Decluttered space, decluttered minds,’ ” she says, a phrase that’s meant to shift people’s perceptions of what cleaning can do for the mind, body and spirit.

“It’s hard work, but it’s valuable work,” Volta says. “It’s not the bottom of the barrel.”

She’s moving away from being a cleaning lady and wants to meet with clients who are interested in a journey—not a quick fix, but a complete reframing.

“I’ll help you push reset, and I’ll teach you how to keep it up,” she says.

We need to be okay with addressing our

shortcomings when it comes to our living habits, she says: “The home is a beautiful place to learn that lesson.”

She recently started a zine, “The Inner World of Volta,” which she designs and writes herself. It’s a self-help handbook full of rules, life hacks, tips and musings on gender and mindfulness.

“Intimate awareness of our external spaces brings a more acute knowledge of our internal state— both the good and the grime,” she writes.

There are recipes, and even little sketches of proper clothing-folding techniques.

“Gratitude transforms laborious tasks into things that can and should be enjoyed,” she writes.

The next zine is going to be all about family involvement, Volta says. The emphasis will be on how families can share the household burden.

“These people are going to be taking care of us when we’re old,” she says. “I don’t want them to flop out of the nest, I want them to soar.”

Parents have become too lenient, she believes, due to the pressures of different parenting styles and the fear of damaging the child. As a result, most parents aren’t teaching their kids basic life skills.

“We’re all in this together,” she says. “If we want to be a positive force, if we want to make the world a better place—how can we do that if we’re not making our homes better places? It’s too idealistic. It has to be tangible. It’s gotta feel good.”

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BACKING THE BAND Community organizations have been instrumental to the success of music programs in Philadelphia public schools story by steve neumann

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hris argerakis, a music teacher now in his 11th year at Andrew Jackson Elementary School in South Philly, remembers how desperately his program needed money when he began teaching at the start of the 2007 financial crisis. To raise funds, he resorted to cold calling local businesses within a four-block radius of the school to see if they could help.

“It was agonizing then,” he says. “I really cringe now when I think of what I had to do to get by the first year.”

Eventually, Argerakis looked for alternative forms of funding and discovered a resource online called Donors Choose. At least two-thirds of the equipment in his classroom was acquired through the site, because he posted there almost nonstop for about five years.

His persistence ultimately paid off. He was the subject of a short film called HOME: A Rockumentary that aired on WHYY last fall. It’s the story of how he built a music program from nothing and ended up earning ovations at The Trocadero Theatre and large audiences all over the city.

“I’m lucky,” Argerakis says. “In the last

seven years, the HOME band has been out and performing—it’s much easier to raise money when you’re in front of 10,000 people in the course of a year.”

Community Contributions Louis Scaglione, president and music director of the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra, knows that scenario well. He’s been a key figure in music education in Philadelphia for the past 25 years, though he started his career in Chicago.

“When I was a very young teacher just starting in the Chicago public school district, music was cut in 1988,” he says. “Philadelphia followed suit not too long after that.”

But utilizing community partnerships early on, Scaglione says, the Philadelphia School District was able to sustain what it had while it developed a system to obtain the additional resources.

Take the All City Orchestra program for one. About 15 years ago it was floundering, so Philadelphia Youth Orchestra—along with a few other community partners like the Philadelphia Orchestra—helped save the program.

“It was mostly support of time and hu-

“It was mostly support of time and human resources. Where the district couldn’t pay for certain things, we stepped in.”

— l ouis scaglione ,

president and music director, Philadelphia Youth Orchestra

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man resources,” Scaglione says. “Where the district couldn’t pay for certain things, we stepped in.”

Scaglione’s Philadelphia Youth Orchestra is now part of a cohort called the Philadelphia Music Alliance for Youth. Created in 2012, PMAY is a group of 10 organizations, including the Philadelphia School District, dedi­cated to providing music education, performance and enrichment opportunities to the city’s youth.

Two years ago the group was invited by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to submit a proposal to diversify the professional orchestra field.

“They challenged us to come up with a program,” Scaglione says, “that would identify students from certain demographics and racial backgrounds and resource them earlier on, so by the time they got to be a senior in high school they have been prepared to successfully audition to a college or conservatory at their peer level.”

That program is called the PMAY Artists’ Initiative, and it was approved to the tune of $2.5 million. It’s been so successful that other urban centers around the country are trying to replicate it.

“The right model,” Scaglione says, “is for students to have healthy in-school music programming with community organizations supporting, supplementing and expanding the opportunities for those students who have real interest in prioritizing music in their lives.”

What Scaglione envisions is akin to a concerto, where the school district is the solo instrument and the community is the

ABOVE: Chris Argerakis, a

music teacher at Andrew Jackson Elementary School, and his students, who make up the HOME band, are the subject of a documentary that aired on WHYY last fall.

LEFT: A student poses with Argerakis during band practice.

supporting orchestra. Fortunately for Scaglione, Philadelphia is almost there.

“That change really has happened within the last five years,” Scaglione says, “due to the good work of Frank Machos.”

Where the School District Steps In Frank Machos is the executive director of arts and academic enrichment for the

School District of Philadelphia. A product of central New Jersey, he arrived in Philadelphia in 1998 to attend the University of the Arts. After getting his master’s in music education, he began teaching at Grover Washington Jr. Middle School in the Olney section of the city.

“I saw a lot of things missing in music education as it existed at that point,” Machos

says. “So I built my programs around preparing kids to work as professional musicians, using a lot of contemporary music in the classroom and a lot about the music business and recording production technology.”

After five years at Grover Washington, Machos had the opportunity to take his model to School of the Future in West Philadelphia, where it quickly became successful.

After finishing an educational leadership program at the University of Pennsylvania in 2013, he was offered the position of director of music education there. He would spend the next three years in that role before the chief academic officer made the decision to reopen a dedicated Office of the Arts as part of an internal reorganization, and asked Machos to be its executive director.

“When I inherited the music office,” Machos says, “my operating budget to support 220 schools at the time was $50,000 a year.”

But Machos notes that even at its low point in 2013, the district as a whole was J UN E 20 19

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still spending approximately $50 million a year on music, visual arts, dance and theater. That made the district the third largest spending arts organization in the city, behind the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the University of the Arts, which spend $100 million and $80 million per year, respectively.

“That said, we’re still not serving all of our kids,” Machos says. “We still don’t have 100 percent access to arts and music, and where we do have access, it’s not necessarily as well-rounded as we want.”

But the numbers have been trending in a positive direction. Going into the end of last year, nearly 94 percent of district schools had at least one qualified arts educator, and the overall percentage of access to the arts was approximately 95 percent.

“Every elementary school has access to instrumental music,” Machos adds, “because there’s an itinerant music teacher in every K-5 school, and that’s a stat we’re super proud of. It’s been nearly 30 years since we’ve been able to say that.”

The district also invested $2 million in arts education in the last year from their internal budget, with $1 million going to upgrade music equipment and instruments and $1 million toward visual arts supplies.

In addition to shoring up the traditional music curriculum, this year the district will also have between 15 and 20 high schools with recording-studio programs, song writing curricula and rock bands.

All these changes come in the wake of a school district study called the “Arts & Creativity Framework” announced last fall. The framework—the first of its kind in over a decade—mapped out who the district’s arts partners were, as well as the assets of those organizations, in order to create a comprehensive plan for arts education access across the district.

Though the district will be starting with K-5, the framework calls for a redesign of all curricula, and it leaves plenty of room for teacher autonomy. The next step is to send the framework out to every teacher, elicit their feedback, then hand it back to them to implement as they see fit.

In addition to getting their chairs in order internally, the district has secured outside funding to bring music industry experts in to craft what would go into four major elements of the music entertainment industry—music business, songwriting, recording and production and modern band.

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President of the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra Louis Scaglione preparing with students before a performance.

“[T]here’s an itinerant music teacher in every K-5 school, and that’s a stat we’re super proud of.”

—frank machos,

Executive Director of Arts and Academic Enrichment

“Meek Mill just visited our school,” Machos says.

The district has also partnered with DASH—Destined to Achieve Successful Heights—an organization created by music executives who have worked with artists like Mariah Carey, Kanye West and Jay-Z. “We’re collaborating with a lot of them now to look at what we’re missing,” he says.

Of paramount importance is making sure that high school students are thinking about these things while they’re still in school, and to make sure that the talent scouts, managers and booking agents are finding younger talent coming up through the ranks.

On the Up and Up Though the state of music education in Philadelphia has been on a favorable trajectory since its 2013 nadir, there are still some rough patches that need to be smoothed out.

One is that the demand for contemporary, popular and technology-based recording programs is exceeding the district’s capacity to fill with qualified experienced teachers. Another is making sure the curriculum is based on cultural relevance and responsiveness.

“We’re really looking at meeting the cul-

tures of our kids,” Machos says. “Like in our North Philadelphia schools like Edison High where there’s a concentration of Latino students playing salsa, merengue and bachata. These are things that are not part of the music education training currently in our country—or part of the experience our new hires have.”

Because of this, the district has been talking to its partners in higher education, like Temple University, to upgrade their curricula so that new hires coming out of college have a more varied and representative cultural experience. And since the district is investing in 15 to 20 recording studios, they need to think about how to train the existing teachers to use them and identify industry professionals to bring in to help.

“We’re looking at how we build the infrastructure for the classroom music experience,” Machos says, “so that every student coming through Philadelphia has at least some exposure and experience with playing all of the instruments, and by fourth or fifth grade, where we really start bringing kids into the orchestra, they’re able to say, ‘I’m not trying an instrument, I’m now committed to playing an instrument.’ ”

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SWEET’N LOCAL These three companies deliver delicious treats without the bitter aftertaste of exploitation story by estelle tracy • photograph by ian shiver

A

s a local food supporter, you know where your food is coming from. You pick berries at the orchard and get Brandywine tomatoes from the farmers market.

Over time, you even develop a preference for a coffee origin.

But what about chocolate?

Pick any bar from your stash and check the label—odds are you won’t find where the cacao beans are from.

Chocolate is made from cacao beans (commonly known as “cocoa beans”), which are the seeds of the Theobroma cacao or cacao tree. These trees grow in areas with tropical climates, between 20 degrees north and south of the equator—a region sometimes referred to as the Cacao Belt.

West Africa is responsible for about 70 percent of the world’s cacao production, most of it commodity grade. Large chocolate companies have long relied on bulk-quality beans to create a consistent product. Companies like Hershey and Mars cornered chocolate as a singular flavor, one synonymous with Halloween candy and fudgy brownies.

An affiliate faculty of African studies at the University of Washington, Kristy Leissle, Ph.D., explains that the cacao trade was set up as part of European colonialism.

“The commodity trade of cacao is designed to keep cocoa cheap and chocolate companies comparatively rich,” she explains. “It was set up as part of the much larger system for getting many agricultural products and minerals out of colonies and

into Europe ... Without that colonial setup, I think it would have been much harder to set up [the] cocoa trade on the scale that it exists today.”

While that system brought chocolate to grocery stores, its colonial roots laid the foundation for widespread poverty on plantations.

Leissle considers poverty to be one of the most serious issues faced by cacao farmers worldwide.

For the past 20 years, she has worked, traveled and conducted research throughout Africa and currently calls Ghana home.

Unlike poverty in other parts of the world, cacao farmers aren’t struggling with food.

“Poor farmers aren’t starving,” she explains, “they’re farmers, they can grow their food.”

Rather, lack of access to clean water and sanitation are hallmarks of their poverty.

In her book “Cocoa,” Leissle explains: “there is no single industry definition of

“We’ve developed a list of criteria to select beans, the first of which is flavor.” nathan miller, co-founder of Miller Chocolate

cocoa sustainability.”

However, based on her research and observations, she offers this one: “sustainable cocoa is [farmers being] compensated well enough that [they] want to continue growing it as their primary employment, within a climatic environment that can support its commercial existence over the long term.”

Taking that definition into account, three Pennsylvania companies are striving to create a more sustainable future for cacao.

Miller Chocolate One way to improve farmer revenue is to develop a market for specialty beans sold at a premium price—the very type of beans that Miller Chocolate sources to create their award-winning bars, says Nathan Miller, the company’s co-founder.

The Chambersburg, Pennsylvania-based company is one of 200 bean-to-bar or craft chocolate-makers in the United States. While there’s no agreed-upon industry definition on either phrase, bean-to-bar makers typically pride themselves on sourcing cacao beans ethically.

The multiple-day process relies on a series of elaborate steps, which includes roasting—“not over-roasting,” insists Miller, a technique large companies use to hide flaws in bulk cacao beans—and grinding the beans, as well as tempering and molding chocolate bars.

A trained pastry chef, Miller’s chocolate journey started in Colorado, where a bite of a single-estate Madagascar chocolate from French chocolate company Michel J UN E 20 19

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Cluizel changed his life. The bright citrus notes and lack of bitterness inspired him to order chocolate-making equipment and begin experimenting with different beans in his basement.

In 2013, he and his business partner, Chelsea Russo, relocated Miller Chocolate (then Nathan Miller Chocolate) to Chambersburg because of the town’s proximity to large cacao ports in Philadelphia and New Jersey. There, the two converted an old industrial building into a chocolate-making facility and café.

What defines specialty beans is good fermentation, cleanliness and, of course, taste.

“We’ve developed a list of criteria to select beans,” explains Miller, “the first of which is flavor.”

Russo also emphasizes the importance of financial viability for their business.

“We look for stable partner farms that are able to provide large volumes [of beans] for years to come,” she says.

A three-hour ride from Center City Philadelphia, the factory’s café serves as temporary storage for the large bags of beans that make the cut. At the counter, the colorful wrappers proudly display the origin of the beans in each bar—Ghana, Peru, Dominican Republic and Madagascar.

Each single-origin bar carries the promise of a flavor journey like the one that ignited Miller’s passion.

To appeal to a wide range of palates, the company also offers playful inclusions, like buttermilk, camel milk, and they recently released a peach-grapefruit white chocolate.

Priced in the $9-$15 range, Miller Chocolate bars are carried across 250 partners around the country, including Primal Supply, ReAnimator Coffee and Whole Foods Market in Philadelphia.

Repurposed Pod Taking the specialty approach to cacao isn’t the only way to increase farmer income.

For nine years, Robert Weidner of Lititz, Pennsylvania, sourced commodity-grade beans for large, Pennsylvania-based chocolate companies. The position took him on sourcing trips across cacao-producing countries. There, he saw the impact of a volatile cacao market. In prolonged periods of price depression, farmers may choose to replace cacao with other profitable crops, such as plantains in Latin America, rubber in Africa or palm in Asia.

For flavor development, cacao beans 20

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Caption tk

must be fermented with some cacao fruit pulp, but in excess, the flesh will decrease the beans’ quality. While doing custom fermentation work in Ecuador, Weidner realized that this excess pulp was discarded to keep producing the best-quality beans.

It was a realization that opened his eyes to a potential market within the chocolate industry.

“Cacao is a fruit,” he explains, “and the flesh has been consumed for millennia.”

The pulp is quite sweet and tastes nothing like chocolate. Instead, it combines the mildness of a pear with the acidity of a lime.

Together, with his wife, Kayla, he wondered: Could they collect the flesh and turn it into juice?

The answer was yes. So they tapped into

their savings and co-founded Repurposed Pod, the very first cacao juice company in the world.

To bring the drink to market, the company partnered with an exporter that owns a farm in Ecuador—where Repurposed Pod built its juice facility.

“This made the most sense, given the farm’s proximity to other farmers, shortening the supply chain and minimizing the time from cut to receipt at the facility,” Robert says.

Repurposed Pod compensates participating farmers for the simple task of collecting cacao flesh. If the flesh meets internal quality standards, the company doubles the payment. This outlet for what was considered agricultural waste provides farmers

Caption tk Cimolori busant vellupt ibusda nobitem fugit porem aceaquam, sit laccus, sit isquis magnis quid quide non plaborr ovidit facearum asped eum fugita endae.

“Ultimately, we want cacao fruit to become a secondary commodity that will drive value for the farmer.

We hope we can be [the] catalyst of that change.” robert weidner, co-founder of Repurposed Pod

with a fixed, additional income of $175 per metric ton of cacao. For reference, a metric ton of cacao traded in the $2,000-$2,850 range over the past 12 months.

The cold-pressed fruit juice made its debut in late 2017, and in the spring of 2018, Repurposed Pod began selling shelf-stable cartons.

The drink now has a roster of prestigious clients, including New York restaurants Gabriel Kreuther and Daniel. The juice’s balance of sweet and acidic lends itself to countless uses, often slipped into cocktails, smoothies, ice cream and beer. In West Chester, Pennsylvania, Éclat Chocolate even turns this juice into sugar-coated pâtes de fruits, or jellified fruit paste.

Repurposed Pod’s cartons are available

LA C H O CO L AT ERA DR IN K PH OTO BY KR I STO N JA E BETH E L

(Clockwise from top left) Chocolate bars displayed at Miller Chocolate’s café.

Cacao beans await their fate at Miller Chocolate.

Repurposed Pod co-founder Kayla Miller stands by a theobroma cacao in Ecuador.

Repurposed Pod produces a drink from the oft-overlooked cacao pulp.

La Chocolatera serves up a frothy treat on their food truck.

Nathan Miller and Chelsea Russo on a cacao farm in Guatemala.

today at 350 retailers nationwide.

This is just the beginning for the Weidners, who have big ambitions, both for their cacao farmers and their company. They plan on developing a line of cacao-based products, setting up the juice as a flagship product.

“Ultimately, we want cacao fruit to become a secondary commodity that will drive value for the farmer,” Robert explains. “We hope we can be [the] catalyst of that change.”

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La Chocolatera Other chocolate-makers like David Truskinoff rely on trustworthy brokers to source their beans.

Since February of this year, the founder of La Chocolatera has been serving single-origin Bolivian drinking chocolate from his electric food truck around Philadelphia.

His cacao journey started on Broadway.

Truskinoff had spent three decades as a music conductor working on musicals including Rent and Hair when he started itching to get his hands dirty.

The cacao seed was planted two years ago, when he came across an article describing the unsavory sides of cacao growing, such as rainforest deforestation and child labor.

When he discovered Giselle Weybrecht’s blog, “Ultimate Hot Chocolate,” he knew he’d found a medium to express himself.

“I thought it was so cool,” he says, but instead of simply melting industrial chocolate into milk, Truskinoff decided to make his own, starting with sustainably sourced cacao beans.

He spent an entire year learning to use two cacao grinders and experimenting with

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different bean origins and sources.

“I did a lot of research,” Truskinoff explains, “and looked into several distributors before selecting Uncommon Cacao to get beans.”

A cacao broker built on the principle that “farmer prosperity is a key ingredient in good chocolate,” Uncommon Cacao was founded in 2010 “to create meaningful market access for smallholder cacao farmers.”

The company currently carries 15 different cacao origins; for each, it provides a detailed bean price sheet. Truskinoff chose Bolivian beans from the Alto Beni Cacao Company because of their chocolatey flavor and lack of bitter notes. Alto Beni’s bean sheet discloses the number of female farmers (89), the average annual income per farmer ($464) and how much growers receive for their beans (twice the price of the West African farm gate price).

This winter, Truskinoff created three beverages using Alto Beni beans: a classic, 68% dark chocolate concoction, a sweeter dulce, with a 56% cacao content, and a mint version.

The former conductor prides himself on the care poured into each drink.

“I add the mint during the chocolate-making process,” he says, “not as an oil in the cup.”

This summer, La Chocolatera will serve the same recipes in different forms—think frozen frappés, chilled chocolate on tap and fudgesicles. His favorite? Nitro chocolate.

“It has a creamy mouthfeel,” he says. “It’s delicious.”

Running La Chocolatera hasn’t come without challenges, however. The manufacturer of his electric food truck, eStar, closed in 2013, and it’s proved difficult to service.

In addition, the vehicle uses a lot of power, which requires a generator that “defeats the purpose of running an electric food truck.”

Still, Truskinoff refuses to be discouraged. He partially offsets the business’s environmental footprint by serving chocolate drinks in biodegradable paper cups, handing out recycled paper napkins and skipping the plastic straw.

“I’m really doing my best,” he says. What keeps him going is the conviction he feels having found his new passion.

“Nothing feels better than working with cacao beans,” he says.

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FERTILE GROUNDS

Two Philadelphia public schools demonstrate how to get food waste out of landfills and educate the next generation at the same time story by alexandra jones • photography by kriston jae bethel

O

n the two-acre Henry Got Crops urban farm at W.B. Saul High School in Mt. Airy, it’s easy to forget you’re still in the city. Lambs frolic near their mothers on green pastures while ruddy-colored cows placidly chew their cud. Salad greens grow green, purple, and red in tidy rows, destined to be harvested for the farm’s weekly stand and CSA program. Families relax at picnic tables under a cherry tree, enjoying ice cream sandwiches before picking up their produce.

At Saul, the School District of Philadelphia’s agricultural high school, students get to experience—and be a part of—the life cycles of plants and animals up close. But some of the most important activity occurring on its 140-acre campus is invisible to the human eye.

“This pile here was started about two months ago,” says Scott Blunk, gesturing toward a heap of dark earthlike matter taller than his truck. The retired Kansas-born agricultural salesman turned urban farm volunteer is driving through a series of windrows, long mounds of compost, in progress that he tends with the help of Saul students, staff and two large pieces of farm machinery.

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way to deal with the manure generated by the school’s livestock. Today, much more is broken down there. The long list includes animal waste from the Philadelphia Zoo; food scraps from three local composting companies and the three Weaver’s Way Coop stores; coffee grounds from High Point Coffee; and excess spent grain from six different breweries, which is used to supplement feed for the school’s dairy cows.

Clients pay a small fee for each dropoff.

“We’d got rid of all the headaches that the school had getting rid of all the poop,” Blunk says, “so we started looking into possible revenue streams to put money back into school, fund scholarship programs and hire kids to work.”

He points out the newest pile, with food scraps like watermelon rinds, banana peels and eggshells visible among the black soil.

After six months of anaerobic activity, he’ll use the tractor and a compost turner to flip and aerate the tall piles into windrows, helping oxygen-loving microbes, insects, and other organisms finish the job.

The nutrient-rich compost is sold through Weaver’s Way Co-op, which runs Henry Got Crops in collaboration with Saul, and distributed to community members,

Students at W.B. Saul High School in Mount Airy turn a compost pile by hand.

households and gardens around the city.

While citywide school food-waste diversion and composting isn’t imminent, Henry Got Compost has made it possible for forward-thinking teachers, administrators, parents and students to show that it can be done, one school at a time.

W

hile separating kitchen scraps to be processed into compost is common in sustainability-minded households and businesses in Philly, diverting food waste has a long way to go in schools.

In addition to the cost and effort involved in developing and enforcing systems for collection and disposal districtwide,

misconceptions around composting food waste—that it’s smelly, unsanitary or would attract pests—would make a top-down composting initiative challenging to implement, even though these issues wouldn’t exist in a well-run program.

“The primary barrier is that for a program to be successful it needs internal buy-in—it’s usually successful when you have a Green Team or leader in place [at a school],” says Emma Wu, the district’s sustainability project coordinator. “It wouldn’t be respectful for us as a district to implement a blanket program.”

The GreenFutures initiative—which also helps promote nutrition in schools and provides educational resources to help teachers

While separating kitchen scraps to be processed into compost is common in sustainability-minded households and businesses in Philly, diverting food waste has a long way to go in schools. incorporate environment, ecology and sustainability in curricula—has used this approach to establish recycling in Philadelphia schools. But the district is supportive of individual teachers, administrators and parent

groups who want to implement food-waste diversion and composting on their own.

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waste, trash and recycling during breakfast and three lunch periods, five days a week throughout the school year. (W.B. Saul is the other.)

It all started with Stephanie Kearney, who teaches middle school science and leads the robotics team at Penn Alexander, in 2015. To prepare for a waste-themed robotics competition, team members had to design a project that would solve a particular problem.

Her students chose to perform a waste audit: They sorted and weighed lunchroom trash, piling milk cartons and plastic containers together for recycling, pulling out plastic sporks, straws, chip bags, styrofoam lunchroom trays and other trash headed for the landfill, and set aside food waste.

T

he students found that one day’s three lunch periods generated 50 pounds of waste that could have been composted—150 pounds per day, 750 pounds in a five-day week, or 27,000 pounds a single school year, for just one elementary school with a little under 600 students.

Between April 2018 and March 2019, the district paid to have 34,592,798 pounds— more than 17,296 tons—of trash picked up and disposed of at 211 district schools, according to data provided by the district’s waste disposal company, J.P. Mascaro & Sons.

Mascaro also recycled 3,631,838 pounds, or 1,815 tons, of waste for city schools during that period, a diversion rate of a little more than 10 percent. (Philadelphia homes and businesses generate more than 1.5 million tons of waste annually with nearly 40 percent of that figure recycled, according to the zero-waste action plan.)

Penn Alexander tries to minimize what goes to the landfill. Thanks to a dedicated administration, a student body that’s now educated and enthusiastic about recycling and composting, school staff and support from the parent-run Home-School Association, they are succeeding. But keeping the waste stream clean takes education, work and resources.

First, robotics team members visited classrooms and made a video to teach their fellow students how to compost; they also used data from their waste audit to petition the district for a recycling dumpster. Bryn Mawr College donated a secondhand three-container waste disposal unit for the lunchroom that would allow students to sort trash, recycling, and food waste easily. A cafeteria staffer is 26

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Urban farm volunteer and composting guru Scott Blunk rides Saul’s industrial compost turner, “Larry.”

“We have three fewer trash cans in the lunchroom now. If the person who supervises composting is absent and the bins aren’t out, the kids will ask, ‘Where are the bins?’”

—megan wapner,

Interim Principal, Penn Alexander School

From top: A pile of food waste begins its composting journey Students listen to insruction before working on the farm at W.B Saul High School.

tasked with supervising students while they dispose of their trash during all three lunch periods; he sorts out any misplaced sporks or ketchup packets that make their way into the food-waste container.

W

e have three fewer trash cans in the lunchroom now,” says interim principal Megan Wapner. “If the person who supervises composting is absent and the bins aren’t out, the kids will ask, ‘Where are the bins?’ They’ve definitely taken ownership over that, and they expect it, they want it.”

On-site composting is beyond Penn Alexander’s capabilities, so the school’s parent-run Home & School Association pays to have local company Bennett Compost make regular pickups, which are then processed at Saul. Each spring, Blunk delivers a load of

compost for the students to use in the school’s garden plots and in classroom projects.

“The students shovel up the compost and put it in the beds, and we brought some inside to look at it under a microscope to see what was living in there,” Kearney says. “A lot of the kids don’t have exposure to that.”

The system runs smoothly, and Penn Alexander students are learning to become sustainable citizens and getting hands-on science lessons, too.

But there are still challenges to limiting food waste, says Wapner.

The district receives funding from the USDA to provide free or reduced-cost breakfast and lunch to every student, which means they’re bound to USDA guidelines for what students are served in those meals.

While the guidelines include food-waste reduction measures like offering students a choice between three fruit options so kids

choose foods they want to eat, sometimes only one choice is available. And milk— which some students don’t drink—is the only beverage on the menu.

Although schools in the district offer share tables, where students can leave or swap out foods, those unopened items can’t be reused for the next day’s lunch. Regulations exist around donating these items to food pantries or shelters, so at nearly every Philly school, they go into the trash.

There’s also the problem of district-provided disposables. Wapner would like to see plastic packets for condiments replaced with refillable pumps. Pre-bagged utensil sets also generate unnecessary waste: a student who just needs a straw has to waste a spork, a napkin, and the plastic bag, too.

But the school district’s food services department has taken one big step in reducing waste in school lunchrooms: since late 2017, those polystyrene trays—an item that doesn’t break down in landfills and whose manufacture generates toxic byproducts— have been replaced with a tray made from 100 percent recycled paper.

Thanks to encouragement from stakeholders like Blunk and Wapner—and the opportunity to buy in bulk with school systems in cities like New York, Miami, Dallas and Orlando through the Urban School Food Alliance—PSD was able to purchase these compostable trays without blowing their budget.

“The actual tray is more expensive than styrofoam,” says Devon Sundberg, coordinator of dietetic services for the district, “but because we can cut out smaller bowls and portion dishes, it’s been cost neutral.”

Since the new trays are sturdier, the district sends around a quarter fewer disposables to the landfill—around 604,000 compostable trays per year versus 880,000 styrofoam trays, plates and bowls in the past.

Only Penn Alexander and Saul are composting their trays so far, and Blunk says that the district would need a commercial-scale composting solution if all schools participated. But the move represents a big step forward for the district, so that if—and hopefully, when—Philadelphia makes real strides toward a citywide composting program, they’ve already taken the first big step.

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CURIO THEATRE SUMMER CAMP 2019

TWO 2-WEEK SESSIONS OF THEATRE CAMP IN JULY!

SESSION ONE: July 1st - July 12th* (*NO CAM P ON TH URSDAY, J U LY 4th!)

SESSION TWO: July 15th - July 26th

Monday-Friday • 9:30 a.m.-3:00 p.m. $450 PER SESSION

A $50 non-refundable deposit is required to register and secure your camper’s spot. $50 deposit included in cost. Attend both sessions for a discount!

We accept rising 1st graders through rising 12th graders and campers of all experience levels!

P LEASE NOTE: We gladly accept and encourage enrollment for both sessions!

CURIO THEATRE CAMP offers different activities and different plays for the student’s final showcase project and many of our campers do stay for the entire month.

The camp experience culminates in a public showcase performance on the last Friday of each camp session at 2:30 p.m. for family and friends.

TO R EGISTER, call or email Education Director M EG TR ELEASE at

(215) 921-8243 • meg@curiotheatre.org

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Wolff’s Apple House Farm Market & Garden Center

Interested in finding out if you are eligible for one of our HIV prevention research studies?

Who We Need

The Univeristy of Pennsylvania is seeking: • Healthy people • HIV negative • 18 and older • People with an interest in joining a research study to help find ways to prevent HIV infection.

Participation Includes: • Free and confidential HIV counseling and testing • Physical exams • Compensation for your time and travel • The vaccine CANNOT cause HIV infection, but it may not protect you from infection

1-866-HIV-PENN (1-866-448-7366) www.phillyvax.org/outreach facebook.com/phillyvax • @phillyvax

Fresh, Locally Grown Produce & Plants Wolff ’s is “Always in Season!” Find the region’s best selection of fresh, locally grown produce in our farm market.

Summer brings vine-ripened tomatoes, delicious melons, peaches & berries, plus fresh-picked corn on the cob every day!

Browse our garden center for annuals, perennials, and vegetable plants, including a great selection of tomato and pepper plants!

www.WolffsAppleHouse.com

81 S. Pennell Rd. - Media, PA - 610-566-1680 J UN E 20 19

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EV EN TS

june 2019

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Community Gardens Day

2019 Green Sports Alliance Summit

Celebrate summer’s arrival at Community Gardens Day. Across the city, over 50 vibrant and unique community gardens and shared open spaces welcome all to participate in an array of engaging activities for all ages. ngtrust.org WHEN: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. COST: Free WHERE: All over Philadelphia

It’s A Green Thing Sustainability Fair Bike, walk or scooter your way to this family-friendly fair, where you’ll find local artisans and businesses who are committed to making the world a greener place. There will be food trucks, live music and a chance to meet West Laurel Hill’s goats. westlaurelhill.com WHEN: 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. COST: Free WHERE: 225 Belmont Avenue, Bala Cynwyd

Practical Organic Gardening Mark Highland, of Organic Mechanic Soil Company, presents information on non-toxic pest-management strategies, soil health and its direct impact on plant growth, and various techniques for growing a wide range of garden plants. mtcubacenter.org WHEN: 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. COST: $29 WHERE: 3120 Barley Mill Rd., Hockessin, DE

and

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Summer Ale Festival

greensportsalliance.org

Philadelphia Zoo’s Summer Ale Festival returns for brews and live entertainment.

Enjoy unlimited sampling of over 100 specialty brews including award-winning seasonal ales from the region’s top breweries. The festival serves as a fundraiser for the zoo. philadelphiazooevents.com

WHEN: 7:30 a.m. (19th) to 5 p.m. (20th) COST: $20-675 WHERE: Lincoln Financial Field

WHEN: 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. COST: $65, early access $85, non-drinker $35 WHERE: 3400 W Girard Ave.

This summit brings together hundreds of sports industry stakeholders to learn and share best practices and the latest innovations in greening operations, advancing the supply chain, engaging fans and more.

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Produce and Host Your Own Radio Show Workshop Dyana Williams and Derrick Sampson, hosts of the music program “Soulful Sunday” on Old School 100.3, provide an overview of the skill set necessary to be a broadcaster and execute a meaningful show. scribe.org WHEN: 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. COST: $75, $50 for Scribe members WHERE: 3908 Lancaster Ave.

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Blueberry Festival at Whitesbog

WHEN: 10 a.m. to 4p.m. COST: $5 per car WHERE: 799 Lakehurst Rd, Browns Mills, NJ

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Summer Solstice Festival Friends of Heinz Refuge at Tinicum host their third annual festival. Explore the sights and sounds of this wildlife refuge.

Enjoy food, live music, guided hikes, yoga, crafts, and a movie screening. friendsofheinzrefuge.org WHEN: 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. COST: Free WHERE: 8601 Lindbergh Blvd.

J une 24 Late Spring Highlights Tour

An old-fashioned country fair in this Pine Barrens historic village where blueberries were first cultivated. Attractions include a general store, tractor-pulled wagon rides to pick heirloom berries, local handmade crafts and folk music. Supports community programs and preservation of the farmland. whitesbog.org

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Explore the Scott Arboretum’s plant collections with staff. This tour is geared toward gardeners, from beginners to experts. The tour will begin at the arboretum offices. In case of inclement weather, the tour will be canceled. scottarboretum.org WHEN: 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. COST: Free WHERE: 500 College Ave., Swarthmore

Clean Laundry Clean Planet Clean Slates

Sustainable Laundry and Linen Solutions for Philly’s Laundry and Linen Residents and Solutions for Businesses

Small Businesses

theschoolinrosevalley.org

WashCycleLaundry.com

1 Boathouse Row • 215-978-0900 Corporate & Private Events Wednesday–Friday: 8 AM to 3 PM Saturday: 8 AM to 5 PM Sunday: 8 AM to 4 PM

cosmicfoods.com

COMMUNITY GARDENS DAY

2019

Learn. Play. Grow.

Save 10% off your first order. Code: GRID10

Farm-to-Table Fresh Organic and Local Outdoor Seating by the River

JUNE 15 • 10 AM - 2 PM

A citywide celebration of community gardens and shared open space.

Garden tours, workshops, kids activities, music and much more!

Find a participating garden near you and register for tours at

www.ngtrust.org

#COMMUNITYGARDENSDAY RAIN DATE: JUNE 16

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A N D R E W A B B OT T A LO N A B R A M S O N C H A R L ES A DZ E M A CARINA AHREN G R E G O R Y A LO I A V I C TO R I A A Q U I LO N E C H R I S T I N A A R LT CHARA ARMON M A RY A R M ST RO N G ALLAN ASH AMANDA ASHMORE DENIS & JUDY ASSELIN AW B U R Y A R B O R E T U M K Y L E B A G E N S TO S E G R E TC H Y N B A I L E Y DYLAN BAIRD AMANDA BAKER SUZANNE BAKEWELL JEFFREY BALIFF N A N C Y B A R TO N E L I S A B AT T L E D OT T I E B A U M G A R T E N BRENT BEERLEY P. B E H R E N S J OS E P H B E R N ST E I N BRUCE BERRYMAN K AT H R Y N B I R S T E R M I C H E L L E B LO O D W E L L L I N D A B LY T H E JAMIE BOGERT NICOLE BOICE H E C TO R B O N E S ALEXA BOSSE CO L L E E N B OY D JA N E B OY D BRACKEN LEADERSHIP SUSAN BRETZ LINDSEY BRITT SO P H I E B RO N ST E I N BERNARD BROWN ROBERT BROWN RUTH BROWN WILLIAM BROWN BENJAMIN BRUCKMAN COLE BRUNSON DANIELLE BUEHLER MARLA BURKHOLDER MCHELLE BURNS-MCHUGH MICHELLE BURNS-MCHUGH PA U L B U T T N E R ANTHONY CAMP KYLE CARMONA K AT E C A S A N O M A R Y LO U I S E C A S TA L D I M A R I SSA CAST RO J O C ATA N Z A R O C H LO E C E R W I N K A HEDY CERWINKA MARY CHEN ROSE CHIANGO SUSA N C H I N N I C I M OY E R J E R O M E C LO U D ANN COHEN SARAH COLINS KASSANDRA COMBS ANNE COOK CHERYL COOK MARY COOLEY CAROL FERN CULHANE ELIZABETH CUNICELLI JOANNE DAHME MARY DEVILBISS PA U L D I F R A N C E S C O LISA DIGIACOMO GILDA DOGANIERO A M E L I A D U F F Y-T U M A S Z K R I ST I N A DUGA N CAROL DUNCAN SUSAN EDENS A M A N D A E D WA R D S HELEN ELKINS N I C E S P O S I TO M O R G A N E VA N S E D WA R D FA G A N K AT E FA R Q U H A R ANDREW FELDMAN J A M I E F E R E L LO JULIA FERNANDEZ ANNA FISCHMAN ALLISON FLANDERS ROB FLEMING SUSAN FLESHMAN E R I K A F LO R Y BOB FORMICA P H I L FO RSY T H DEANA FRANK SUSAN FRANK LAUREN FRISCO MICHAEL GALE C O N S TA N C E G A R C I A - B A R R I O G LO R I A G E L L A I LAURA GIBSON MARY GILMAN SIOBHAN GLEASON

C H R I ST I N A G R I F F I N BRENT GROCE ROBERT GROVES LENNY HABERMAN KENNETH HAHN HEIDI HAMMEL CHARLENE HANBURY K E L LY H A N N I G A N BARBARA HANSEN J O H N H A RTZO G LEANNE HARVEY ROBERT HASSON K AT I E H AW K E S CJ HAZELL W I L L I A M H E N GST ANNA HERMAN H E AT H E R H E R S H H E AT H E R H I L L JODY HILL JUDY HOFFMAN M A R YA N N H O O K E R D A N I E L H O WA R D ANDI HUBBARD LY N D A H U B B E L L A M E Y H U TC H I N S K AT H R Y N I D E L L TYKEE JAMES J O N AT H A N J E N S E N LO R R A I N E J E W E T T BRETT JOHN BRAD JONES BRAD JONES CAROLE JONES FREDERICK JONES MADELEINE JONES MARTINJONES IRA JOSEPHS LY N N K A R O LY NANCY KASSAM-ADAMS SOHEE KEMPF KALLIE KENDLE LAURA KENNEDY BILL KING N A N C Y K L AVA N S E VA N K L I N E F E LT E R E M I LY KO VA C H JENNY KRAFT VICKY KRESGE VA L E R I E L A N G L E VA N A L AY E N D E C K E R JAMIE LEARY DON LEEDY MINDY LEMOINE A M Y K AT E LO B E L K AT H L E E N LO P E Z FA C U N D O L U C C I AISHA MACKINS M E G A N M A L LO Y JOHN MARGERUM DEBORAH MARGULIES FRED MARSHALL W M J M A R S TO N L E E D A P L I S A M AT H E W S O N L I S A M AT H E W S O N N I C O L E M AT T H E S E N R YA N M C C O R M I C K K AT H L E E N M C C O U R T JEN MCCREERY M A R Y LY L E M C C U E ALLISON MCDONAGH MICHAEL MCGETTIGAN TO M M C G E T T I G A N THADDEUS MCGINESS DENNIS MCOWEN ST E P H E N M E A D PA I G E M E N TO N DANIELLE MERCURIO GAIL MERSHON ELIZABETH MILLER JENNINE MILLER NIESHA MILLER S U S A N M O N TA G U E JOHN MOORE JEFFREY NEWBURGER M I C H E L L E N I C O L E T TO ANNE ODONNELL ST E V E O L I V E R P E N N Y O R D WAY K AT E O S H E A W I L L I A M O S WA L D A L E X PA L M A C H R I S TO P H E R PA P P O C A R O L I N E PA R K O G N I A N PAV LO V JANE PEPPER ELISABETH PEREZ LUNA M A R Y A N N P E T R I L LO ALLISON PIERSON SARA PILLING JESS PLUMMER S TA N P O K R A S LISA POWLEY CONNOR PRITZ H O L LY Q U I N O N E S

G E N I E R AV I TA L KIM RAZNOV TED REED JENNY REEVERTS M.B. REGAN JENNIFER REZELI JOHANNA RIORDAN MARK RIVINUS C H R I S TO P H E R R O B E R T S TERRY ROBERTS JON ROESSER G LO R I A R O H L F S JOHN ROMANO ANDY ROSEN MARC ROWELL LO R R A I N E R YA N JENNY SANDLER MARY SCHOBERT KEVIN SCOLES S H O S H A N N A H S E E F I E L DT RACHEL SEMIGRAN DANIELLE SERVEDIO J I L L S H A S H AT Y L I S A S H U LO C K K L A U D I A S I KO R A C SKEMA BETH SMITH MEGHAN SMITH D AV I D S N E L B A K E R G A R Y S O B O LO W LO R Y S O D A PETER SODY R YA N S P I E S LAURA SPINA ALLISON SPONIC D I A N A ST E I F PA U L S T E I N K E M A RGA R E T ST E P H E N S E R I C S TO W E R S S H AW N S U M M E R S D O R OTA S Z A R L E J D AV I D TA N I E R A N N E TAY LO R N Y S S A TAY LO R ANNE THOMFORDE THOMAS EST E L L E T RAC Y SUSAN UNVER I L A VA S S A L LO LAUREN VIDAS LO I S V O LTA PAT R I C I A WA G N E R L I N D S E Y WA L A S K I P H O E N I C I A WA L L A C E D E B B I E WA R D E N M A R S H A L L WA R F I E L D LAURA WEBB H A N N A H W E I N ST E I N LEE WENTZ K I RST E N W E R N E R H O L L I S W E S TO N PA U L W H I T TA K E R RACHEL WISE ZACHARY WOLK ALBERT YEE CURTIS ZIMMERMANN

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PHILLY FOODWORKS is changing our local f ood ec onomy!

We are an online market and farm share program that is dedicated to creating a sustainable local food system for the Greater Philadelphia region.

Here is how we are changing the local food system: FAIR PRICES AND EFFICIENT TRANSPORTATION ROUTES

Unlike many traditional distributors that demand exclusivity and leverage competition to get the lowest-possible prices, we keep farmers’ well-being at the center of our business model.

We allow our growers and producers to sell to whomever they want and encourage them to do what is best for their businesses.

We also have established a network of aggregation hubs where multiple farmers in certain areas can deliver products to be transported in consolidated deliveries to our warehouse in Philadelphia.

And we cover the cost of trucking! This not only reduces the carbon footprint and allows smaller farmers to access the city market, but it also allows farmers to keep more of their profits to invest back in their business… or hey, maybe even go on vacation!

INVESTMENTS IN PRODUCER OPERATIONS

Another way we support farmers and producers is by helping them make investments in their dayto-day operations. In the past, we have provided financing for seed, greenhouses, coolers, and even a truck for various farms. In 2019, we are in talks to help finance another greenhouse for one of our farmers, which will help us guarantee a steady crop of greens throughout the winter.

CROP PLANNING AND COLLABORATION WITH FARMERS

In 2018, we launched a project aimed at increasing the diversity of our products and locking in seasonal orders far in advance. The result was a giant spreadsheet detailing the specific crops each of our farmers grow, roughly how much they will be planting for upcoming seasons, and the approximate time they plan to harvest.

When he noted overlapping crops among different farms, our produce buyer, Loren, collaborated with the farmers to choose different varieties or later planting times so Philly Foodworks won’t have to turn away any of our farmers’ crops due to excess supply, and so excess crops don’t go to waste in the fields due to lack of demand.

As a bonus, this also means that we’ll have an even wider range of produce in the coming seasons, as well as longer availability of items due to staggered plantings among different farms. For the farmers, it means that they have a guaranteed market for their products and the support (both financial and strategic) to try new varieties—like Black Nebula carrots and Sichuan Red Beauty radishes, for instance.

When you shop Philly Foodworks, you too are helping change our food system! phillyfoodworks.com | 215-221-6245 | info@phillyfoodworks.com

Maame Mensah, MES ’11

Turn your passion for the environment into a fulfilling career Make the most of industry connections and Ivy League academics VIRTUAL CAFÉ Join the MES program director from 12-1 p.m. on the first Tuesday of every month for an online chat about your interests and goals.

In Penn’s Master of Environmental Studies program, you train for success in a field where you can make a real, practical difference. Built with flexibility in mind, the program’s innovative, interdisciplinary approach allows you to create or choose a concentration and enroll full- or part-time to suit your schedule. Study on a green campus in the heart of Philadelphia and gain hands-on experience through internships and fieldwork opportunities.

Log in with us.

Take the next step in your environmental career at: www.facebook.com/UPennEES @Penn_MES_MSAG

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