Grid Magazine February 2020 [#129]

CITIZEN SCIENTISTS SAVE OUR STREAMS p. 12 ACTIVIST COUPLES FIGHT FOR SOCIAL CHANGE p. 19

the FEBRUARY 2020 / ISSUE 129 / 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

ACTIV ISM issue

Jane Fonda’s civil disobedience sounds the alarm for climate change activism

shop locally

& Sustainably

Zero Waste shopping throughout the store, from bulk to beauty products.

Ambler • Chestnut Hill • Mt. Airy Community-owned markets, open to everyone.

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Monthly Maker Kevin B. Huang Philadelphia, PA KevinBHuang.com @kevinbhuang2702 TELL US ABOUT YOURSELF? I have been making and selling artwork since I was ten years old. My youthful aspiration was to be an architect and achieved a Baccalaureate in Architecture from Pratt Institute. A subsequent life threatening meningeal infection allowed me to assess and reassess my priorities through the making of art.

WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY WORKING ON? The Fleisher Art Memorial Wind Challenge opening April 3, 2020. This will be an installation of “Story Balls� made from found and reclaimed items mostly from the streets of Philadelphia. Clothing that once belonged to my father were assembled using a quilt pattern that I modified from the traditional cathedral window pattern to form a sphere.

WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS? Action. I hope that people who see my work will be inspired to engage with one another in discussions about provocative issues that may emerge from my use of materials and descriptions of individual pieces. By seeing the sheer quantity of waste that I have individually collected in a short period of time, folks will ideally be able to visualize the magnitude and social impact of our collective detritus. Action from seeing the impact and effects of poverty, sexual health and general well-being may be brought to bear as people from differing cultures and backgrounds start to talk with one another and find common ground for solutions.

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Wilmington

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EDI TOR ’S NOTES

by

alex mulcahy

Let’s Get Arrested

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

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require me to summon some courage, it was a pretty modest risk. It’s true that you never know how an event might turn out, but in a crowd dotted with celebrities, and in a city and setting accustomed to dealing with civil disobedience, the risk level was pretty low.

There would be no snarling dogs or rubber bullets that pipeline protesters endure. In fact, I wasn’t even handcuffed or taken away in a paddy wagon. It was civil disobedience lite—though I’m not complaining.

(The same day, it should be noted, there was a protest held by Philly Thrive in a far less glamorous place, the former Philadelphia Energy Solutions oil refinery, and there wasn’t a celebrity in sight when four members of the activist group were arrested. The hard work they put in, and the real risks they took, give them the right to take a victory lap after some great news. Two weeks after the protest, the facility was sold to Hilco Global, a Chicago-based real estate developer, which has no plans to re-open the refinery.)

With the stakes as high as they are, it is clear we all must become activists, or at least push ourselves out of our current comfort zones. We don’t need the colossal miscarriage of justice that appears to be occurring in the U.S. Senate at press time to know that the government will only change if a movement demands that it does.

Activism at its core is fun, and it creates a virtuous cycle. The more we do, and the more we connect with other people, the happier we feel. Let’s find our place in the Movement, and then if the situation requires it, let’s get arrested.

P.S. Get started by canceling any credit cards, or better yet mortgages, from JP Morgan Chase & Company. They are the primary funders of fossil fuel projects, and we need to get our money out of there immediately.

ALEX MULCAHY Editor-in-Chief alex@gridphilly.com COV E R P HOTO BY RACHAE L WARRI NER

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

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n email from Judy Wicks arrived in my inbox that made me pause.

Not a personal note, but one sent to her e-mail list. “Demand climate action with Jane Fonda,” the subject line read. In it she explained that she had first gone to Washington, D.C. in October to join Fonda in her weekly Fire Drill Friday climate change protests. On January 10, the last event in this series would occur, and Wicks and some friends would be attending.

She also mentioned the last time she attended Fire Drill Friday. She decided to get arrested, and she was planning to do so again. No pressure, Wicks assured, but the opportunity would be there to participate in an act of civil disobedience. Wear red, she instructed, and I’ll meet you at 30th Street Station to catch the 8:31 a.m. train.

Hmmmmm...

Days before, I finished reading Bill McKibben’s latest book, “Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?” For the sake of brevity, I will not go into much detail about the first 18 chapters of the book, which eloquently document the grave threats to humanity posed by climate change and artificial intelligence—and how the philosophy of Ayn Rand is an underlying theme to both. Suffice it to say, it is pretty grim.

The final five chapters, nested in the subsection entitled “An Outside Chance” got me thinking. Again, for brevity, I will distill these five chapters of the best path forward into five words: solar panels and civil disobedience. Was it time to get arrested?

I somewhat nervously floated the idea at home and received encouragement from my significant other. When I started telling other people I was considering going to the protest and committing an act of civil disobedience, the response was incredibly supportive and positive.

I contacted a photographer, Rachael Warriner, who regularly documents social movements, and she was up for the adventure. So at 8:31 a.m., clad in my red hoodie, we were on our way.

Let me step back for a minute and put some of this into perspective. While this did

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by

lois volta

DEAR LOIS,

Can a dirt-and-clutter problem be so bad that you should just move out and move on?

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aking a backseat in our own lives and homes is a choice. Cutting and running leaves a multitude of problems and ultimately asks someone else to clean up the mess. It is nice to have a fresh start, but habits come along for the ride—and sometimes bad habits are magnified with the stress of change and/or moving from one home to the next.

When the home gets to the point where it is so overwhelming, it seems easier to pack up and move on than to look at the mess we got ourselves into. Ultimately, we have to sift through the clutter either way. The best thing we can do is take back control.

I’ve worked with countless clients who felt that they couldn’t do anything but live a life where they felt trapped, depressed and hated their cluttered surroundings. When the foundations of our human experience are clouded by dread and resentment, we become easily distracted from the bigger picture. Having a pity party about the fact that life takes effort will keep us from participating in the work that has to be done— not only right in front of us, but also on a broader scale.

I look at political dysfunction, imminent wars, the fires in Australia and the state of climate change and I feel powerless. But if I truly believe that I can’t do anything to solve the world’s problems and that all change must come from the top, then I become part of the problem. So it goes for the home, relationships and just about any complicated issue.

The serenity prayer is helpful and 4

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important to reflect on: Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Often we focus on things we can’t change; we should be looking at the impact we can make right in front of us, right now. There is always a path that can take us to higher ground, or simply, get us out of the hole we are in. Humility, determination, bravery and hope are needed to face our perceptions of our limitations.

When it comes to clutter and projects left undone, there is so much to unpack. In every paper pile, junk drawer and dumping area, we find our own procrastination, denial and apathy.

Confronting such traits in ourselves is

unbelievably difficult. It reveals the gap between our ideologies, desires and the actual work involved in making them a reality.

Maybe your life or your identity is revealing itself to be different than you thought it was. This is part of our human experience.

A great place to deconstruct this subset of ego is within the mundane. Through the mundane, we find the sublime, which is available to us at any moment.

I’m not attempting to sugarcoat the idea that cleaning and organizing should elicit excitement; I am opening a dialogue about what our behaviors teach us about ourselves. When we start the process of deconstruction, reworking what is broken and piled-up, we feel good. Overwhelmed, yes, but ultimately, we feel proud of ourselves after we’ve taken matters into our own hands.

Step back and look at the problem. How big of a problem is it? What mountain are you attempting to climb? Many times, we want shortcuts to remedy the symptoms of clutter because the real issues are too hard to face, namely, how the mess and clutter happened in the first place. When we acknowledge that we can be messy and apathetic toward major issues, we can then take the first steps on a path of clarity, healthy decision-making and control over our story and reality. Rath-

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

TH E VO LTA WAY

IL LUSTRATIO N BY LO I S VOLTA

.

BE er than shuffling items and issues from one place to another, we begin the real work.

When we feel stuck and unmotivated and blame external pressures for our troubles, we lose sight of the changes we can make for ourselves. Rip everything apart so you can rebuild it. Take action. Organize the room you’ve been throwing all of your junk into, the places that drive you crazy and the areas you need to focus on. Don’t wait around for other people to make your life easier or better.

Here is a hard truth: You can’t get people to care, they have to care for themselves. This applies to you as well. Stop waiting for someone to be your muse or fix your problems.

Care enough about yourself to do something about the problem. It is called self-respect.

When we release blame, guilt and remorse, we will find that awareness, understanding, forgiveness and egalitarianism are now on the table for examination. These bold actions are easily found throughout daily domestic life. This gift reveals itself when we agree to rummage through life’s mélange of untidy lessons. In other words, we should embrace our inner punk, defy our ego and conquer the junk-pile curated by materialism and capitalism. We are not our stuff; our identities lie in one another as people, culture and active participants in a cosmic experience. Be free from anger and dread.

We can take one step at a time; we don’t have to go out on a leap of faith. We never arrive at point B if we don’t acknowledge that point A is a place to be restored and made well.

We can take pride in our actions, foster good habits and develop the strength to make our homes (and truly so much more) better. We can inspire, we can motivate and, with time, we can teach others how to establish their own paths for the betterment of all life. We are not the center of the universe, we are in this together. For now, one step at a time, keep your eye on the big picture.

Eric Hurlock Digital Editor Lancaster Farming, Host, Industrial Hemp Podcast

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lois volta is is a home consultant, musician and the founder of Volta Naturals. loisvolta. com. Have a question? Send it to thevoltaway@ gmail.com F E B RUARY 20 20

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bike talk

Citizen Police With this Twitter bot, you can shame repeat parking offenders

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witter user @bluebees posted a helmet cam video last November depicting a Philly cyclist riding up behind a FedEx van, reaching toward a partially obscured license plate with a knife and ripping off what appears to be a sticker covering a single number on the plate.

Revealed underneath is Pennsylvania license plate ZNE1799, a tag linked to more than $2,500 in unpaid parking tickets to the Philadelphia Parking Authority (PPA) for offenses such as parking in no-parking zones, crosswalks and loading areas.

Similarly, a UPS truck photographed in a bike lane in January of last year currently owes $739 in unpaid tickets. Another motor vehicle, with Pennsylvania plate KSZ7219, owes a whopping $2,064 in parking fines in Philadelphia, most of which (37, to be exact) are for expired inspection.

“The Philadelphia Parking Authority is supposed to tow vehicles with three outstanding tickets. How does one car even accumulate 37 violations for the same offense?” asks Aaron Bauman, a South Phillybased web developer who recently created the Twitter bot @HowsMyDrivingPA. How does it work? As the developer and cyclist notes, the PPA has an online payment form, through which people can pay their outstanding tickets. His bot, then, is a proxy for that form: “When you mention @HowsMyDrivingPA in a tweet with a license plate tag number, the bot submits the tag to PPA’s form and replies to your tweet with any violations it finds,” he explains.

Bauman says he created the bot to fight against Philadelphia “politicians’ general attitude of car supremacy and embrace of toxic car culture.”

A Drupal developer who’s been biking in South Philadelphia for over 20 years, Bauman says he was inspired by a similar Twitter bot out of New York City, appropriately called @HowsMyDrivingNY. “It uses New York State’s extensive 6 GRID P H IL LY.CO M F EB RUARY 2020

violations database to provide violation history by vehicle plate number,” he explains.

The PA bot really should be called the PPA bot, he says, due to it only being able to show Philadelphia-based tickets.

“I’ve already heard from a Pittsburgher accusing me of Southeast Pennsylvania elitism, but I’m working with what I got,” he says.

Bauman’s work on this bot represents a growing trend of web developers and engineers utilizing technology to shine some light on potentially dangerous scofflaws.

Along with How’s My Driving NY, apps targeting illegal behavior by motorists have

by

randy lobasso

popped up around the world, with the UK’s Car Park Management’s i-Ticket app and Canada’s SpotSquad leading the way, as they actually offer incentives for citizens to report illegally parked vehicles.

The trend has been met with mixed feelings (and results).

When SpotSquad was developed in 2013, its potential users were referred to as “money-grubbing killjoys and people who didn’t get into the police academy,” in an article published by The New York Observer.

“The snitches can simply download the app, take a photo of the car and choose from

IL LUSTRATIO N BY S EAN RY NKEWI CZ

a list of infractions,” the article says.

Another app in development in Washington, D.C., OurStreets, will allow users to take photos and report illegally parked drivers, with a particular focus on ride-hailing apps and cabs.

Complaints will go “directly into the back end of [Department of For-Hire Vehicles], right into their complaint system,” OurStreets chief executive Mark Sussman told The Washington Post in December. (The Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia and other organizations around the city are currently in talks with Sussman about bringing the app to Philadelphia, too.)

For private vehicles parking illegally on streets, users will be able to log violations and see how many potential violations other users have reported for specific license plates.

Governments have begun noticing this trend of citizens fighting for their legal space on the streets. In the spring of 2019, Washington, D.C., council member Charles Allen proposed a new program called

The Philadelphia Parking Authority is supposed to tow vehicles with three outstanding tickets. How does one car even accumulate 37 violations for the same offense?”

— aaron bauman, @howsmydrivingpa creator Citizen Safety Enforcement that, according to The Washington Post, “could be a resource to reduce troubling road behaviors that put people’s lives at risk.”

It would give 80 D.C. citizens—10 people per ward—the ability to issue tickets for illegal parking in their community. Of course, there are potentially negative repercussions that come with allowing citizens to ticket, including discrimination and favoritism.

But, clearly, this is an issue that’s not going away. Motor vehicles and fuel continue to be subsidized, and people buy motor vehicles to store for free in cities, and,

increasingly, there’s nowhere to park.

As Bauman notes, the tickets shown via How’s My Driving PA represent just a fraction of the actual violations happening throughout the city.

“Residents complain to 911 and police and PPA and city council and the mayor: nothing seems to change,” Bauman says. “Car owners enjoy special rights and privileges at the expense of the rest of us.”

“For Philadelphians who are fed up with subservience to car privilege,” Bauman says, “the bot serves as an outlet for their frustration.”

F E B RUARY 20 20 G R I DP HILLY.COM 7

street stories & curbside characters

An Open Book Nonprofit giving library provides free books and community support to neighborhood youth by

I

constance garcia-barrio

t’s a place that you wouldn’t expect to find on a North Philly street. Tree House Books (THB) boosts literacy, promotes the arts and brings about a quiet healing to the neighborhood.

“We’re a giving library,” says Michael Brix, 43, executive director. “In 2018 we gave away 81,543 books, had 6,367 visits to our location and served over 275 kids in our programming.”

Anyone may walk in, sign up as a patron and take free books. Though you may not even need to do that since THB often puts a card table full of books outside.

Launched in 2005 as a for-profit bookstore to enliven the Susquehanna Avenue corridor, the venture drew few patrons.

Then real estate developer John Weiss, Temple University professor of English Eli Goldblatt, former Black Panther Barbara Easley-Cox, and other members of the Church of the Advocate’s Community Development Corporation helped the bookstore morph into a nonprofit that champions literacy.

Named for the trees and leaves painted on the walls and the big, elevated, enclosed platform decorated like a tree house, THB has a two-tier program.

“Kids are more likely to succeed in school if there’s an active library at home,” Brix says, “so we provide books.”

Most of them are for children, but there are some for adults, too. When kids see their parents reading, it encourages them to do likewise, Brix explains.

The bookstore also hosts an afterschool program that works with children to build literacy skills and instill a love of reading.

“We test kids’ reading level when they first arrive so we can guide them to appropriate books, but it’s tough to establish a correlation between the kids being here and their schoolwork because other factors come into play: nutrition, parents, teach8 GR ID P H I L LY.CO M F EB RUARY 20 20

ers,” Brix says. “We succeed when kids like coming here because they feel safe and comfortable.”

THB is open six days a week, year round.

Brix stays busy, working with THB board members, building community connections, seeking financial giving and corporate sponsorships and writing grant proposals.

“All of those sources sustain us,” he says.

Three paid staff members besides Brix help THB work its wonders. Outreach manager Leonard Chester, 26, represents THB in the community and works on fundraising events. He makes connections with neighborhood groups like community development corporations and Temple University Student Government.

Emma Goldstein, 27, program manager, requests book donations.

“Individuals and organizations like churches give us books,” she says. “A group of lawyers just donated books.” Donations are a two-way street, Goldstein notes.

“When the Philadelphia Department of Parks and Recreation or shelters and playgrounds request books from us, we provide them.” Goldstein also oversees Words on Wheels, which distributes books to homes in the community in summer via bicycles.

Sabriaya Shipley, 23, leads the after-school and summer programs.

“We get about 18 kids a day after school,” says Shipley, a poet and Temple University graduate with a degree in theater.

“The program is geared for children from kindergarten through the fifth grade,” Shipley says. “We help with homework and tutoring, and include crafts and the visual arts. We just did a watercolor project.” A small area allows the children to perform original plays.

“Our activities encourage Black and Brown children’s creativity,” she says. “It’s tremendously empowering for them.”

Shipley works magic with her patience and skill in assisting students. “One boy,

about 8 years old—let’s call him Danny— would have tantrums, knocking over chairs and screaming when he first started coming here,” Shipley says. “We would go outside and talk. I encouraged him to discuss his feelings and explain what he wanted. When he calmed down, I would give him choices: Can you sit at the table now? Do you want to work alone? Do you want to rejoin the group?” Shipley says.

“He’s gone from several outbursts a week to one or two a month. Yes, it takes time and patience. The school system may not necessarily give kids like Danny room to grow,” Shipley says.

The staff offers children other gifts.

“Emma is a listener,” Shipley says. “When children talk with her, she gives them deep attention. It’s healing to be heard that way.”

The alchemy of homeyness and good books often works with older students, too. Dave Wisniewski, 57, a teacher in the community-based vocational training autistic support classroom at Kensington High School, brings 5 to 10 students, ages 17 to 20, here each week. “They develop work skills and learn to use SEPTA,” Wisniewski says.

Program participant Angel, 20, bears him out. “I like to come here to stamp books [with THB’s logo], sort them and count them,” he says. “I like that we get free books when we finish. I actually love coming here.”

Leila, 19, expresses much the same idea.

“I’m with my friends here,” she says. “We’ll use strategies and skills we learn here to help us find work in the future.”

Volunteers also offer needed talents, and sometimes healing. “I log in donated books,” says Lubin Park, 21, a student at Temple University’s Fox School of Business who volunteers on Fridays. Park feels that his presence helps mend the relationship between the Asian and the Black communities.

“My parents were immigrants from South Korea, and they owned a deli nearby,” he says. “There were times of tension.

But here, I’m not taking people’s money. I give them suggestions about books, so we see each other in a new light.”

Volunteer Ozella Smith, a sixtysomething retired teacher, reads to children one or two days a week. “I’m thrilled that there’s a section devoted to Black authors—that includes West African and Caribbean writers P HOTO G RAP HY BY AL BERT YEE

as well as those from the U.S.,” she says.

“Children don’t necessarily see books like these in school.”

Volunteers also co-teach in the after-school program and give children individual attention. “We couldn’t make it without them,” Shipley says.

Brix welcomes volunteers and donors of books and funds, and looks forward to deepening programs. “I would like to start a program for new moms, to give them a break and stress reading to children,” he says. “I want Tree House Books to be a place where the community feels a sense of belonging, a place to get refreshed and renewed in order to go out and strengthen this neighborhood.”

We help with homework and tutoring, and include crafts and the visual arts. We just did a watercolor project.”

— sabriaya shipley

With the help of North Philadelphia community members, Tree House Books made the transition to a nonprofit giving library that allows children to take home books for free. Above: A child holds up a book. Left: Community organizers stand outside the Tree House storefront.

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urban naturalist

An Unlikely Hero Philly researchers recruit American eels to fight by bernard brown invasive crayfish

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n september, a red plastic storage tub brimming with eels made the trip from Frankford Creek in North Philadelphia to Pickering Creek in Chester County. The eels had been recruited as frontline fighters in the Delaware Valley’s war against invasive crayfish, and the fate of aquatic ecosystems throughout the region could depend on whether they hold the line.

Crayfish invasions might not strike fear into the hearts of many Philadelphians, but they should. The United States is home to more than 400 species of crayfish, many of them hyper-local. About half are, to some degree, imperiled, meaning they need conservation attention.

“They’re a really important link in the food web,” says David Lieb, an invertebrate zoologist with the Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Commission and the Pennsylvania Natural Heritage Program.

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“Crayfish eat the little things,” Lieb continues, and in turn, they are eaten by the bigger critters of our waterways. “Maybe they’re not as charismatic as the otter, but if you don’t have the crayfish, you don’t have the otter.”

Unfortunately, crayfish can be their own worst enemies. Humans move crayfish around as fishing bait, food for animals or aquarium pets, often dumping them out into local waterways in a misguided act of mercy. The problem is that sometimes these misplaced crayfish out-compete the locals.

Lieb says there are five native species of crayfish in the Philadelphia area, including a yet-named species recently discovered in Valley Creek at Valley Forge. It is only found there and in a few neighboring creeks and tributaries. At one of the sites where Lieb studied this new species, he watched the virile crayfish, an invader from the Great Lakes region, completely displace the unnamed one.

“They’re very difficult to eliminate,” Lieb says of invasive crayfish.

It’s hard to wipe them out with pesticides without killing everything else in the water.

Moreover, in running waters like rivers, lingering invasive crayfish from up- or downstream quickly move back into a cleared stretch.

So Lieb was excited when, along with senior scientists Erik Silldorff (of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network) and Richard Horwitz (of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University), he made an exciting discovery: Invasive crayfish don’t seem to get established in waterways inhabited by American eels.

“As soon as you get any kind of appreciable American eel numbers, you get zero, or almost zero, numbers of invasive crayfish,” explains Silldorff. “Once you have no or very few eels, the invasive crayfish can get a foothold.”

This correlation alone doesn’t prove that eels keep out the invasive crayfish.

“We thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to do an experiment, take a place with no eels, introduce them and see if they wipe out the crayfish?’” says Horwitz. “This would give us a better sense that our hypothesis is right.”

P H OTO G R A P H Y C O U R T E S Y O F T H E AC A D E M Y O F N AT U R A L S C I E N C E S O F D R E X E L U N I V E R S I T Y

A scientist holds up a crayfish.

Introducing more American eels (right) to waterways may fight the spread of invasive crayfish species.

Horwitz adds that this mechanism of controlling non-native crayfish would highlight the importance of restoring native eel populations.

American eels, like some of our native crayfish, are themselves in decline. These snake-shaped fish breed in the Sargasso Sea, a region of the North Atlantic, and then as youngsters drift with the currents, they find their way into rivers all along the Atlantic coast of North America.

After 10 to 25 years munching on crayfish and other critters in these rivers and creeks, the adults swim downstream to breed in the ocean. This complex, migratory life leaves eels vulnerable to a variety of threats, including dams. If young eels can’t make it upstream, a waterway will no longer have any eels. Eels are common in the free-flowing Delaware River, for example, but scarce in the Schuylkill above the Fairmount and Flat Rock dams.

American eels are also hard to find in Pickering Creek, a dammed tributary of the Schuylkill.

“One of the key reasons we chose Pickering is that no one has found an eel in there for decades,” says Silldorff. “It makes for a clean experimental design,” as the researchers track invasive crayfish abundance now that they have re-introduced the eels.

The researchers had an easy time finding eels in Frankford Creek (aka Tacony Creek), a heavily altered waterway abused by centuries of pollution.

“The Lower Tacony is one of the worst waterways you will ever see, largely because of combined sewer overflow,” says Horwitz.

“The eels can handle it.”

According to him, about 500 Frankford Creek eels, many of them adults large enough to eat crayfish, were joined by hundreds of eels from other local creeks and by thousands of mostly young eels raised in a lab by study collaborator Heather Galbraith, a U.S. Geological Survey Research fish biologist.

If the eels can fight back the invasive crayfish, this experiment could help prove their importance to aquatic ecosystems all along the Atlantic Seaboard.

“They might be the key to the health of the river,” says Silldorff. “Without them, things fall apart.”

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LIVE STREAM Volunteers monitor the health of the watershed, educate their neighbors and hold the bad guys accountable story by meredith jones — photography by linette kielinski

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n a balmy 60-degree morning in early January, three people convene at Coventry Park, a swath of green space in Elkins Park, for their monthly observation of the Tookany Creek. Volunteers Marika Zeldenrust and Pete Ogonek meet Ryan Neuman, who serves as the the upstream conservation leader for the Tookany/Tacony-Frankford Watershed (TTF) Partnership. Zeldenrust and Ogonek exude excitement, which is noteworthy given that it’s 8 a.m. on a Saturday morning. After recording data about the stream, they will go to a tree planting event at the nearby Pennypack Park.

Streamkeepers are the eyes and ears of local waterways. They document all of the impacts of stormwater and pollution, and provide an ongoing reference point for current and future protectors of our watersheds. The forms they fill out during each 12

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visit log the state of water clarity, surface coating, odor, stream bed color, percentage of tree canopy, algae cover, erosion, aquatic vegetation and water temperature.

Zeldenrust and Ogonek scramble over slippery moss-covered rocks and around the branchy banks of the creek to harvest the abundance of plastic bags, water bottles and snack wrappers. As they fill trash bags, we chat about the work that they do as Streamkeeper volunteers. Ogonek tells me, “I have done a lot of outreach, water education and water-security-based studies in school, so I wanted to get involved here because I saw a lot of parallels to that.”

Zeldenrust and Ogonek met at Drexel University, and both focused their studies on environmental issues. Zeldenrust works for Environmental Resources Management, a consulting firm focused on regulatory compliance and design for stormwater

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management, as well as water quality modeling and sampling. Ogonek is employed by engineering and consulting firm NV5 as a water resources engineer. He was drawn to his volunteer work because of an alliance between the TTF and his employer, and soon invited his college buddy to join him.

“Pete mentioned that his company was a corporate sponsor for TTF and that he had heard about the Streamkeeper program, and asked if I was interested,” Zeldenrust says. “I think citizen science is really valu-

From left: Streamkeepers Marika Zeldenrust and Pete Ogonek study the quality of water in Tookany Creek with TTF Watershed leader Ryan Neuman.

able and wanted to get involved, so we decided to share a site and do the monitoring together. We’ve enjoyed it a lot so far.”

But it isn’t just sustainability professionals who help out. According to Neuman, many volunteers are people who live in the neighborhoods of the streams and seek a

more meaningful way to interact with the natural space around them. Some have been performing these monthly visits since the program’s inception in 2015. Neuman says that this dedication to years of early morning data collection reflects the tremendous amount of pride volunteers feel in the work that they do.

Part of a Bigger Effort If you follow the twisting path of Tookany Creek, it becomes Tacony Creek, transform-

ing into Franklin, which ultimately flows into the Delaware River, bringing with it the pollutants that have been picked up as it runs through the communities along the way. This is where TTF and the Streamkeepers come into play, to stop the flow of contamination before it can make its way downstream.

TTF is part of the Upstream Suburban Philadelphia Collaborative, which encompasses 193 square miles stretching through portions of Bucks, Delaware and Montgomery counties that feed into the F E B RUARY 20 20

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Delaware River Watershed. These waterways are monitored and maintained by more than 150 steamkeeper volunteers.

Every member organization within the Upstream Philadelphia Suburban Philadelphia Collaborative is tasked with protecting and restoring these sources of our drinking water. Their challenges are significant, driven in large part by ever-increasing development in the communities surrounding these watersheds. Concrete is an enemy to clean water, specifically because it creates stormwater runoff.

The term stormwater runoff simply refers to any rain water which is not absorbed into the ground, and as a result ends up rushing into either our storm drains, rivers or streams.

Stormwater can cause basements and roadways to flood, but the less visible impacts are often the more insidious. Rushing over our yards, sidewalks and roads, these waters collect and carry herbicides, pesticides, leaked car oil, the residue of salt and brine from roadways, and in the most severe cases, overflow from sewers. This toxic cocktail, delivered at torrential speed into our rivers and streams, is a death sentence for many species of wildlife and vegetation that call these waters home.

The more a given area is covered by pavement, roofs and treeless lawns, the more the problem of overflow is exacerbated. The City of Philadelphia Water Department estimates that the breakdown of stormwater in an urban environment amounts to 30 percent evaporation and 15 percent infiltration into the ground, leaving a whopping 55 percent gushing as runoff. By comparison, in a natural environment they estimate a spread of 40 percent evaporation, 50 percent ground infiltration, and only 10 percent runoff.

The streamkeepers round out their firsthand documenting experience by attending monthly workshops organized by the conservation groups within the cluster.

Past workshops have included a walking tour of Haverford Township rain garden sites, a presentation of how to convert a turf lawn into a rainwater-thirsty meadow, identifying environmentally harmful construction sites and habitat assessments.

In 2020, additional educational opportunities will include a tour of an area wastewater treatment plant, macroinvertebrate training, workshops on algae monitoring and invasive species identification. These workshops are a collective effort through 14

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Volunteers Zeldenrust and Ogonek examine the surface of a rock for clues about the water’s quality (above) and measure the water’s temperature (opposite page).

“The most inspiring qualities demonstrated by our Streamkeepers are their thirst for knowledge of watershed issues...”

—julie slavet, the collaboration of the Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association, Lower Merion Conservancy, Friends of the Poquessing Watershed, Darby Creek Valley Association and Pennypack Ecological Restoration Trust.

In addition to recording the baseline data to monitor headwaters and implementing community outreach, TTF coordinates a va-

TTF executive director

riety of conservation projects throughout the year. Ongoing initiatives encompass storm drain marking, creating rain gardens in parks surrounding the creek, installing creekside buffers, litter removal days and freshwater mussel surveying.

Although these events are open to the public, Streamkeepers frequently make up a

Why the Data Matters A local university partners with streamkeepers to monitor water temperature

majority of the volunteers. To date, they have been part of efforts that created more than 60,000 square feet of stream buffer area that will serve to filter and slow runoff water before it hits the stream, while the native plants will provide much needed wildlife nourishment and habitat. The sites of TTF projects have gained recognition from the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, Audubon Society and National Wildlife Federation.

The Streamkeeper program is not only cultivating citizen scientists, but also citizen advocates.

Lindsay Blanton, water programs manager at the Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association, recalls a number of instances in which volunteers have been able to make an impact.

“One volunteer was observing a site with a railway bridge over it. The rails are periodically treated with a chemical spray, which in this instance had been oversprayed and was visibly dripping in large amounts into the stream beneath it,” she says.

On another occasion, a streamkeeper was caught unexpectedly in a thunderstorm, and in the rapidly rising water she witnessed at least 20 dead fish being carried by the stream. Another volunteer came upon a construction site operating outside the regulatory framework of stormwater management. Each of these instances were reported to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, and in the cases of the fishkill and construction site violations, there were fines levied against the offending corporations.

TTF Executive Director Julie Slavet praises the dedication of the volunteers.

“The most inspiring qualities demonstrated by our Streamkeepers are their thirst for knowledge of watershed issues, and their willingness to serve as ambassadors by sharing this newfound knowledge with neighbors or elected officials though conversations, at community meetings or lobbying days on the hill, or writing letters to the editor,” she says.

Streamkeepers are collaborating with Temple University in a study of the temperature recordings in streams throughout the watershed. Sarah Beganskas, a postdoctoral fellow at Temple’s Department of Earth and Environmental Science, began the partnership with a workshop presentation to inform on how and why increased temperatures are a problem for our waterways. “The species who live in these streams and creeks are highly adapted to a specific temperature,” she explains, noting that as water warms, the oxygen content decreases and the effect can suffocate life-forms within it. Warm water also has a greater loosening impact on nutrients that are attached to beds and banks. As these are carried away, it robs the organisms adapted to feeding on them. Beganskas is hopeful that the data will enable them to isolate, among the many variables, what factors have the most sway in creating higher temperatures. She praises the streamkeeper volunteers, who she says picked up the protocols of the study with enthusiasm and ease due to the training and observation skills they acquired in their work with TTF. “They do such good work, and they deserve a time in the spotlight,” Beganskas says.

Perhaps that pride is a byproduct of knowing that their work is so important. At the crux of all of their efforts is protecting waters upstream Reach out to TTF! Email: info@ ttfwatershed.org Phone: 215-744-1853

Neuman echoes the impact of these learning sessions: “So many of our volunteers get excited to take something that they learned in a workshop, and tell their neighbors about it, whether it’s about how to wash their car or take care of their lawn without a lot of chemical overuse, or just pointing out, ‘Hey, these storm drains dump directly into that stream down the street. Let’s be careful what goes down them.’”

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THE ACTIVISM ISSUE > 13 people from the Greater Philadelphia area attended Fire Drill Friday on January 10 in Washington, D.C.

FIRE DRILL FRIDAYS

photography by

rachael warriner

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ne year ago, Swedish environmentalist Greta Thunberg tearfully warned the audience of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland: Our house is on fire.

Following her passionate, compelling speech, thousands—young and old—ral16 GR ID P H IL LY.CO M F EB RUA RY 20 20

lied together to push world leaders to fight climate change.

One of those inspired by Thunberg and the subsequent youth climate strikes was actress Jane Fonda. By October 2019, she had moved to Washington D.C. to lead weekly demonstrations about the climate crisis at Capitol

Hill—known as Fire Drill Fridays.

With speakers tackling topics including the Green New Deal, food justice, banking and the fossil fuel industries, Fire Drill Fridays attracted activists, scientists, indigenous peoples, public figures and politicians.

Many people, including celebrities such as Ted Danson, Martin Sheen and Joaquin Phoenix, and Fonda herself were arrested throughout the four-month demonstration.

On January 10, the last scheduled Washington D.C.-based Fire Drill Friday (Fonda returned to Los Angeles, where the protests will resume on February 7th) was attended by an estimated 500 people, including a contingency of 13 people from Philadelphia.

JANE FONDA actress and founder of Fire Drill Fridays:

Jane Fonda, Susan Sarandon and Martin Sheen lead the charge.

“[W]hy are the big Wall Street banks and other international financial institutions still helping [fossil fuel companies] drill and frack and mine and process and export? It’s called suicide investing—it’s insane.”

NAOMI KLEIN author of “On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal”:

Actor Joaquin Phoenix Annie Leonard, creator of “The Story of Stuff” and Executive Director of Greenpeace USA, addresses the crowd.

“The arsonists are in charge in Washington, they’re in charge of the banks, they’re certainly in charge at the fossil fuel companies. And so, it takes a movement.

It takes individuals trusting their gut, trusting their hearts, that actually we know what’s right. And then we have to find each other, because this isn’t something that we’re gonna solve as individuals. This is something that we are going to solve as a movement.”

TA’SINA SAPA WIN SMITH Lakota environmental and social justice grassroots activist:

“[W]hen [worker camps] are constructed, the rates of missing and murdered indigenous people skyrocket and drugs become bountiful and I see this as no coincidence.”

BILL MCKIBBEN author, environmentalist and founder of 350.org:

“If banks like Chase Bank stopped funding the fossil fuel industry, they could not go on building pipelines … when we look at those pictures from Australia, yes, we see the absolute horror of people whose lives are turned upside down and animals that are killed and ecosystems that are wiped out, but we also see fully visible in those flames the dollar signs that led to that conflagration.”

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MARTIN SHEEN actor:

“The Irish tell the story of a man who arrives at the gates of heaven and asks to be let in. St. Peter says, “Of course. Just show us your scars.” The man says, “I have no scars.” St. Peter says, “What a pity.

Was there nothing worth fighting for?”

JOAQUIN PHOENIX actor:

“Something I think isn’t often times talked about in the environmental movement or in the conversation about climate change, is that the meat and dairy industry is the third leading cause of climate change. I think sometimes we wonder what can we do in this fight against climate change and there’s something that you can do today right now and tomorrow, by making a choice about what you consume.”

Actor Martin Sheen

KAT TAYLOR CEO and co-founder of Beneficial State Bank:

“Since the Paris Agreement in 2016, leadership at Chase Bank alone has financed nearly $200 billion of fossil fuel development … but remember, these are our deposits we don’t have to tolerate the banks using them to destroy our planet.

TARA HOUSKA tribal attorney and co-founder of Not Your Mascot

“We have so much power they pull out their tanks when we stand unarmed in front of their machines because they are afraid of us. They use water cannons and attack dogs when we say no with our bodies because they are afraid of us. They kill land defenders in the Grid publisher Global South that are unarmed Alex Mulcahy protecting their forests protecting is arrested on the steps of the Capitol their territories because they Building are afraid of us. We can build the world we want and we can demand this one changes at the same time.”

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United by aligned values and a commitment to activism, these Philadelphia couples share a passion for making the world a better place.

Lovers& Fighters story by claire marie porter

photography by albert yee

P

sychologists who research healthy relationships have found that complacency, or a lack of challenge, is often the death of love and romance.

Even long before modern-day science, the Ancient Greek fable-teller Aesop warned people against “the great chewing complacency.” Although some trials can certainly have the opposite effect on relationships, the overwhelming sentiment seems to be that too much comfortability can turn malignant, and that risk-taking, active partners have more lasting power.

That’s good news for these couples, who rather than going to the movies or taking a dance class, go to protests or help draft legislation.

While activism is tiring and emotionally draining, especially when it’s your main gig, it’s also incredibly rewarding work. As one couple put it: It’s one thing to have interests and hobbies in common—but quite another to share virtues.

It may just be a secret recipe for a thriving relationship. After all, is there anything more romantic than working alongside your partner to bring about social and political change?

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1 . G E R M Á N & S H AY L I N

Love Through Disaster D isability rights activists Germán Parodi and Shaylin Sluzalis don’t have a typical “boy meets girl” love story.

Germán, who has physical disabilities and uses a wheelchair, had been organizing with Philly Adapt, a grassroots community of disability rights activists, since 2006.

Shaylin, who has an older sister who is disabled, had been involved in disability advocacy and activism most of her life.

In 2017, their paths crossed at a weeklong protest.

“It was love at first sight,” says Germán. “I couldn’t leave her alone the whole week.”

They met on a Saturday, and by Thursday they were in love, according to Germán.

They are now co-executive directors at the Partnership for Inclusive Disaster Strategies, a disability-and-disaster-focused program. They work with individuals with disabilities to make sure their voices are heard, before, during and after disasters.

“Our main role is to end the institutional bias, so folks have the opportunity to live in homes,” says Shaylin, referring to older adults and people with disabilities who need longterm care but are forced to leave their homes and live in nursing homes and institutions in any state that receives federal dollars for Medicaid.

Germán is the first medically described “severely disabled” person to do direct relief as a first responder, he says, and served as a first responder in Puerto Rico, his place of birth, after the devastation wrought by Hurricane Maria.

“Our life is really work, but our work is our life,” says Shaylin, “and if we don’t do this work, nobody else does.”

They both agree they are disability rights activists first.

“We are very consumed by what we do, but we love every moment of it, and being able to do it together makes it even better,” says Shaylin. She notes that without organizations like theirs, people with disabilities are often not taken seriously and left behind.

“Nothing about us without us,” is a chant the organization has adopted.

As a couple, they’ve helped develop two pieces of federal legislation, the Real Emergency Access for Aging and Disability Inclusion for Disasters Act (REAADI) and the Disaster Relief Medicaid Act (DRMA). These bills would work together to develop disaster strategies and provide services like research funding and uninterrupted Medicaid services for individuals with disabilities and older adults.

The couple feels their relationship is enigmatic. They do absolutely everything together.

“We come as a package,” says Shaylin. “Everybody kind of knows that about us.”

“I must say, in life, I have not experienced or witnessed something that better describes a match made in heaven,” says Germán.

“I couldn’t have said it better myself,” agrees Shaylin.

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Our life is really work, but our work is our life.

And if we don’t do this work, nobody else does.

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2. TIM & MARA

Socialists Get Social M

ara henao had a crush on Tim Horras as soon as she met him. Mara, originally from Colombia, had been living in Philly for eight years when she met Tim while organizing with Philly Socialists. The organization was working on cleaning up a vacant lot that eventually became the César Andreu Iglesias Community Garden.

“I was in a leadership role in the group,” says Tim, “and it was clear she was hitting on me.”

He says he was hesitant to return her advances at first, as there tends to be a lot of “macktivism” and sometimes “sleazy behavior” among activists, which can really turn the serious activists away.

A few months went by, and Mara continued pursuing Tim. “I tried to avoid her,” he says, “but she was persistent.”

It was her persistence that ended up attracting Tim, he says, and he agreed to go out with her.

“I asked him out,” says Mara. “He’s very shy.”

The couple has now been together for six-and-a-half years, and they live in Kensington with their children. Both are co-founders of Philly Socialists, the Philadelphia Tenants Union, and members of Dignity Housing, a housing and supportive services program run by activists and the homeless. Mara works as a medical interpreter and coach at Philly Socialists; Tim is a librarian at Widener Library in North Philadelphia.

They agree that the values that led them to get involved in activism are things they both share, and lay at the core of their bond.

“We cheer each other on,” says Mara. She says with labor organizing, the work can be painful and depressing. Sometimes you work very hard for something and it doesn’t work out.

“We’re always picking each other up,” and sometimes celebrating the small victories, she adds.

“One of the things I most appreciate about my relationship with Mara is that she’s someone I can trust, and has my back,” says Tim. This is important with their work, which is often risky and even physically dangerous.

“Having someone you’ve been through thick and thin with,” he adds, “helps you have the courage to take stuff on.”

Having someone you’ve been through thick and thin with helps you have the courage to take stuff on.

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3. LARA & MARION

In the Stars M

arion Leary did not believe in love at first sight. Until she saw Lara Kelly.

“But I don’t think Lara noticed me,” says Marion. “It was not a mutual experience.”

Marion has an identical twin sister, who was also living in Philly. Lara had crossed paths with Marion’s twin, so when Marion started “showing up” at the gym Lara worked at, it didn’t register with Lara that she was someone else.

“I didn’t even know she was Marion! I thought it was her sister,” says Lara.

Marion, who is 10 years younger than Lara, was nervous, and it took her awhile to make a move. But she finally found the perfect conversation starter when she learned they share the same birthday, November 29.

“It was my intro pick-up line,” says Marion.

The couple’s activism is separate, but mutually supportive. Marion is the director of innovation at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing and is in a part-time PhD program there. She was on the board of Start Talking Science, a science advocacy organization, and a co-organizer for the Philadelphia March for Science. She’s been protesting and volunteering most of her life, has served with Act Up, an HIV/AIDS service organization, which she says laid the groundwork for the rest of her life as an activist.

Lara is an environmentalist and Northern Liberties resident of 24 years. She serves as the co-chair for Northern Liberties Neighborhood Association’s Quality of Life committee, managing accounting and grants and overseeing all of their quality of life and environmental issues. She’s also an advocate for animal justice.

“About 10 years ago, I started volunteering at the city’s animal shelter,” she says, referring to the Animal Care & Control Team of Philadelphia.

She represents and cares for the dogs, and tries to get them adopted or fostered using social media posts.

Marion says that sharing a similar ethos, around social justice, human rights and environmental responsibility is essential.

“It’s taken a long time to get there,” says Marion, “but we have a really great partnership.”

“I would say if anyone doesn’t think their relationship is always a work in progress … they are kidding themselves,” says Lara. “It’s fun, but always a work in progress.”

They both agree having a partner who understands the need to drop everything and go march or show up at a protest makes a life of activism and love much easier.

“I’m a firm believer that you need to show up,” says Marion.

And they’ve raised their 15-year-old daughter to participate in activism, too.

“It’s a pretty fundamental part of our family,” says Lara.

And it’s the work they do that keeps them growing. Marion says she loves witnessing Lara’s commitment to her work and love for animals.

“I fall in love with Lara more and more every day,” says Marion.

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I’m a firm believer that you need to show up.”

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4. MAR & STEPHANIE

Conspiring Together D

There’s always something going on—we can conspire. It keeps a spark going.

uring a 2016 protest organized by Philly Socialists, Stephanie Altimari gave a speech, and Mar Escalante, who was attending the protest, was struck by its profundity.

The pair, who both use the nonbinary pronoun they, later met at a party.

“You’re Stephanie, you gave that speech. I really liked it,” Mar said to Stephanie at the party.

“I was like, ‘I wrote that on the way there,’ then I walked away because I felt really uncomfortable,” says Stephanie.

But they had a lot of mutual friends and continued to cross paths. Finally, they became friends on Facebook and ran into each other at another party.

Stephanie’s friend fell asleep on the couch, and Mar was the only other person in attendance that they knew.

“We talked all night,” says Stephanie. “They drove me home.”

In preparation for a police officer protest in 2017, the pair started spending a lot of time together. Finally, they started dating, merged their homes and cats, and have been together since.

Both organize with Philly Socialists and the Philadelphia Tenants Union. Stephanie is involved in labor organizing with Dignity Housing. Mar has been an activist for eight years, and their current work centers around prison abolition with the Philly Abolition Collective.

The constant action is actually a really great recipe for romance, they agree.

“There’s always something going on—we can conspire,” says Stephanie. “It keeps a spark going.”

It’s also the kind of work that can bring out the worst in people, Stephanie points out.

Which provides opportunities for growth, and learning to love and maintain the relationship through it.

“Stephanie has just taught me a lot,” says Mar. “I feel indebted to be a better person and activist. I think that organizing together, it’s one of those things that strengthens a relationship.”

Shared values are essential when organizing together, says Stephanie.

“I think that’s the bedrock of a strong relationship. It’s a good place to start from, it’s a good place to grow on. It’s exciting, and it’s cute,” says Stephanie.

The couple was arrested last summer, for reasons related to their values, says Mar. They spent three long months in prison.

“If we are serious … about changing the world, we’ll come up against very powerful structures that don’t want the world to change,” they say.

Mar says their prison experience was illuminating, and they realized that being a serious activist inevitably means facing adversity.

“Having a loving, supportive life partner who is also a comrade in the struggle is absolutely invaluable for keeping the faith,” says Mar. “The struggle is lifelong, and keeping that faith for a better world is the only thing that will change it.”

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5. LAUREL & ELI

Deep Connection L

aurel freedman describes combining love and activism in a relationship as “a sense of alignment.”

“The work we do is what we do as a couple,” she says, “Some couples go out to bars—we go to protests.”

In 2006, Eli Freedman was studying at Hebrew Union College in New York to be a rabbi. Laurel, a graduate student from Texas, was shopping for master’s programs, and came to the college for a tour.

When Laurel’s tour guide was sidetracked by a “shofar emergency” (a shofar is an instrument played in Jewish religious ceremonies), Eli eagerly volunteered to take over.

“Yeah, I’d been making eyes at him,” says Laurel.

“I wasn’t there to scope out prospective rabbis or anything,” she laughs, “but he was wearing a Flaming Lips T-shirt, my favorite band, and he was using this futuristic-looking computer device. I thought he was so cool. He’s still so cool.”

Eli showed Laurel around the campus, and they got Korean food.

“We talked about God and theology,” says Eli. “Not your typical first date, but it connected us on a deeper level immediately.”

Laurel followed up the “date” with a handwritten thank-you letter, and the two reconnected a few months later when Laurel was coming back through New York City. She was about to lead a birthright trip to Israel, and the two went on a real first date “that lasted a few days.”

Laurel did choose to study at Hebrew Union College, and ended up getting a degree in social and Jewish nonprofit management. She also became a certain rabbi’s wife.

The couple now lives in Kensington with their two children, commuting to Rodeph Shalom synagogue, in West Poplar, where Eli has been a rabbi since 2010.

The majority of the couple’s social activism is through the congregation at Rodeph Shalom, which is a founding member of a multi-faith organization called POWER, Philadelphians Organized to Witness, Empower and Rebuild, and includes up to 50 different congregations that do justice work through an organizing model, as part of Faith in Action. The congregation also does immigration work through the Hebrew Aid Society and the Fairness Act, as well as LGBTQIA justice work.

The couple is particularly interested in education issues, and they go to Harrisburg often as a family, where they’ve participated in work on the Fair Funding Bill, a bill enacted in 2016 to equitably distribute state education funds across Pennsylvania school districts.

They run a summer program called Breaking Bread on Broad, providing food for students who rely on free food during the school year.

Laurel also started a CSA (community supported agriculture) which uses leftover food to make meals for the community, and recently started working on cannabis legislation with licensed medical marijuana companies. She organized a symposium at Rodeph Shalom

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I wasn’t there to scope out prospective rabbis or anything, but he was wearing a Flaming Lips T-shirt... called “Faith and Cannabis,” that featured a group of doctors, researchers, clergy, justice leaders and state senators.

Laurel says finding a realistic balance between work and family is challenging.

“It’s kind of a really awesome, but challenging buffet,” she says. “There’s always stuff to do, always people asking. It’s hard to carve out time. There’s always more work.”

Eli says it makes him think of a quote

by Rabbi Tarfon from almost 2,000 years ago: It is not your responsibility to finish the work of perfecting the world, but you are not free to desist from it either.

Laurel describes their relationship as constantly growing, yet sustainable. They are creating a future for themselves and their children, together.

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KIDS to the

RESCUE Nine Philly-area summer camps for the mini environmental activist story by

alexandra jones

S

ummer camp isn’t just about giving parents some peace and quiet while school is out of session. Sending your kid to camp can be a great way to get them interested in the world’s big picture environmental issues.

Today’s campers are tomorrow’s innovators—and they might just save the planet.

According to a five-year study done by the American Camp Association, kids who attend summer camp also learn soft skills essential for effective communication, like responsibility, emotional regulation and an appreciation of others’ differences, which can prime them for success in both school and the workplace.

Furthermore, in the interest of creating the next generation of environmentally conscious innovators who will soon take the reins of saving our planet, the combination of play, learning and exploration emphasized at summer camps gives kids the chance to be present in the moment, try new things and develop an affinity for nature.

Here’s a list of great summer camp programs in and around Philadelphia that will 30

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help your kids grow and thrive while instilling in them the importance of conserving resources, preserving natural spaces, greening our cities and protecting wildlife.

Awbury Arboretum Arboreta aren’t just for hikes with the dog, springtime picnics or outdoor weddings.

During two-week day-camp sessions for a variety of age groups, kids and young teens get the chance to ramble on 55 acres, conveniently located in Philadelphia, allowing them hands-on experience in nature.

Awbury’s camp programs present environmental education and natural play to campers through different engaging lenses: Little kids can choose from Forest Creatures, featuring critters found in the arboretum’s newly rehabbed wetlands and its resident goats, or Natural Foragers, where plants and other woodland materials become fodder for artistic and edible creations.

Tweens can make-believe their favorite Young Adult literary series: At Camp Katniss, they’ll learn Hunger Games-inspired

survival skills like archery and campfire cooking, while Ilvermorny Camp for Witches & Wizardry gets kids interested in the outdoors with activities like Care of Magical Creatures, Potions and Herbology. Or, if they’re interested in real-life camping, Advanced Wilderness Survival Skills will teach them how to do things you probably can’t even do—like making rope from plants, filter water, or build a shelter from debris.

AGES: 6-14 DATES: June–August COST: $600-

$675 per two-week session (A scholarship rate of $150 is available for qualifying participants in 19138 and 19144) LOCATION: Awbury Arboretum 1 Awbury Rd., Philadelphia awbury.org

Journey’s End Farm Camp Food—who will grow it, where it’s grown and how it will get into our pantries and onto our plates—is a huge part of shaping a sustainable future. At Journey’s End Farm Camp in Northeastern Pennsylvania, 210 acres of conserved farmland, gardens, woods and streams serve as the classroom for lessons focused around conserving nature, growing food and caring for animals.

Kids sleep in cabins, tree houses or tents; go on woodland hikes; pick blueberries; and take responsibility for daily tasks on the farm, like feeding chickens and rabbits and milking cows. In the garden, they learn which insects are beneficial and which plants are weeds.

There’s plenty of time for fun and relaxation, too: arts and crafts like macramé and ceramics; working with wood, from cutting logs to crafting furniture; playing games; singing; storytelling; and time for quiet reflection in the camp’s Quaker tradition.

Frankly, this sounds like an awesome summer vacation for a grownup. Too bad it’s kids only.

AGES: 7-12 DATES: June 21-August 15 COST: $2,200 per two-week session LOCATION: Journey’s End Farm, 364 Sterling Rd.,

Newfoundland journeysendfarm.org

Riverbend Environmental Education Center Riverbend Environmental Education Center provides a wide range of weeklong day-camp sessions focused on nature, environment and conservation. This leafy 30-acre wooded wilderness in the Philly suburbs features streams, hiking trails, an aquaponics farm and a 19th-century farmhouse.

Each week of camp covers a different theme, with age groups from toddlers to young teens receiving age-appropriate curricula—like Planet Protectors, Wilderness Survival and Messy Science. Toddlers focus on using imagination and creativity; older kids perform their own investigative discoveries into natural phenomena; and tweens learn valuable skills, go on hikes and field trips, and can take part in optional evening cookouts and overnight campouts at the center.

Teenagers can get in on the fun while volunteering and building leadership skills.

Conservation-minded teens who like working with young kids—a science teacher in training, perhaps?—can apply to be an Educator-in-Training, where they’ll support educators with the youngest campers.

AGES: 3-13 DATES: June 8-September 4 COST: $240-$850 per week depending on age range LOCATION: Riverbend Environmental

Education Center, 1950 Spring Mill Rd., Gladwyne Riverbendeec.org

pressive rock collection, there’s a program for them at the Schuylkill Center, one of the first urban education centers in the U.S. The 340-acre former farm features habitats from forest to wetland, with a mission to foster connections between people and nature.

At weeklong day-camp sessions, Schuylkill Center campers get to focus on age-appropriate programming around their favorite nature-centric topics: mammals, reptiles, bugs or birds; plants, water or rocks; invasive species, pollination or farm-to-table cooking.

Overnights are reserved for tweens, who get to spend two nights camping out in wilderness spots like Assateague Island, the Pine Barrens, Elk Neck State Park, or on the Center’s grounds for programs like Farm to Table Dining or Exploring Philly.

AGES: 3-12 DATES: June 15-August 21 LOCATION: Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education, 8480 Hagy’s Mill Rd. COST: $360-

$435 per week for members, $350-$485 for non-members schuylkillcenter.org

Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education

Kids Bug-U Camp

Whether your kid is really into bugs, goes crazy for reptiles and dinosaurs, likes to help you out in the garden or has an im-

As much as 90 percent of our planet’s species—anywhere from 1 to 6 million—are insects. These arthropods are essential to the

rest of life on Earth, pollinating plants and crops, breaking down dead organic matter and serving as a key link in pretty much every food chain on Earth.

So it’s pretty cool that we have a whole science museum dedicated to them. Tucked away in the Northeast, the Philadelphia Insectarium and Butterfly Pavilion is one of the best places for kids to learn and play in the city. At their weeklong sessions, kids get a behind-the-scenes look at the Insectarium’s menagerie of creepy crawlies, from exotic moths to camouflaged walking sticks. Lessons include the importance of pollinators, identifying beneficial insects and pests, and how to interact with these animals safely, with hands-on exploration and bug collection in Pennypack Park.

Bug-U Camp ends up being one of the more affordable camps offered in the city: Kids participate in the Insectarium’s Junior Entomologist Program, which gets them a pass for free visits over the next year. And parents who sign up for two weeks of camp at once can save 10 percent on registration fees.

AGES: 6-16 DATES: July 13-August 14 COST: $324-$362 per week LOCATION: Philadelphia Insectarium and Butterfly Pavilion, 8046 Frankford Ave. phillybutterflypavilion.com

P H OTO C O U R T E S Y O F J O U R N E Y ’ S E N D FA R M C A M P

Kids embark on a woodland hike around Journey’s End Farm’s 210 acres of fields, streams, woods and gardens.

The farm offers a tech-free, sleepaway camp where kids learn activities like woodcraft, ceramics and gardening.

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ESF Summer Camp: Animal Advocates

AGES: Grades 3-6 DATES: July 20-24 and July 27-31 COST: $1,278 for the two-week session LOCATION: The Haverford School, 450 Lancaster

Ave., Haverford esfcamps.com/campsexperiences/science/

Briar Bush Nature Center This 12.5-acre green oasis serves as the classroom for weeklong morning, full-day, or half-day-camp sessions focused on scientific inquiry and developing a love and respect for nature through play and discovery. There’s also an overnight option for older kids.

Briar Bush offers separate curricula for different age groups, from toddlers to teens.

Get bonding time with your 2- to 4-year-old with Itty Bitty Briars, a single-day hourlong program that engages the senses with activities around soft, scaly and slimy animals. For kids aged 4 to 6, half-day sessions are built around themes like Nests, Holes and Homes and Pond Pals and Playmates.

Full-day camps for kids aged 6 and 7 include activities like making your own animal trading cards, based on species campers spot in the center’s woods, streams and sky; exploring how early humans survived 32

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A camper and counselor hone their fire building skills using a bow drill at Awbury Arboretum.

through foraging and hunting; and learning about different kinds of animals through bones (or lack thereof).

Programs for 8- to 12-year-olds include field trips to natural sites and educational institutions to study aquatic animals, learn about the life of the Lenni Lenape or practice what it means to be a wildlife biologist.

Tweens and teens get to head out on a threenight overnight stay at Hickory Run State Park for an immersive natural experience.

AGES: 2-15 DATES: June 8-August 28 COST: $65-$500 LOCATION: Briar Bush Nature Center,

1212 Edge Hill Rd., Abington briarbush.org

Silver Lake Nature Center Located in Bucks County, this 400-acre wilderness has everything a kid needs for a crash course in nature and science: woods, wetlands, lakes, bogs, a butterfly garden and even an Earthship, a sustainable structure built to serve as an autonomous home that caters to humans’ basic needs.

At weeklong day-camp sessions, kids go on daily hikes and spend time each afternoon reflecting on the day during journaling exercises. Campers choose which activities they’d like to do each day, with options like kayaking, building fires or fairy houses, fishing, searching for owls and wildlife photography.

Froglets—kids aged 5 to 12—stick to the nature center, but Frogs, in the 13 to 17 age

group, get to explore natural sites in the area with their fellow campers or camp overnight on Silver Lake’s grounds.

AGES: 5-17 DATES: June 22-August 21 COST: $250-$400 LOCATION: 1306 Bath Rd., Bristol silverlakenaturecenter.org

Business of Doing Good Summer Camp Maybe your child is more of an indoor kid than an outdoor adventurer, with big dreams to change the world for the better.

The Business of Doing Good gives middle schoolers the space to find a cause they’re passionate about, along with the tools to become junior social entrepreneurs and communicate their ideas to the world.

Taught by entrepreneurs and educators, this weeklong program gets kids thinking not only about what their own goals are, but how their ideas can improve life for their communities—or even the world at large. The goal is to empower kids to define their beliefs and to put their goals into motion.

The weeklong session, taking place at different sites around Philly, also includes lessons on how to present and pitch your idea to others—be they parents, teachers or angel investors.

AGES: 11-14 DATES: August 3-9 LOCATION: Center City (locations TBA), Philadelphia COST: $450, with sliding-scale options available thebusinessofdoinggood.org

P H OTO C O U R T E S Y O F AW B U R Y A R B O R E T U M

This kids’ camp program—the ESF stands for education, sports and fun—holds summertime programming throughout the Mid-Atlantic, with curricula around robotics, engineering, entrepreneurship and, yes, rocket science on offer via partnerships with institutions like the Franklin Institute.

For children who love animals and nature, they’ve teamed up with educators from our very own Philadelphia Zoo. Animal Advocates: Penguin Protectors, a two-week day-camp program, uses the zoo’s penguin population to give kids up-close experiences with animals in the classroom and teach valuable lessons around conservation, sustainability and advocacy.

In addition to encounters with feathered friends, campers will get a special overnight stay at the zoo, behind-the-scenes tours and Skype sessions with conservation experts.

They’ll also develop their very own advocacy campaigns about conservation causes important to them—and you’ll get to see them present their work to their fellow campers, camp parents and zoo representatives on the program’s last day.

Creating strong foundations for a lifetime of learning Our integrated approach to education allows students to become autonomous, creative thinkers able to put their ideas into action.

SCHEDULE A TOUR

Kimberton.org

4 1 0 W S E V E N S TA R S R D | P H O E N I X V I L L E , PA | 6 1 0 . 9 3 3 . 3 6 3 5

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EV EN TS

february 2020

F ebruary 14

F ebruary 15

F ebruary 27

Valentine’s Day Sweetheart of a Hike with Kris Soffa, PA Master Naturalist

Toad Detour Training

The Clean Energy Revolution Is (Finally) Here

Looking for something unique to do with that special someone this year? Hike the Wissahickon Trail with master naturalist Kris Soffa. In the spirit of the holiday, the trek is planned around a rocky outcropping called “Lover’s Leap.” fow.org WHEN: 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. COST: Free with preregistration WHERE: 4900 Ridge Avenue

F ebruary 14-16 Philly Home + Garden Show This expo can be a great source of inspiration for DIYers looking to spruce up their place both inside and outside. The event has also compiled a list of vendors entitled “Philly’s Favorite Finds” to support local retailers and artisans. phillyhomeandgardenshow.com WHEN: 11 a.m to 9 p.m. (14th), 10:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. (15th), 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. (16th) COST: $11 WHERE: 100 Station Avenue, Oaks

F ebruary 15 Philadelphia Beekeepers Guild Symposium Join the Philadelphia Beekeepers Guild for a day buzzing with bee talk. The event features special guest Toni Burnham, founder of the D.C. Beekeepers Alliance. She will present on how urban beekeeping has altered landscapes and habitats.

Did you know that every spring thousands of toads traveling to and from their breeding grounds at the Upper Roxborough Reservoir Preserve are reliant on human volunteers to guide them across Port Royal Avenue?

Learn how to take a shift. schuylkillcenter.org WHEN: 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. COST: Free WHERE: Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education

WHEN: 12 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. COST: Free WHERE: 220 S. 34th St.

F ebruary 19 Climate Change and the Air We Breathe Learn about the science of air pollution at this roundtable discussion featuring a handful of local health experts. Attendees will leave with an understanding of how air pollution impacts local communities and how policies could improve air quality.

WHEN: 5:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. COST: Free with preregistration WHERE: 19 S. 22nd Street

WHEN: 2:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. COST: Free WHERE: S. 68th Street and Buist Avenue

F ebruary 20

M arch 7

Voices of Hope

Structural Change for Sustainable Action

This Black History Month celebration will feature choral, dance and instrumental performances from PHILADANCO, Philadelphia Heritage Chorale, Monique Brooks Roberts, Sister Cities Girlchoir, and the CAPA String Quartet. It will also present honors to inspirational Black Philadelphians in the health-and-wellness field.

WHEN: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. COST: $35-$65 WHERE: The Franklin Institute

WHEN: 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. COST: Free WHERE: Please Touch Museum

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Plant Walk and Litter Cleanup at Buist Park

muttermuseum.org

manncenter.org/voicesofhope

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This cleanup is a chance to learn about the native plants of Southwest Philadelphia and observe the area’s natural wildlife. A refuge ranger will lead the informal walk and guide attendees as they pick up litter. fohrefuge.org

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Curious about how technological advancements and changing social dynamics impact the clean energy discussion? Hear Daniel Kammen, visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, discuss political differences that contribute to the slow pace of our energy transition. kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu

Jefferson’s Climate Conscious Collective hosts a forum focused on structural change and companies who have developed meaningful solutions. Panelists include the CEO of Grant Blvd, Kimberly McGlonn, and the founder of Hivemind Construction, Michael Heinzer. Search eventbrite.com for details WHEN: 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. COST: $7 WHERE: 233 South 10th Street

FRIENDS CENTER

The Quaker Hub for Peace and Justice in Philadelphia

TOP OF MIND local businesses ready to serve

crafts

fitness

food

Sweet Mabel Store and Studio

954 Dance Movement Collective

Kimberton Whole Foods

The store offers art & craft from local and national artists, First Friday art openings and free gift wrap. The studio hosts parties, workshops, camp and open studio using repurposed goods.

Our mission is to get you dancing! The 954 Dance Movement Collective studio is also available for rehearsals, readings, classes, events, recitals, workshops, photography, video and performances.

sweetmabel.com

954dmc.weebly.com

A family-owned and operated natural grocery store with six locations in Southeastern PA, selling local, organic and sustainablygrown food for over thirty years. kimbertonwholefoods.com

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.

• • • •

Rooms to accommodate events from 10 to 700 people.

10 unique spaces to fit your specific needs.

Centrally located and easily accessible.

Bike, transit and pedestrian friendly.

For more information: Shakirah Holloway 215-241-7098 • sholloway@friendscentercorp.org 1501 Cherry Street, Philadelphia, PA 19102

friendscentercorp.org

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Clean Laundry Clean Planet Clean Slates

Farm-to-Table Fresh Organic and Local 1 Boathouse Row • 215-978-0900

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

Small Businesses

Save 10% off your first order. Code: GRID10 WashCycleLaundry.com 36

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Winter hours

Open Wednesday through Sunday 8 AM to 4 PM Closed Monday and Tuesday

cosmicfoods.com

i n de pe n de n t a dvoc ac y fac t s science & l aw

The Delaware Riverkeeper Network champions the rights of our communities to a Delaware River and tributary streams that are freeflowing, clean, healthy, and abundant with a diversity of life.

From the protection We work watershed the health

Highlands to the Delaware Bay, we give voice, strength and to the communities and waterways of the Delaware River. throughout the entire Delaware River watershed and its four states, as well as at the federal level, when issues that impact of the Delaware River Watershed play out on a national stage.

Invest in a healthy Delaware River for today and for future generations Donate at www.delawareriverkeeper.org 925 Canal Street, Suite 3701, BriStol, Pa 19007 215-369-1188 | drn@delawareriverkeeper.org @DelRiverkeeper | www.facebook.com/Delaware.Riverkeeper.Network

No time to waste A Penn alumna partners with local businesses to reduce commercial waste 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.

Log in with us.

www.facebook.com/UPennEES @Penn_MES_MSAG

As a Master of Environmental Studies student, Helena Rudoff (MES ‘19) took courses across the University of Pennsylvania to prepare for a career in public service. “The program is very customizable, and learning different perspectives forced me to think differently about the work I was doing in environmental policy,” she reflects.

Now working for the City of Philadelphia as the Data Coordinator for the Office of Transportation, Infrastructure, and Sustainability and as manager of the Zero Waste Partnership Program, Helena draws on her broad-ranging and interdisciplinary knowledge to help local businesses meet their unique goals in diverting waste away from landfills. “One of the key aspects is waste reduction,” she explains. “Obviously, we want our partners to recycle and compost, but getting to zero waste means that you use more durable items and not as many single-use products.”

“Ultimately, the goal is to see the entire city operating at zero waste,” explains Helena. “We’re Philadelphians too, and we help businesses no matter where they’re starting.”

To learn more about how Helena’s environmental policy studies connected her to the Zero Waste and Litter Cabinet, visit:

www.upenn.edu/grid