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Evy Cruz moved to South of South about two months ago. She had been attending meetings for the South of South Neighborhood Association, 1901 Christian St., since her relocation from Queen Village, and decided to attend a cleanup scheduled for Saturday.
“I wanted to actually do something tangible,” the resident of 21st and Kater streets said.
The event – one of dozens of local cleanups for the eighth annual Philly Spring Cleanup initiative Mayor Michael Nutter created in his inaugural year – involved beautifying a future park space, Carpenter Green, 1700 Carpenter St., which has been on a long ride from a dilapidated vacant lot to park, a title it hasn’t yet attained. During the cleanup, Cruz, who hadn’t ventured to that part of the neighborhood yet, found a variety of items, like wrappers, pieces of a toilet, golf balls and a can of beans as well as some partially buried articles. After learning of the space’s future, she was ready to continue to explore that part of the expanse.
“Now knowing there’s going to be a park here, I’m probably going to come more often,” she said.
After volunteers wrapped up and packed about 25 bags with debris from the area the size of eight rowhomes, volunteers shifted to Chester Arthur School, 2000 Catharine St., to tidy up and plant flowers in the learning place’s courtyards.
“We knew that Carpenter Green wouldn’t’ take too long, so we wanted to come over here, too,” Abby Rambo, the civic’s project coordinator, said of the school.
However, the attention redirected back to Carpenter Green that afternoon when 2nd District City Councilman Kenyatta Johnson stopped by for a big announcement. Over the last four years, the councilman helped to clean up the site that had two long-time vacant buildings, rezoned it from residential to a permanent park space and provided a $110,000 check funneled from Neighborhood Transformation Initiative’s Qualified Redevelopment Bonds, which are aimed toward blight in designated neighborhoods, Steve Cobb, Johnson’s director of legislation, said.
A new dad to a 6-month-old boy with wife Dawn Chavous, Johnson noted how he and his family enjoy walks to Center City’s Fitler Square.
“I live at 20th and Ellsworth [streets], so I’m looking forward to this particular green space,” he said, adding “This is truly the community’s park.”
The park came to be after residents located the space and petitioned for it to become a park – first to former council president Anna Verna in 2008 and then again in ’11 to Johnson.
“We really saw that [space] as the last chance to do any significant green space besides pocket parks,” Lauren Vidas, South of South Neighborhood Association’s board chair, said after Saturday’s check presentation.
Phase one, which involves mainly underground components, will be underway within the next month or so and must be completed by September to satisfy funding requirements. Besides Johnson’s endowment, the Philadelphia Water Department will contribute a to-be-determined figure for stormwater management features, while the neighborhood group will cover $25,000 worth of contract and sidewalk costs.
Vidas hopes to have the park completed within a year, but funds still need to be raised for phase two, which includes the above-ground amenities, like a spray fountain and rain gardens. The Goldenburg Group, currently constructing Carpenter Square townhomes adjacent to the park, has vowed to contribute a $50,000 matching grant, but Vidas estimates phase two will cost $100,000 to $150,000.
Once the project is completed, the civic plans to create a friends group to help maintain the park, but turn over the space to Philadelphia Parks & Recreation. But before that happens, the group doesn’t plan to waste any time in regards to using the space for community events after the completion of phase one’s leveling and seeding.
“We’ll do movie nights on the walls,” Vidas said. “It’ll be great.”
For most Mummers, it is a year long commitment to strut on New Year’s Day. From creating themes and costumes to rehearsing to raising money, there is always something to be done leading up to the parade, but a new comic group is hoping to make another commitment – to the community.
The Mad Hatters New Year’s Brigade, which marched in its first parade this year after forming with members who left two other clubs, also participated in the Philly Spring Cleanup, a first-time effort for many constituents. However, it was not the club’s premiere community-infused endeavor.
The Mad Hatters want to push aside the drunken, partying stereotype the Mummers have and change the conversations about them to something more positive.
“It’s not about the Mummers,” club president Jim Daniels said of the way of thinking his previous group taught him. “It’s about the community.”
In its short existence, it has donated to Preston and Steve’s Camp Out for Hunger, which collects canned goods at Xfinity Live!, 1100 Pattison Ave., distributed toys to Pennsport and Whitman children for Christmas and much more.
“Now we’re going to focus around here,” Daniels, of Front and Wolf streets, said of the Passyunk Square area surrounding the Capitolo Playground, 900 Federal St., “with our idea of getting a club around here.”
The club’s most recent endeavor includes raising more than $1,000 for Vienna Accardo, a 4-year-old local girl with leukemia, but it won’t stop there, with plans to have a kickball tournament next month. Half its proceeds will go toward the Capitolo Advisory Council, and the remainder will assist a scholarship it plans to launch next school year for an incoming eighth grader at St. Anthony of Padua Regional Catholic School, 913 Pierce St.
“We want to come in as the local friends who are helping the neighborhood first,” Daniels, a Wench Hall of Fame member, said.
The club gathered at Capitolo Saturday for its latest opportunity to give back as it prepped the baseball field for Sunday’s softball league kickoff and tidied the rest of the site. Capitolo Advisory Council president Denise Eddis was thrilled to see Mad Hatters’ members – many of whom she knew from the neighborhood – helping out.
“I’m real excited they all volunteered to come help out because if you can tell, it’s been the whole winter and nothing’s been done,” Eddis, of Ninth and Annin streets, said as some members flipped the bleachers on their sides to address accumulated dirt and debris.
However, one of the organizers, who lives next door to Eddis, had been tidying up the site well before Nutter created the cleanup day.
“This is my neighborhood,” Frankie Piacentini, the Mad Hatters’ community service rep, said. ”I’ve been working here since I was 13.”
And his childhood buddies who now make up the Mad Hatters never balked at the idea of volunteering at Capitolo, with tasks such as filling sink holes on the ballfield, painting base and backstop lines, cleaning up debris and removing hazardous fencing from the area.
“As soon as I brought it up, everyone was like, ‘Yea, 100 percent,’” Piacentini said.
But it wasn’t just Mummers helping out at Capitolo. Some of the softball league’s participants, including 10th-and-Federal-streets-resident Dave Caglia, joined in.
“It’s where we spend a lot of time, so it’s good to be able to help out and give back,” Caglia, who also serves on the governance board for Capitolo’s garden, said.
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