The Frankford CDC just can’t stand sitting still, so on Tuesday we held not one, but two, business spotlight events. We started our day at Frankford High School, where we teamed up with the Student Success Center to hold a round table discussion focused on owning your own food business. The panel consisted of three women entrepreneurs based here in Frankford, Lily Fischer of A Cupcake Wonderland, Tegan Hagy of Philly LoveBar, and Therice Denby of Denby’s Sweet Sensations (4428 Frankford Ave). All shared great insight in to the hard work involved in being a small business owner, their decision making processes, and where they see their businesses headed in the next few years. As always, the Frankford High School students were wonderful, and asked some great questions!

In the afternoon, we headed over to Aria’s Frankford Campus for our first Business Spotlight Day. As you may remember, Aria and the Frankford CDC are launching a new program whereby four Frankford businesses, four times a year, set up a table for an afternoon in Aria’s cafeteria and get to know Aria staff who might not ordinarily find themselves shopping on the Ave. We had a great time speaking with Aria’s dedicated staff, and think some great connections were forged!

Stay tuned for more information about coming events, and for details about how to get involved! And if you have an idea for a business support event, we’d love to hear from you! Just call our offices at 215-743-6580.

Please join The Frankford CDC, Health Partners, and Aria Health on June 1st!

The Frankford Business and Professional Association had a GREAT general meeting this morning! We welcomed two guest speakers, Iola Harper of InGoodCompany LLC and George Van Note from the City’s Health Department.

Iola, who runs classes and workshops on small business marketing, gave a wonderful presentation on the basics of marketing your business on a budget. Topics included how to target your ad campaign to a specific group of consumers as well as how to tap into resources that are readily available, such as social media and news outlets.  You can visit her online at igcphilly.com.

George Van Note, Program Manager at the city’s Office of Food Protection, focsued on food safety for special events open to the public.  He discussed what types of licenses are needed from the City when planning a special event, as well as the methods and requirements for safely serving food at special events.

We hope you’ll be able to join us at our next meeting, June 20th at 8:30a at Frankford Aria Hospital (4900 Frankford Ave), where we will hear from the Tobacco Control Project and The Business Center.

I just posted a story about the new Emergency Department construction at Aria.  I was there for the ceremony on Tuesday.  I had also been at the hospital on Monday for a different purpose.  Our family uses Aria Frankford for all of our medical testing and I needed to get a stress test.  As usual, the people there handled everything with a high degree of professionalism.  They were friendly and efficient.  Special thanks to Hiralde Patel, Rita Foust and Patrick Foley for taking care of me and all of the other folks there that day.

I could go anywhere but I go to Aria mainly because I want it to stay in Frankford.  I want to give them my business because it’s a community hospital and has served us well.

New Emergency Department Walk in Entrance

Tuesday morning, December 13th was a banner day for Aria Health and Frankford.  The new Emergency Department construction moved into high gear with the “wall breaking” ceremony in the main lobby.  That will mark the beginning of the construction phase of the new $12.1 million project that will increase the ER capacity from 17 to 34 beds..  Preparations began several months ago with the start of construction in the Wakeling Building for the move of the Physical therapy/Outpatient  Therapy areas.  The gift shop has now moved up to the second floor.

The end result will be that the walk in entrance to the ER will be located adjacent to the main entrance.  This will allow for an improved ambulance entrance on Harrison Street.  The work is scheduled for completion in the Spring of 2013.

You can catch a video of the ceremony at this link.