The Power Circle is a program for youth. Every Tuesday at the Frankford Boys and Girls Club they gather at 5:30 PM for a dinner and program. Its aimed at kids 14 to 18 but as you can see by the picture there are a lot of older folks there too. They might be called mentors.
It was put together by Nafisah Lewis and Buddah Thomas to give the kids somewhere to go for a positive influence.
After the socializing and dinner, its introductions and a program by a guest or two. They aim at people who have been a success to show that there is a way up. The night I visited the guest speakers were Fee and Maleek Jackson.
This is another unique program that makes its home at the Boys and Girls Club on Kinsey Street. All of this makes the building a real community hub in East Frankford. Its the center of activity and there is nothing like it anywhere else in Frankford.
A very active year so far for Frankford High’s Jr ROTC color guard. On Veterans Day, November 11th, they were the Philadelphia Vietnam Memorial.
Hajdack-Moran Chapter of the 82nd Airborne Association Color Guard presenting the colors with the Frankford High School Color Guard mirroring them in the background at the opening ceremony. Photo by Joe Fraioli
It has been years since the first neighbor on the 2000 block of Margaret Street came to the Frankford Civic Association meeting and complained about the maintenance of the Harding Middle School property on the Margaret Street side.
The School District mows the grass and keeps the weeds off the sidewalk on the property near the school but on that big section of the property closest to Margaret Street, it looks like a dump. On the Ditman Street side you can barely walk on the sidewalk for the weeds that block the passage. On the Margaret side, passersby are greeted by weeds on the lot that are three feet high or more.
In August when the neighbors on Margaret Street had a block party they cut the weeds on the lot closest to Margaret in order to make it look a little better. They have made numerous complaints to 311 and nothing changes.
The most recent 311 case number was 10879517. According to 311 records, an inspection was made on August 31st and a violation notice was issued. A re-inspection was made on September 13th where no improvement was noted. An inspection was made on September 23rd and the case was closed. This would indicate that the problem was resolved however as you can see from the video below that these weeds did not grow this high in the last 2 weeks.
Do you think this would go on if this was private property?
When we finished the draft of this story we sent it over to the School District for comment and got an email back on Wednesday from Kevin Geary, Chief of External Relations who said ”
Thank you for sending this. We were closed yesterday due to the Jewish new year.
We will clear sidewalk and cut field today. Our field attendant has been out sick for 4 weeks…
Background: Our field attendant has been out sick for 4 weeks. Our supervisor should have caught and shifted resources but did not.
We went out to have a look on Saturday and true to his word, well take a look at the video below.
In Spring we’ll check back to see if is being maintained. Thanks Kevin Geary for your help.
Mayor Kenney, Councilwoman Maria Quiñones-Sánchez and AT&T Mid-Atlantic President Mike Schweder presented a $500,000 AT&T Foundation grant to support ninth-grade students at Frankford High School through Johns Hopkins’ Talent Development Secondary Diplomas Now program on October 14th.
Diplomas Now partners with the school community to reorganize the schedule so each student at risk has caring adults and those adults have the tools to improve achievement. Working with administrators and teachers, a Diplomas Now team sets goals based on students’ attendance, behavior and course performance. They develop a strategic plan, implement an early warning system to identify struggling students and regularly review the data. Teachers and the Diplomas Now team craft individual student plans that include more math and English time and teacher teams with shared planning time.
Read this excellent report from Newsworks at this link. It explains what the problems are and possible solutions to keeping students in school to graduate. Its long but the problem is complex. Take the time. These kids are the future.
