Frankford Community Blog | Local News, Events, Community Resources
From Diane K.
Friends of Overington Park, FOOP, will have their next meeting on Tuesday March 1st, from 7 to 8pm, at the CORA center, Orthodox and Adams Ave. We will be talking about PHS tree planting, and the Mayor’s clean up on April 2nd, where America the Beautiful will be joining with us to plant trees and make our garden beds ready for planting. Please come out and help us plan for upcoming events in the park. Hope to see you there!
I went to the “neighborhood meeting” at the Community Academy of Philadelphia on Erie Avenue to find out about the proposed changes to Womrath Park. I thought I had heard enough about it but I wanted to see if there was anything else to be discovered. Yes the Community Academy of Philadelphia is not in the community but the folks who sponsored the meeting were not aware of the many venues they could have used instead. We will forgive them that one slip up.
Note the title of this post refers to a rain garden and the meeting made a good case that this is an apt description of what will be done to the park. The video below is a good primer on the problem facing Philadelphia in regard to the rain water issue. Rain comes and can overwhelm the sewage treatment facility. That leads to pollution of the rivers and streams where raw sewage can be dumped in such a situation. The solution is to clean the storm water outside of the sewage treatment system, sort of the way nature does if left to its own devices. Have a look at the video below.
Philadelphia has chosen this path and Womrath park is a natural place to implement a small scale project due to its proximity to the Frankford Creek.
Here is a site plan of the park. You can see the major changes will be to the south end.
And here you can see the details of what will be happening down at that end. We’ll post more news when it comes along.
I have been meaning to talk a bit about the Frankford Library since Chris Wink wrote his goodbye piece to Frankford a year ago. He said:
I’ll miss being able to walk to the always welcoming and warm Frankford Library
That captures how it is when you walk in those doors. My opportunity came with the invitation to post information about the Friends of the Free Library meeting to be held this week. I posted the date on the calendar and then made note that I wanted to stop by and meet these folks.
So who are the Friends of the Free Library and what are the doing at the Frankford branch? There is never enough time, money or people. The City of Philadelphia funds the Free Library and every year we go through the “what gets cut from the budget” exercise. The Friends are there to fill that gap in whatever way is needed. They may do a fund raiser. They may volunteer in the library. When are left the meeting yesterday they were brainstorming ways to get more volunteers.
Friends of the Free Library Frankford Branch
The Free Library branch in Frankford serves people of all ages. It is not just for students working on school projects. The computers there see heavy use by adults doing job searches. People come in looking for all sorts of information. Of course some people do come in looking to borrow books and I have to make the occasional stop in there to research databases on their system that the Library does not make available on line over the internet. It is a tremendous community asset.
The next meeting of the Friends of the Free Library Frankford Branch is on Wednesday, March 16, 5:30-6:30 p.m. in the library meeting room. Stop by and say hello. They could use your help.
From Kim Washington:
Our next meeting will be held on, Thursday, February 24, 2011 from 5:30 – 7:30pm at Aria Hospital. If the weather prohibits us from meeting on the 24th, then we will meet on Wednesday, March 2nd, same time and place.
As originally planned, a representative from North American Power will give a presentation on how we can avoid the increasing cost of electricity due to the PECO cap removal. We will also discuss potentially developing a safety corridor program for Harding Middle School and Mastery Charter school.
It is imperative that we have maximum community participation in these next few meetings. Not only will we be discussing the upcoming summit but we will also be putting together our strategic plan for fiscal year 2012. As many of you know, the events/programs funded by EPIC are based on the strategic plan. In order to make this plan as community oriented as possible you must attend the strategic planning meetings and provide your input. In addition to group participation, I am looking to put together an EPIC strategic planning and budgeting board. If you would like to join this board simply send me an email to kwashington@coraservices.org
