If you live between 45th and 52nd Streets and Locust and Cedar Avenues, Garden Court Community Association (GCCA) is your neighborhood association and you are invited to the general community meeting next Thursday (Oct. 25).

Here’s the GCCA meeting announcement:

Please join us at our next general community meeting:

GCCA General Community Meeting
Thursday, October 25, 2012
7:00 – 9:00 PM at 4725 Chestnut Street (Community College)

• Help us set goals for the year; tell us what you like and don’t like about our neighborhood.

• Do we need a Town Watch? Learn what’s involved from Tara Smith, Community Support Specialist for Philadelphia Town Watch Integrated Services.

• Learn how to develop a Household Emergency Plan from the City’s Office of Emergency Management.

• Meet our new officers and committee chairs.

• Hear updates on Lea School, Parks, Planning and Zoning, Business District.

• Enjoy refreshments and meet new neighbors!

For more information, contact Kate Mills, Corresponding Secretary, at katewmills@gmail.com or 267-254-3078.

Spruce Hill Bird Sanctuary.

Our fine feathered friends at Spruce Hill Bird Sanctuary need more food to make it through the toughest months of the year, so Spruce Hill Community Association is organizing a Fall Bird Food Drive. Residents are asked to donate a bag of sunflower seeds, suet cakes, or good quality general bird seed. Bird food is available at pet stores, supermarkets or local garden centers and nurseries.

You can drop off the purchased bird food at the following locations: Baltimore Pet Shoppe (4532 Baltimore Ave), Milk and Honey (45th and Baltimore) and Spruce Hill Community Association (257 45th St., call 215 349-7825 for open hours).

The sanctuary has four posts that hold 15 feeders. You might see over a dozen different kinds of birds there. The entrance is next to 233 S. Melville and it is open to the public. For more information, click here.

Over the summer we wrote about the Future of Cedar Park survey distributed in the neighborhood by the Cedar Park Neighbors association. If you live or own a business in Cedar Park and haven’t participated in the survey yet, you are encouraged to do it this week. The deadline is Friday, Oct. 12, 5 p.m.

Neighbors’ input on the future of the neighborhood is very helpful as a committee of Cedar Park Neighbors board members is preparing for an important meeting with the Philadelphia City Planning Commission which will be convening a steering committee to create a new plan for Southwest Philadelphia and University City.

“Already, we’ve heard from 400 Cedar Park Neighbors about what they want for their community. If you haven’t responded yet, please do so today. It only takes a couple minutes and we want to make sure your voice is heard!” wrote Cedar Park Neighbors president Michael Froehlich in an email.

To access the survey online, please follow this link.

Here’s a great campaign that helps improve our neighborhoods. Philadelphia Parks and Recreation’s tree planting initiate, TreePhilly, engages property owners, business and community residents to improve their communities by planting and maintaining trees. The fall campaign is underway now and residents can sign up until October 19 to receive their free trees.

This fall, residents are eligible to receive up to two free trees per address. Last spring, West Philly residents ordered hundreds of trees, per information provided by Parks & Rec.

To register for your free tree, please go to www.treephilly.org, or contact Erica Smith,
Tree Philly manager, at 215-683-0217 or email: erica.smith@phila.gov with your request.

Note: You have to be a property owner in order to be eligible and plant the trees in the ground in your private yard space, not in the sidewalk outside of your property.

Neighbors are invited to join a walk against gun violence and vigil for gun murder victims tonight, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. in the Cedar Park section of West Philly. There will be two walk starting points – at gun homicide sites at 1100 S. Ruby Street and at the intersection of S. 52nd and Warrington Streets. The two walks will join together at Cedar Park (50th and Baltimore) in the vigil where luminaries for all gun murders to this date in Philadelphia will be lighted. There have been over 250 murders in the city this year.

The event is organized by Heeding God’s Call, a faith-based movement to prevent gun violence, and by Neighborhood Partners to End Gun Violence as part of Peace Day Philly. For more information email: info@heedinggodscall.org or call 856-371-3038.

Police and local clergy members started going door to door talking to residents in an effort to tackle crime in the area. Last night they were particularly targeting the 19th Police District, ABC6 reports. The goal of this new initiative is to let residents in high crime areas know about what’s happening in their neighborhood, to hear from them about trouble spots and to see what police can do to help. “We want to know from residents if they’re having any problems; poor lighting, abandoned vehicles, vacant property,” Inspector Dennis Wilson told ABC.

Police are also talking to neighbors-property owners about what they should do to protect their property more effectively and encouraging businesses to install surveillance cameras and to register them with the city.

Next week the police are supposed to knock on doors of the 18th District‘s residents.