Update: According to Sateesh Daniel of the West Philadelphia office of Organizing for America, all the tickets for Michelle Obama appearance at the National Constitution Center are already gone at his office.

Michelle Obama is speaking on Wednesday at the National Constitution Center. Tickets for the event are first-come, first-serve. They will be available beginning at 4:30 p.m. tomorrow at five Organizing for America offices in the city.

For those in West Philly, the best bet is the office at 209 S. 52nd Street.

The doors to the event will open at 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday.
 

A Girl Scouts information and registration meeting will be held tonight from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the St. Mary’s Nursery School, 3916 Locust Walk (near 40th and Locust on the Penn campus).

Girls entering 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th grades are eligible. If you can’t make tonight’s meeting but want more info, write:

Janine Van Patten (2nd and 3rd graders) – janinevanp919@yahoo.com

Amy Kwasnicki (3rd and 4th graders) – kwaszilla@gmail.com

The School District of Philadelphia has announced early dismissal today due to excessive heat. All public schools will close at 1:30 p.m.

The early closure includes early childhood programs. Routine transportation will be in place at the 1:30 p.m. dismissal time. All after-school programs are also canceled. Staff will remain in the buildings until all students are picked up. For more information visit the District’s website at www.philasd.com or call the Information Hotline at 215-400-INFO (4636).
 

It’s this time of the year again. As May 31st approaches and leases end, local graduate students are moving out and leaving a lot of stuff behind this week. Local residents fondly call it “Penn Christmas” since the move-out detritus often yields a tasty score or two, from Ikea furniture to designer clothes.

Hot spots for sidewalk finds are often near the large Dumpsters placed around the neighborhood (41st and Spruce, 45th and Pine, 43rd and Pine are a few). What doesn’t wind up in the Dumpster will often find its way to the PennMoves sale, which is this Saturday, June 2.

Clothes, furniture, kitchen items, electronics and many other items have been collected and sorted for the sale, which will be held at Penn’s South Bank at 3401 Grays Ferry Ave. Getting there early is the key. A $5 entry fee gets you in for the sneak preview from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. From 10 a.m.–3 p.m. you can get in for free but a lot of the good stuff might be gone. All items are sold “as is” with no returns accepted.

Free parking is available, and Penn Transit will provide free shuttle service to and from campus from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Shuttles will pick up riders at the Schattner Center at 240 S. 40th St. (at Locust) approximately every 20 minutes. They’ll bring you and some small items back, but the shuttle won’t haul big items like furniture and appliances.

PennMOVES is organizing the sale for the fifth year, in an effort to find a home for items Penn students leave behind at the end of the academic year. Proceeds will go to Goodwill Industries.

The Fire Marshall’s office is investigating a fire at a three-story residential building near 45th and Baltimore that broke out early this afternoon. Firefighters were called to the scene at 12:49 p.m. and the fire was out about 20 minutes later. No injuries were reported.

Here are some photos of the fire submitted by neighbors.

Photo by Jen Horner.

Photo by D.W.

Great news for West Philly’s Tool Library and Neighborhood Bike Works – both organizations received enough votes from the Facebook community to be awarded $25,000 grants as part of State Farm Insurance’s nationwide “Cause An Effect” grant program. Causes were submitted by individuals via Facebook to help build safer, stronger, and better educated communities (over 3,000 causes were submitted!). 40 out of 100 finalists received the grants based on the highest number of votes. See all the winners here.

“Earn-a-Bike Education” cause will allow Neighborhood Bike Works to offer five 8-week after-school Earn-a-Bike classes, providing a total of 60 youth with free, enriching programming. Youths involved will be introduced to safe urban riding, health and nutrition.

After learning of their win, West Philly Tool Library’s Michael Froehlich said that “this could be a real game changer for the Tool Library. Thanks to State Farm Insurance and the hundreds of people that voted for us, we now have $25,000 to spend on new tools and programming. We’re incredibly thankful to everyone for their support. We’ve said it once and we’ll say it again: West Philly is the Best Philly.”

Thank you to everyone who voted and helped these two amazing local programs win the grant.