The annual Philly Spring Clean-up is scheduled for April 2. Folks can volunteer for organized projects (the University City District is hosting a couple on Baltimore Avenue) or just step outside your own door and go to work for a little while.

We will try to keep track of individual projects as they are announced. If you would like to sign up to volunteer for a project go here. If you want to propose a project to attract volunteers go here. The deadline for submitting a project is March 18.

To volunteer for a project with the University City District, contact Dexter Bryant at cleanandsafe@universitycity.org or 215-243-0555 x236.

Last year 11,213 people throughout the city signed up to volunteer on 231 official project sites. More than 1.3 million pounds of trash was collected along with 139,540 pounds of recycling. Fifty parks and recreation centers and 763 city blocks were cleaned.

Mayor Michael Nutter is really into this project, so we’ll let him tell you more about it:

Funeral services will be held Saturday for Paul Brooks, a community leader in West Philadelphia who started the Clark Park Youth Soccer League, was a past president of the Friends of Clark Park and fought for legal justice for low-income Philadelphians as an attorney with Community Legal Services.

Brooks died Feb. 5 of complications from thyroid cancer, the diagnosis of which he had kept secret from most friends for years. He was 52.

The University City Review has a story about Brooks here.

The funeral will take place at the Iron Gate Theater (37th and Chestnut) beginning at 10 a.m. The burial will follow at the Woodlands Cemetery.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Paul Brooks Youth Soccer Scholarship Fund. Please make checks payable to “Friends of Clark Park” with “Paul Brooks Soccer Fund” on the memo line. They can be dropped off or sent to:

Paul Brooks Soccer Fund, c/o Frank Innes, 4522 Regent Street, Philadelphia, PA 19143-3723.

The demolition of the Windermere Court Apartments at 48th and Walnut, which had been on hold, proceeded today.

Crews have begun to remove the top floors on the southwest corner of the four-story building near where the Jan. 10 fire began. The demolition had been delayed as residents pressured the building’s owners and the city to allow them to retrieve more of their belongings and giving stranded pets some additional time to be rescued or leave the building.

The West Philly-based feline rescue group City Kitties ended their rescue efforts inside the building on Feb. 19 as warm weather melted ice inside the building leaving the building more unstable. City Kitties, the Walnut Hill Community Association, Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell’s office helped residents make their stories known throughout the region. City Kitties has set up a website – windermerefirepets.org – to help keep alive the concerns that came up in the fire’s aftermath.

Residents have also filed a class-action lawsuit against building owners, David and Sam Ginsberg, and management company, Windermere Court Management Corp. The suit alleges that the building was not equipped with the proper fire suppression equipment – sprinklers and smoke alarms – and that the building had not been regularly inspected.

We are happy to report that Saad’s Halal Restaurant at 4500 Walnut St. has reopened after a fire on Feb. 17 that heavily damaged the three floors of apartments above the restaurant.

The fire began on a third floor apartment, according to the Philadelphia Fire Commissioner’s Office, and the cause is still under investigation. The fire destroyed the top two floors of the building, forcing out about two dozen residents. The apartments will require extensive rebuilding and the roof of the building will likely need replaced.

Saad’s suffered some water damage and minor smoke damage, but is back in business.

The fire commissioner’s office also confirmed this morning speculation that smoking in bed caused the Feb. 16 fire at the single-story Transition to Independent Living Inc. building at 4536 Spruce St. The official explanation was “discarded cigarette in unit 4.”

The Philadelphia Weekly’s Tara Murtha has taken a thorough look at the aftermath of the Windermere fire for today’s paper. The piece, “Burning Questions in West Philly Apartment Complex Fire,” fleshes out all the parties in this tragic story – from the residents protesting for access, to the owners’ PR agent to a spokesman for the Mayor’s Office. The story also introduces us to a little known city agency that seems to share in some of the responsibility – Philadelphia’s County Animal Rescue Team (PHL-CART).

Many of us have been following this story for more than a month. Murtha’s piece is a must-read for a look behind the emotions and blame to see what a breakdown in communication between a city government, its residents and private enterprise looks like.

The Freinds of Clark Park has a new website. Brian Siano said in an e-mail today that the new site is designed to be more of a community discussion site than the old site. The site also offers the ability to share content on Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites.

Here’s a sneak peak: