Here’s an idea: someone on a bicycle comes to your place, picks up your laundry, does it for you – including folding – and returns it, also by bicycle. Clean and green.  This exists and it’s called Wash Cycle Laundry. If you think this is a good idea, then you are not alone. Echoing Green, an angel investor in socially conscious entrepreneurial businesses, has named Wash Cycle a semifinalist for one of its 2011 Echoing Green Fellowships.

Now to be honest there are a lot of semifinalists – 224 to be exact. But that is out of 2,854 applicants. About 15 of those semifinalists will be awarded fellowships, which include start-up money to pay for health insurance, a stipend and access to legal and financial help.

Gabriel Mandujano, the former executive director of the Enterprise Center Community Development Corporation in Walnut Hill, started Wash Cycle Laundry earlier this year. The company does pick-ups and deliveries in West Philadelphia and Center City. You may have seen their bike trailers loaded with large blue tubs.

Fellowship winners will be announced in May.

Mariposa Food Co-op is on target to move into its new building at 4824 Baltimore Ave by July 2011. Members got a sneak peak inside the new building during the general membership meeting on Sunday.

Originally built as a bank, the new space will increase Mariposa’s space five-fold and include community classrooms, offices and more storage. The bulk of the renovation will be to the main selling space and will begin in early spring. The entire project cost $2 million, including the purchase of the former bank building, and although the co-op has raised most of the money through loans and grants – about $1.5 million – it is still seeking investors for the remaining costs, said project manager Bull Gervasi. A number of fundraisers are being planned to help offset costs.

Members have already done some light renovation and have found some interesting design features in the 90-year-old building, including the solid marble entrance to the former vault and glazed brick in the basement, which used to serve as a fallout shelter.

The Mariposa membership has decided to offer a new shopping scheme along with the new location. The added space will make it feasible for non-members to shop as well, though members will still be the lifeblood of the organization.

An interview with Bull Gervasi and a quick tour of the main space:

• Mariposa Co-op membership meeting/tour • 4-7 p.m. • the future Mariposa location • 4824 Baltimore Ave.
Come and see Mariposa‘s soon-to-be-new digs. The general membership meeting is 4-6 p.m. and tours of the new building are from 6-7 p.m.

• Caroling in Clark Park • 5 p.m. • Park “B” next to the green and white storage house, near 45th and Regent
Originally scheduled for last week, the caroling is on for this week. So come out and sing or just work off some tension built up during the Eagles game.

Send information on events to: editor [at] westphillylocal.com

The Provident Mutual Building at 46th and Market in its glory days from an old postcard.

(UPDATE: The Preservation Alliance is holding an art show Friday that includes pieces inspired by the buildings on the endangered list. The show is at the Globe Dye Works (4500 Worth Street) and starts at 7 p.m. Half the proceeds go toward the Alliance’s Advocacy Fund.)

The Provident Mutual Life Insurance Building at 46th and Market, that majestic, cupola topped building overlooking the El tracks, is eroding before our eyes and it is still unclear whether help is on the way. The building is one of many that the Preservation Alliance of Philadelphia has identified as “still endangered”  in its eighth annual Endangered Properties List released today. The list is full of sad stories of landmark buildings that have fallen into disrepair.

The list also includes the Divine Lorraine Hotel on North Broad Street, the Germantown Town Hall on Germantown Avenue and 109 Elfreth’s Alley.

Built in 1926 by Cram and Ferguson, the Provident Mutual building was abandoned when the company moved in 1983. Parts of the building have been occupied by a hodgepodge of agencies over the years. The building has been considered for the relocation of both the Philadelphia Family Court and the Philadelphia Police Headquarters. The Family Court contract went elsewhere (under a cloud of alleged corruption) and the estimated $70 million rehab price tag has made the police move doubtful, at least for now.

Sadly, the building is not on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places, making it even more likely to be ignored, according to the Preservation Alliance.

Here is the Endangered Properties list:
Preservation Alliance 2010 Endangered Properties List

Books Through Bars, a renowned West Philadelphia non-profit that makes educational resources and programming available to prisoners who are trying to improve themselves and change during their time inside, is hosting a film festival this week at different venues around West Philly to commemorate its 20th anniversary.

The festival features 17 films stretched across six evenings, Dec. 5 through Dec. 12. Each night will include a brief introduction from local organizers and activists who will connect the films to local issues.

Light refreshments – popcorn and cider – will be available for purchase, as will the Books Through Bars 20th Anniversary commemorative poster designed and printed by Eric Ruin (see left, click to enlarge), which is really (really) cool. Proceeds will go toward Books Through Bars’ ongoing work.

The film schedule is below. The venues and times change, so be alert. The Dec. 12th edition, for example, is a matinee.

Wednesday, Dec. 8
WOMEN IN PRISON
7:30 PM @ West Philly Acupuncture, 50th & Baltimore (above Dock St. Pub)
Introduction by Naima Black, from MoMobile (& former lead organizer of the AFSC StopMax Campaign)
Featured films:
Charisse Shumate: Fighting for Our Lives, 2004, 37 min
An examination of the conditions of medical neglect facing women prisoners in the CA system, seen through the lens of Shumate’s efforts to bring a class action lawsuit forward to improve her own and other’s circumstances.
Eyes of the Rainbow, 1997, 45 min
An unusual doc on Assata Shakur, filmed primarily in Cuba, and narrated by fellow political exile Nehanda Abioudon
OUT: The Making of a Revolutionary, 2000, 60 min
A portrait of the life and actions of former political prisoner and current prison activist Laura Whitehorn.

Thursday, Dec. 9
IMMIGRATION DETENTION: The Racialized Face of U.S. Incarceration
7:30 PM @ Cindergarden, 4823 Baltimore Ave.
Introduction by Mia-lia Kiernan, Cambodian Community Organizer
Featured Films:
Exiled in America, 10 min
Uses the portrait of a single family’s experience to highlight the current landscape of immigrant detention and deportation in the U.S.
I Won’t Drown on That Levee & You Ain’t Gonna Break My Back, directed by Ashley Hunt, 2006, 31 min
Looks at the impact of the police state on New Orleans during and after Hurricane Katrina, as well as the conditions faced by prisoners held in New Orleans Prison Parish at the time of the levee break.
The Least of These: Family Detention in America, 2008, 60 min
Story of the Don Hutto Family Detention Center in Texas, run by the Corrections Corp of America (CCA) and the legal/community efforts to contest conditions there.

Friday, Dec. 10
YOUTH INCARCERATION: The School to Prison Pipeline
7:30 PM @ A-Space, 4722 Baltimore Ave
Introduction by Members of the Youth Art & Self-Empowerment Project (YASP), whose film “Stolen Dreams” will be one of the featured pieces this evening.
Featured Films:
Books Through Bars, produced by Media That Matters, 4 min. A brief piece that draws connections between the increasing criminalization of youth in general, particularly in the context of the public school system, and the juvenile prison system.System Failure, produced by Media That Matters, 8 min. A critical portrait of the California Youth Authority System
Stolen Dreams, 2010, 26 min
A look at the local Philadelphia/Pennsylvania landscape of youth incarceration and its costs, produced by Youth Art & Self-Empowerment Project
CCJT$: At What cost?, 2004, 26 min
An examination of the Connecticut Juvenile Training School, a max facility for youth, produced by Youth Rights Media

Saturday, Dec. 11 – Double Feature!!
POLITICAL PRISONERS: In the U.S. and Internationally
6 PM & 8 PM @ A-Space, 4722 Baltimore Ave
Introduction by Dan Berger, Wild Poppies Collective (6 PM) and David Anthem, BTB (8 PM)
Featured Films:
Through The Wire, directed by Nina Roseblum, 1990, 77 min
An expose of conditions at an underground isolation cellblock constructed at the Federal Corrections Institute in Lexington, KY to house three well-known female political prisoners of the anti-imperialist and Puerto Rican independence movements.
Hunger, directed by Steve McQueen, 2008, 96 min
An intimate cinematic exploration of the conditions faced by IRA prisoners in England’s prisons and, in particular, Bobby Sand’s death during the hunger strikes orchestrated to resist that environment.

Sunday, Dec. 12
THE PRISON ECONOMY
2 PM @ A-Space, 4722 Baltimore Ave
Introduction by Emily Abendroth, BTB
Featured Films:
Excerpt from The Farm: Angola, USA, 1998, 10 min
In its entirety, this film focuses on the lives, stories, and cases of six different men incarcerated in Angola prison. We will be looking at just a single clip of one of those men’s appearance before the Angola parole board.
Excerpt from The Last Slave Plantation and the Angola 3, 2006, 45 min
A look at the history, legacy, and ongoing resistance struggles to current conditions at Angola Prison in Louisiana – narrated by Mumia Abu Jamal.
Prison Town, USA, directed by Po Kutchins & Katie Galloway, 2008, 75 min
Looks at Susanville, CA’s current incarnation as a “prison town,” wherein half of the adults residing there work at one of the area’s three massive prisons.

A very accomplished West Philadelphia concert pianist is now taking students. Leonardo Le San has performed in a number of high-profile venues, including Carnegie Hall. See link above for more information.