Here’s a reminder that there will be a Back to School celebration and book bag giveaway on Sunday, Sept 1, at Malcolm X. Park (51st and Pine). The event will be held from 2 to 6 p.m. Community volunteers will help to distribute donated book bags filled with schools supplies and clothing to over 300 local children. The event is organized by The Nehemiah Davis Foundation (NDF). During the event, NDF will also provide entertainment, free food and haircuts for all of the families who attend.

On Saturday (Aug 31), Bible Way Baptist Church located at 1323 N. 52nd St is having a Back to School Giveaway. Families with kids who need school supplies are welcome to this event. The giveaway starts at noon and goes until supplies last. For questions, call (215) 477 0778 or email: info@biblewaybaptist.org.

As part of the “Kids Rock for Kids” rock concert series, on Tuesday, Aug. 27 and Wednesday, Aug. 28 more than 100 student musicians, age 8-17, will perform at World Cafe Live (3025 Walnut Street) to raise money for West Philly’s HMS School for Children with Cerebral Palsy. Twenty-five teenage rock bands and seven Glee groups will perform. The shows are a collaboration between World Cafe Live and Music Training Center, where the performers study. Both shows start at 6:30 p.m. and end at 9.

HMS School for Children with Cerebral Palsy, which is located in the Spruce Hill neighborhood at 44th & Baltimore, serves children through age 21 and uses special education, therapy programs and state-of-the-art assistive technology to maximize each child’s abilities and help prepare them for a full, active life in their community.

World Cafe Live’s “Kids Rock for Kids” rock concert series, which raises awareness and money for a different children’s medical charity in the Philadelphia area, debuted in 2006. To date, more than 20 concerts have raised over $10,000 for 24 different charities.

Tickets are $10 for adults and $8 for kids. Please note that ticket sales do not include a donation; HMS volunteers will ask for donations during the concert that will benefit HMS’s Scholarship Fund. For more information and to purchase tickets, click here.

Historic March on Washington August 28, 1963.

Fifty years ago this week, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his pivotal “I Have a Dream” speech in front of a crowd of over 250,000 civil rights supporters during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on Aug. 28, 1963. It was one of the largest human rights political rallies in the country and was instrumental in advancing civil and political rights for decades to come.

This Wednesday, in honor of the 50^th anniversary of the march, neighborhood organizer Algernong Allen will hold an audio playing of Dr. King’s famous speech in Cedar Park on 49^th Street and Baltimore Avenue at 6:30 p.m. The event, titled “March on West Philly,” is free and open to the public.

While no formal discussion is planned for after the event, Allen encourages community residents to stay and discuss both the speech and strategies for advancing civil rights.

“I wanted to celebrate the beauty of the original March on Washington, and felt that others would like to be able to do the same in some way,” Allen wrote in an e-mail to West Philly Local. “I want people to walk away more connected, more neighborly to those neighbors who look different, and reminded that there is still work to do.”

Some progress has been made in the five decades since that historic march, but civil rights are still under threat from Voter ID laws introduced and passed through state governments, the disproportionate number of people of color incarcerated, disparity in wages between genders and races and law enforcement profiling. So Allen hopes that the event can also mobilize West Philly residents to work together “to cultivate and extend the borders of a good quality of life”—to continue the fight for Dr. King’s dream.

“To those on the front lines of the civil rights movement, we owe a debt. A debt which we repay by our continued diligence in creating a world for our children in which our society, marches toward the highest aspects of our humanity,” Allen said. “Dr. King’s speech symbolizes and articulates that.  This is how we can say thank you, and rebroadcast the message of the movement that inspired the man.”

–Annamarya Scaccia

Photo by Kyle Cassidy, featuring Josh Hitchens as Ichabod Crane.

Curio Theatre Company has announced its 2013-2014 season and it looks like West Philadelphia’s hotbed of thespian talent has big plans for the upcoming year with an exploration of gender roles and identity.

Curio’s ninth season, which is coined “gender-themed,” kicks off Friday, September 6 in Clark Park with a free production of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” the classic 1820 short story following the journey of Ichabod Crane and the terrifying Headless Horseman.

Directed by Cara Blouin, Curio’s adaption of Washington Irving’s spooky tale will ride along with Crane, played by company member Josh Hitchens, as he races for his life from the supernatural knight, weaving in live music composed by Eli Halpern and live sound effects (plus a real campfire) to bring the terrifying journey to life. But, in Curio’s production, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” will extend beyond the fright of Crane’s last night in Tarry Town—the theater company also plans to take a deeper look into the life of Katrina Van Tassel (played by company member Rachel Gluck), the woman whose affection Crane sought and rejection that brought him into the “spook infested” woods that fateful night. Performances of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” will take place at 7:30 p.m. and run through Sunday, September 8.

In addition to a whimsical upcoming season, Curio will also hold benefit talent show on Friday, September 27. Titled “The Best of the West (Philly) Talent Smackdown,” Curio’s 2013 benefit will feature a talent contest umpired by celebrity judges, with the winner receiving a $100 cash prize and goody bag. It will have live music, raffle and prizes, beer, wine, a tapas spread, and a special Wild West cocktail. The event will be held in St. Francis De Sales School, 917 S. 47^th Street, at 8 p.m. and cost $50 per person.

To purchase tickets to the benefit show, click here. The next audition for the talent show will be held at the Curio Center Stage on Friday, September 13 from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. Call 215-525-1350 to schedule. Continue Reading

Here’s a rare chance to celebrate Japanese culture and learn a few traditional dances in the neighborhood: the Japanese festival of O-bon, or just Bon, is coming to Clark Park at 43rd and Baltimore on Sunday, Aug. 25. O-bon is a celebration that honors the spirits of the dead and is usually held over three days. This is the time when the Japanese visit and clean the graves of their ancestors and place floating lanterns on the water to symbolize the return of the spirits to the otherworld.

O-bon has been celebrated in Japan for more than 500 years and traditionally includes a dance, known as Bon Odori, or Bon Dance. The Bon dance is performed to welcome the spirits of the dead. It varies from region to region in Japan, but it is intended for group participation and is easy to learn (check out video below), so everyone is welcome to learn it this Sunday.

The O-bon festival will be held from 3 to 6 p.m. and is absolutely free and open to the public. For more information about O-bon and Sunday’s event, visit: http://phillyobon.org/.

Dock Street beer was reincarnated in an old firehouse near 50th and Baltimore six years ago this week. The brewpub, which despite initial concerns has proven to be an anchor in the Cedar Park neighborhood, is throwing a party to celebrate.

Draft beers will be available at half price from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Thursday as part of the celebration. Dock Street will also release Trappist IPA, which was brewed with past Dock Street Brewer Scott Morrison, George Hummel of Homesweet homebrew and Tom Peters of Monk’s Café.

Rosemarie Certo raises a glass during Baltimore Avenue Dollar Stroll in 2012. Photo by Mike Lyons/West Philly Local.

The party is also a chance to look back at how Dock Street came to the firehouse, which was the center of a community controversy for many years. Many will recall the debut of the original Dock Street, Philly’s first microbrewery, back in 1985. Rosemarie Certo and her husband Jeffrey Ware later sold the brewpub, located in Logan Square, in 1998. A few years later, after it folded, Certo bought back the bottling rights and the name.

The stately brick building, built in 1903, has its own storied history. Here is the short version for those who need caught up: Fire companies Engine 68 and Ladder 13 moved out of the building in 1984 and there was a good chance that it would go on the auction block and, very possibly, be demolished. In stepped Cedar Park Neighbors, which bought the building for $1 from the city. The neighborhood organization helped save it by taking out a loan to renovate the building, which had become an eyesore with boarded up windows and decaying bricks. Members also helped lead the West Philadelphia Future Fund, which raised and distributed money to attract minority-owned businesses to the new farmers market opened inside the firehouse in 1988. The market had everything from working bakers and butchers to fish mongers.

That said, this is Philly, and the farmers market was not without its controversies, including complaints from potential tenants that the rent was too high.

“This project has been planned so that the community can see that there can be efforts where minorities can be providers as well as consumers,” a person involved in the project told The Philadelphia Inquirer at the time. “If this works, this will be a model for the whole state.”

It didn’t quite work out that way and by the late 1990s the main part of the building was empty again.Cedar Park Neighbors kicked into gear again and petitions started going around. Some nearby churches feared the brewpub would do more harm than good for the area and there was heated debate. Again, this is Philly – West Philly.

After a possible spot in Mount Airy fell through, Dock Street applied to the city to open a brewpub and pizzeria in the space, which was in the heart of what The Philadelphia Inquirer called “the gentrification frontier” in September 2007.

Dock Street opened on Aug. 20, 2007 and since then has helped attract more new businesses to the neighborhood. Back then there was a party, just like tomorrow.