This upcoming weekend, you can buy some beautiful or useful plants for your garden, yard, porch or house and support two vital local non-profits.

Photo via Parentinfantcenter.org

Parent Infant Center is holding its annual Spring Plant Sale on Friday and Saturday (May 2 & 3). The sale features a great variety of annuals, perennials, hanging baskets, herbs, vegetables & fruit, and more. Those who had pre-ordered plants can pick them up during the sale days: from 3-6 p.m. on Friday, and from 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. on Saturday.

The sale will be held in the chapel at 4205 Spruce Street. All proceeds from this annual fundraiser are dedicated to PIC’s Scholarship Fund, which was established in 1986.

We hear that the weather will be nice this weekend so why not head to the beautiful Bartram’s Garden for its Spring Fest and Plant Sale. The big annual event will take place on Saturday and Sunday (May 3 & 4), 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. (the member preview party is Friday, May 2, 4 – 7 p.m.).

This sale will feature a selection of heirloom roses in celebration of the historic site’s Carr Garden Restoration project, plus vegetables, herbs, native perennials, shrubs, trees and more.

Nicole Juday, a local Rosarian and Horticulture Education Coordinator at the Barnes Foundation, will hold a special presentation, “Growing Roses,” on Saturday from noon to 1:30 p.m., to tie into the Carr Garden Restoration Project, which will feature many historic rose varieties. The cost for the presentation is $10 for adults/$8 for seniors/Free for Bartram’s Garden Members. To register online go to: bartramroses.bpt.me.

Also on Saturday, horticulturists will be available to answer questions and share garden-planning advice. Garden and community farm tours will be offered from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. A full list of plants for sale can be found here. For more Saturday events and Sunday schedule, visit this page.

Bartram’s Garden is located at 54th St and Lindbergh Blvd and is easily accessible by bike and the 36 Trolley. There’s also free parking on the site.

Photos by Annamarya Scaccia / West Philly Local

When I first met Lola Reed a few weeks ago, I was struck by her style.

It’s a brisk Saturday in February, and Reed is meeting me for a mid-morning interview at her new store, HALO Foundation Boutique. She’s wrapped in a chic tan coat and sporting killer heels that make her hike over the mound of snow she’s crossing a bit shaky. As we make small talk during her walk over, Reed has a warm smile on her face.

Reed, 28, opened HALO Foundation Boutique at 4616 Baltimore Avenue during the holidays, taking over the space from a short-lived clothing store. It’s a small two-level shop with oversized front windows, decked out mannequins, and an intimate atmosphere. A cozy nook notches out the ground floor, where high-end and designer clothing, jewelry, and accessories are placed on display.

To the right, wooden stairs lead up to a nearly empty loft space. A cozy loveseat and cluttered table are pushed against the back wall, which is plastered with a large collage of fashion editorials and photos of runway models cut from magazines.

This is where we find ourselves after we’ve made our way inside. As we sink into the couch, Reed, dressed in all black, begins to chat with affection about the boutique and its backstory. The air is filled with faith music playing from a portable stereo/CD player on the floor. Light from the morning sun bathes the space.

In a way, it’s a scene that perfectly encapsulates Reed’s mission, of which the boutique is only a part. Continue Reading

Local teens are taking part in Avenue Q School Edition. (Photo courtesy Project Arts)

Here’s a chance to support a new local high school musical project and help make a change in the lives of some talented teens who are facing cuts in their school music programs.

West Philly Local has already written about “Avenue Q School Edition,” an after-school program and show currently being put on at The Rotunda by Project Arts. The project has finally reached the costly production stage, which includes the construction of an intricate set, puppet rental costs, mic rentals, and the hiring of a great crew of teachers and workshop leaders, according to Rich Wexler, Project Arts executive director.

“We have improvisation classes, a history of puppetry workshop, puppetry manipulation workshops, vocal and acting coaching, and diversity training for our cast. This process gives our teens the tools to excel in our production. But we need help to provide our teens with all the necessary tools we need to make this production successful,” Rich wrote in an e-mail.

Rich and the teens and teachers involved in the project are reaching out to fellow West Philadelphians with the following request:

“If you believe in our work, please give whatever you can. Our last production (Rent School Edition) really had a great impact on the lives of our cast. In our own way, we changed some of their lives. We worked harder this year to do outreach to youth that did not have any access to theater programs or productions, as well as casting a very diverse cast.”

Project Arts was able to get $10,000 in grants for this show through a partnership with The Rotunda and their goal is to produce two to three productions a year with children and teens. They still need to raise about $3,500 to pay for all of the production costs.

If you would like to support this project please go to this Indiegogo page to make a donation:

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/project-art-s-avenue-q-school-edition-fundraiser

And here’s information on the upcoming “Avenue Q School Edition” shows:

Dates: March 21st – 30th (7 shows )
Times: 3pm, 7pm, 8pm (various nights)
Venue: The Rotunda, 4014 Walnut Street
Cost:  $10-15
Tickets on sale here: http://projectartsavenueqschooledition.bpt.me

Fulani cowboys driving their cattle to water. (Photo by Anna Badkhen)

To say the least, Anna Badkhen is a wanderer.

From the edges of Mexico to the villages of war-torn Afghanistan, the West Philly-based Badkhen has roamed the earth, searching for those societies in extremis—those people living in the farthest reaches. It’s often there, in those outlying regions, where she finds a fuller picture of life: of communities surviving in areas unheeded by the contemporary world.

As a journalist and writer by trade, Badkhen has written four books and countless articles about people in extremis, translating her experiences and their realities into exceptionally woven and affected stories. And now, Badkhen has launched an Indiegogo campaign to help fund her latest book, Walking with Abel (Riverhead Books), which will publish next year.

Donations to Badkhen’s campaign, which closes on March 8, will help fund the completion of the Walking with Abel manuscript. The book tells a nomadic Fulani family’s story of “survival, perseverance and adaptation” living in the Sahel region of Mali in Western Africa, where Badkhen spent much of 2013. Ultimately, says her campaign site, the fundraiser will “make truly communal the book that explores the mega-narrative of all of our human migrations, our ancestral restlessness, our shared hejiras.”

When West Philly Local asked Badkhen about what made this trip truly unique, she replied:

“‘Where are you from?’ My hosts in an Afghan village would ask, my hosts on a farm in Western Iraq, in the velvet mountains of Indian Kashmir, in the snakepit dugouts of Azeri refugee camps. I had grown up in a country that no longer existed, in a city that since had changed its name: Leningrad, USSR. I had moved away, and moved again, and again. My point of departure was never the same: Moscow, Massachusetts, Philadelphia. It made for relatively effortless travel. It made for uncomfortable silences, odd hesitations.

The Fulani ‘are regarded everywhere as ‘the other’ or ‘the stranger,’ writes the Dutch anthropologist Mirjam De Bruijn. ‘They are always the people who come from far away.’ They were hereditary outsiders who appropriated all the space their cows required at any given time but never more than that. The Fulani never asked me where my home was.”

–Annamarya Scaccia

The Minor Threats are posing with the 1st place trophy they received at the Masterminds Summer League. (Photo by Jason Bui)

West Philly’s Minor Threats school chess club, which West Philly Local featured last winter, participated in state and national championships last spring thanks, in part, to community support. The young chess players brought home several trophies, but more importantly lots of positive experiences. The club also participates year-round in local tournaments –  since the beginning of last school year the kids have practiced and competed in more than 30 tournaments.

This spring, Jason Bui, a teacher and the club director, would like to take his kids to three more prestigious tournaments, one state and two national championships, but it only would be possible with financial support from the community. Bui has set up an online fundraising page where everyone who wants to help the club can donate money. The page lists the tournaments The Minor Threats would love to go to and even breaks down the expenses. The club hopes to raise $20,000 so the kids are able to compete in these tournaments. Nearly $3,000 has already been raised.

To read more about the club, the tournaments and to donate, go to: http://www.gofundme.com/506jqo

Gush Gallery co-founders Sarah Thielke and Stephanie Slate. (Photo courtesy of Thielke and Slate)

For local photographers Sarah Thielke and Stephanie Slate, art is a stimulus—a rapid stream of influence in their daily lives. After all, the lineage is there: Slate, a native of Florida, is the granddaughter of a professional photographer, and painters thrived in Theilke’s New Jersey-bred family.

“[Art is] just something that’s always been around us and that we are passionate about,” the duo, who met while attending Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute, told West Philly Local via email.

It’s a passion that’s amassed to Gush Gallery—a West Philadelphia interactive art gallery, community center and boutique Slate and Thielke hope to open in April with the help of donations through their Indiegogo fundraiser, which ends next month. So far, since its launch, Slate and Thielke have raised $1,315 of their $8,500 goal, which will go towards repair costs and equipment for their space (a lease is not signed at the moment; the pair are considering spots on the 5000 block of Baltimore Avenue and the 4700 block of Spruce Street).

Once opened, Gush will be an epicenter of sorts, serving an eclectic lot of emerging and underground artists from a hodgepodge of disciplines and styles—a call back to the gallery’s moniker, synonymous with “enthusiasm” and “torrents”—ultimately catering to a community rich with creativity but lacking in resources to foster it. At the start, Thielke and Slate will run Gush, curating the exhibitions, designing the annual Gush “yearbook” of shows, and leading the photography-based workshops for members and non-members alike (membership fees are three-tiered and start at $25 per year). Services like printing, scanning, film processing, alternative process printing, and digital workstations are also available through Gush at an hourly rate plus use of materials (discounted for members). And, as Gush evolves, the pair hope to bring on local artists to teach workshops in their respective field (like painting, illustration, or sculpture), bring on interns and possibly a small staff, offer a free monthly critique, and classes for children.

But Gush Gallery’s reality isn’t driven by hard numbers. The Indiegogo campaign the two 27-year-old artists are running is flexible, meaning if Thielke and Slate don’t meet their goal by February 7, they will still receive the funds they did raise. In addition, they’re researching grant opportunities for the arts and small businesses, as well as possibly brainstorming brick-and-mortar fundraiser events to help push Gush from concept to tangible.

Still, they say, “if we don’t make our goal but raise enough to open, we’re going to do just that. We want to open Gush as soon as we can.”

–Annamarya Scaccia