The first 2012 Friends of 40th Street general meeting will be held tonight at The Rotunda (4014 Walnut Street), from 6 to 7 p.m. Community members and business owners are encouraged to attend, learn about planning efforts in the area and share their neighborhood or organizational updates and announcements.

At tonight’s meeting, updates on the following planning efforts will be presented:

•    The Lighting Plan for 46th and Market.
•    The Peoples Emergency Center Neighborhood Planning Process.
•    The HUD Choice Neighborhood Planning Process happening in Mantua.
•    The Revelation Outreach Community Center’s plan to convert land at 39th and Haverford into the Walter Lundy Community Center.

Three more meetings are scheduled for this year:

Monday May 21
Monday August 20
Monday November 19

The Friends of 40th Street is a coalition comprised of residents, organizations, businesses, and anchor institutions working together on community-based issues. For more information on the Friends of 40th Street and what they do, visit this page.

If you didn’t get a chance to buy girl scout cookies during their January – early February sale, there will be two more cookie tables set up this week, so come by and stock up!

Wednesday, Feb. 15 – 39th and Locust Walk, 3:00-6:00 p.m. (weather permitting)
Saturday, Feb. 18 – Clark Park “B” (43rd & Chester), 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. (weather permitting)

For more information or to order cookies, contact Amy Kwasnicki (Brownie Troop 93273) at: kwaszilla [at] gmail.com.

Update (Feb. 12): Maggie has been found and reunited with her owner.

A black and white Toy Fox Terrier disappeared earlier this evening. Her name is Maggie and she is small, 7 pounds.

If you have seen this dog, please call: 704-906-3389.

West Philadelphia independent small press, Thread Makes Blanket has announced that its next project will be its first full-length book entitled Justice, Justice Shall You Pursue: A History of New Jewish Agenda by local writer, performer, and organizer Ezra Berkley Nepon. Justice is a historical work that documents the history and legacy of New Jewish Agenda, a national grassroots democratic organization prominent from 1980 to 1992, that organized a progressive Jewish voice for the political issues of their time, including peace and justice in the Middle East and Central America, Worldwide Nuclear Disarmament, economic justice in the U.S., and a powerful Jewish Feminist Taskforce that included work on LGBT issues and the emergence of the AIDS pandemic. Furthermore, the movement that NJA created united activists from a wide range of religious and secular communities.

Nepon, who is also the author of the 2010 play Between Two Worlds: Who Loved You Before You Were Mine and who recently spent three years in NYC working for transgender rights with the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, says of the book, “My passion for telling this story is informed by my own commitments to feminism, anti-racism, Palestinian solidarity, and queer liberation. I researched this history by digging through archive boxes at NYU’s Tamiment Archives, interviewing seven former members, reading every relevant book I could get my hands on, and asking every Jewish activist I met what they remembered about NJA. In 2006, I turned that research into a website to make the information publicly available. Now, I’m asking for your help to publish a book that can be passed from hand-to-hand to share this crucial people’s history of progressive Jewish activism.”

With just 11 days left in its IndieGogo campaign, Nepon and Thread Makes Blanket have just under $1,000 left to raise. If you’re interested in radical Jewish history, People’s History, or history of social movements, consider supporting the project. The book features original cover art by Abigail Miller, and backers may also choose to receive a Celebrate People’s History poster in collaboration with Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative.

For more information or to support the project, click here.

– Emma Eisenberg

Here’s another art show opening to add to your Second Friday Gallery Crawl list. Stop by the University City Arts League from 6 – 8 p.m. for Colette Fu’s exhibit opening reception. Photo Binge features Colette Fu’s photo collage work and some of her popup books. The photo collage components were photographed in Pennsylvania, New York, Virginia and Nebraska over two years with 35mm film and scanned into Photoshop. Here is a link to some images from the popup books included in the show: http://www.colettefu.com/personal-work2/my-first-pop-up-books/

Colette says that the title “mirrors [her] state of mind while photographing – an impulsive, out of control state that arises from similar rituals like binge eating, smoking, speeding, drinking, and shopping.” Colette chose sports related backgrounds as “a reference to bone, sweat, desire, spectatorship, competition, achievement and the repetition of continually judging, evaluating and comparing.”

Event’s Facebook page. Open through February 29, Monday thru Friday: 10 a.m. – 7 p.m.; Saturday, Sunday: by appointment.

The Walnut West Chess Cadets are in need of volunteer staff to assist in conducting a weekly class and acting as mentors to our young student players. You do not need to be a “Master” chess player, but knowledge of the game would be very helpful.

Kids range from 1st to about 8th grade in age. The club is going into its fourth year and has experienced rapid growth and recognition at the city-wide tournaments where we compete during the school year. It is a very rewarding experience for the right person. The club meets on Wednesdays from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. at the library, 201 S. 40th Street.

You can contact Joe Clarke, 215-626-7332 or philly.joe.c [at] gmail.com or Ms. Susan Ben at the Walnut West Library, 215-685-7671.