A break in yesterday’s showers gave about 25 egg hunters the chance to dash around the playground at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church (3916 Locust Walk) in search of their bounty.

We were lucky to get a close-up look at the action. The slideshow below shows you what we saw.

About 50 people gathered outside of The Rotunda near 40th and Walnut to begin a march that would cross the city from “river to river” to protest upstate “fracking,” a process that uses toxic chemical to extract natural gas from shale.

Hundreds more protesters were expected to join in as the march proceeded across the Schuylkill River to Love Park and then on to Penn Treaty Park on the banks of the Delaware River for the annual Shadfest.

The march began with a reading from the Pennsylvania constitution and a brief explanation of the fracking process. The march is an attempt to raise awareness to the damage the process in northcentral Pennsylvania could do to the Delaware River watershed, which helps supply the Philadelphia area with drinking water.

The march was organized, in part, by the group Protecting Our Waters.

Here’s a slideshow from the beginning of the march:

UPDATES:
• The hunt at Malcolm X Park has been moved to the First Corinthian Baptist Church at 5101 Pine St. The noon start time is still on.

Rain has washed out the egg hunt scheduled for today at Clark Park. We will keep you posted on a possible rescheduling and also on the other hunts scheduled for Malcolm X Park and St. Mary’s. The original story on the hunts is here.

The Community Education Center, a non-profit and community based arts center in West Philly, needs your help. All you need to do is click a button. If enough of us do that the center will receive a $50,000 grant.

The voting is part of Kraft Foods/Maxwell House Drops of Good Community Houses grant competition. The CEC is one of 10 locations across the country vying for a $50,000 grant. Five will get the grants and the CEC is currently fifth in the voting by a fairly slim margin. Go to this page to vote. They will ask you for your e-mail address to make sure that you are a real person (don’t worry, no marketing) and then you’re done.

Rebuilding Together Philadelphia is helping with the grant. The community online magazine Flying Kite has a nice feature today on CEC Executive Director Terri Shockley.

Here is the CEC’s video pitch for the competition:

Gladiators will battle it out in Penn Museum‘s Warden Garden on Saturday as part of “Gladiator Day,” which will also include a talk by Harvard Latin professor Dr. Kathleen Coleman (and consultant on the Russell Crowe film “Gladiator”) on “The Virtues of Violence: Gladiators, Beasts, and Public Executions in Ancient Rome.”

The event will run from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Gladiators from the Ludus Magnus Gladiatores (The Great School of the Gladiator) will fight every hour beginning at 1 p.m. In between bouts they will give workshops on weapons used back in the day. Wannabe gladiators can make their own helmets at the family craft table.

Dr. Coleman’s talk begins at 2:30 p.m.

The gladiator extravaganza is in conjunction with the museum exhibition Worlds Intertwined: Etruscans, Greeks and Roman. Admission to the museum is $10 for adults, $7 for seniors, $6 for students and children and free for children under 6 and PennCard holders.

Neighborhood residents can get an update of what’s in store for Baltimore Avenue this summer during the Cedar Park Neighbors annual board election meeting on Monday beginning at 7 p.m.

The meeting will be held at the Calvary Center for Culture and Community at 48th and Baltimore. The center will open at 6 p.m. for voting, which will continue until 7:30 p.m. Results will be announced at the end of the meeting.

Scheduled speakers include:

• Leah Pillsbury, Capital Campaign Coordinator at Mariposa Food Co-op.

Leah will talk about Mariposa’s expansion project.

• Vince Whittacre, co-owner of the Gold Standard Cafe and member of the Baltimore Avenue Business Association.

Vince will talk about new businesses and the proposal for outdoor seating on Baltimore Avenue.

• Algernon Allen, owner of Elena’s Soul and Cedar Park Neighbors board member.

Algernon will talk about upcoming events on Baltimore Avenue, including Jazz in the Park.

• Maureen Tate, Baltimore Ave Conversation Project volunteer

She will provide a summary of the Baltimore Avenue Conversation and possible next steps.