The burgeoning visual arts program at Henry C. Lea Elementary School (4700 Locust St.) in West Philly needs volunteer artists to join kids who want to improve their school. The students want to make change happen at their school through an aesthetic/design intervention.

Artists are needed to help create murals in transitional areas in the school, including stairways and hallways at Lea.

“Research shows that these are the areas where kids feel the least safe, especially in urban schools,” said Yvette Almaguer, a professional visual merchandiser who along with Lea art teacher John F. Try is leading the program.

The visual team consists of sixth, seventh and eighth graders who will be part of the collaborative process of designing, producing and installing the works. The program is seeking help from a number of potential sponsors and hopes to get the program started in March. If you’re interested call 917-602-7998 or write Yvette at yarecess – at – gmail.com.

Philly.com reports that 14 people reported injuries this afternoon when a Route 11 trolley collided with a SUV on Woodland Avenue near 48th Street. Eight trolley passengers, three passengers in the Mercury Mountaineer involved in the collision and three people outside the trolley reported minor injuries. The collision was the second in as many days involving a trolley and another vehicle.

You have probably stepped on Toynbee Tile a hundred times – maybe a thousand times – and never took notice. The little cryptic messages are embedded in streets in about 30 cities in the United States and South America. You can find them all over Center City Philadelphia. The Toynbee Tiles mystery intrigued Jon Foy, a West Philly resident, so much that he taught himself filmmaking and cleaned houses to pay for a documentary he shot and produced called “Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles.”

His efforts were recently noticed. Big time. Foy has won the U.S. Documentary Competition Directing Award at the Sundance Film Festival.

“I had no idea that such things were possible in life. Just a few weeks ago I was a housecleaner,” Foy said. “This is for all the artists working in obscurity out there.” “Never give up, because if you do, you know what will happen. If you don’t give up, you don’t know what will happen.”

Here is an impromptu interview with Foy soon after he received his award. Needless to say, if John cleans your house you may want to start looking for someone else.

Temporary power lines supplying electricity to University Mews at 45th and Spruce, one of several buildings along Spruce Street that was without power on Thursday.

PECO crews worked into Friday night to finally restore full power to about 800 residents along Spruce Street between 43rd and 45th Streets. The outage began early Thursday morning when a Philadelphia Gas Works crew reportedly looking for a leak accidentally severed a power line that powered several buildings along Spruce Street. Power remained out to most residents through late Thursday.

Residents of University Mews at 45th and Spruce got full power back late on Friday thanks to two large generators placed along 45th Street near Spruce. The switch from generators to full power was completed at 9:06 on Friday.

In case you missed this …West Philly’s very own local bakery, Four Worlds Bakery (4634 Woodland Ave.), was featured on NBC10 earlier this week. This place takes the cake, as it were. We picked up three baguettes here the other day for a fondu shindig and they were very, very good. Enjoy.