Here’s a great chance to get your dog or cat vaccinated and examined. A low-cost vaccine clinic will be open this Sunday, Oct. 30, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Penn’s Alpha Psi Veterinary Fraternity (4002 Pine St.).

Members of the community are invited to bring their cats and dogs for physical exams, rabies and distemper vaccines ($10) and microchipping ($20). Flea and tick prevention products ($10), as well as additional vaccines that will be available.

The event marks World Rabies Day. All proceeds will go to benefit the PSPCA and help the homeless and abused animals in Philadelphia.

UPDATE: Police say that the two men connected with the incident below have been charged with robbery, aggravated assault and weapons charges. They have also been charged in connection with another robbery on Oct. 25 in the 5600 Springfield Ave. In that case, police say the 18-year-old, whom they identified as Tory Winchester of the 5600 block of Springfield Ave., and three other men, including the unidentified 17-year-old below, broke into an apartment at about 12:30 a.m. Three males in their 20s were in the apartment and awoke to find the four men each pointing handguns at them. The four suspects ordered the men to walk down the stairs to the apartment’s living room and asked about narcotics and money, police said. One victim was punched and another was pistol whipped, police said. The four suspects escaped with a cell phone and a transpass.

Two men are in police custody after their brazen plot to rob three residents in an apartment at 4725 Chester Ave. last night fell apart.

Police say a 17-year-old man armed with a handgun burst into the apartment at about 10:30 p.m. and demanded that the three people inside – two women and a man – hand over cash and other belongings. The man then called two accomplices on a mobile phone and told them he would let them into the building. Police said he then marched the three victims at gunpoint down the building’s stairs to the main entrance to meet two accomplices. When they arrived at the door the victims fled outside and found police.

The 17-year-old and an 18-year-old accomplice were apprehended. A third suspect is still at large. Police were searching the area last night in patrol cars and from a helicopter.

There were no injuries. The male victim, who resided in the apartment, is 19. The females are 24 and 29 years of age.

The charges against the two men in custody will be forthcoming, police said.

If you have some prescription medication that you are not planning to use, here’s an opportunity to get rid of it in a much safer way rather than letting it sit in your house or dumping it in the trash.

Tomorrow, Oct. 29, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., bring it to Health Center 3 at 555 S. 43rd St. during the 3rd National Prescription Drug Take Back Day. The event is organized by the Drug Enforcement Administration in conjunction with state and local law enforcement agencies and is being held at numerous sites throughout the nation. Nearly 4,000 state and local agencies participated in the previous two events like this one (last spring and in 2010), and collected more than 309 tons of pills.

Folks in Powelton and Mantua can drop their stuff off at the Drexel Recreation Center’s Main Lobby, 3301 Market St. For other locations please go to this page and enter your zip code.

Leaves will be falling like crazy this weekend with cold and blustery (and snowy!) weather in the forecast. If raking those leaves is in your plans, you might want to wait a week or so to get rid of them. The city’s leaf composting program begins Nov. 7.

City workers will collect leaves curbside that are in biodegradable paper bags. Just set the leaves out with your trash on your regular trash pick-up day. Leaves in plastic bags or other containers will be collected as garbage. There will be no mechanical leaf collection this year and the city will not supply the paper bags.

The maximum weight is 40 pounds per bag. Also, make sure no trash or recyclables is mixed in with your leaves.

The program will run through Dec. 16 and leaves will not be picked up on city holidays.

Bagged leaves can also be dropped off at the following locations:

• 3033 S. 63rd Street (63rd & Passyunk Ave.)
• Domino Lane and Umbria Street
• State Road and Ashburner Street

Residents can call the Streets Department’s Customer Affairs Unit at 686-5560 or visit their website. Call 3-1-1 for all City services.

A new community farm is coming to West Philly. A groundbreaking ceremony for the Community Farm and Food Resource Center at Bartram’s Garden (54th St. & Lindbergh Blvd.) is taking place today at 4 p.m. Community members are invited.

This project has come to life thanks to the University of Pennsylvania’s Agatston Urban Nutrition Initiative with the help of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society , which is providing seedlings, resources and supplies to growers. Donations from the City and other organizations also made it possible.

The new farm is going to increase the community’s access to local, organic, and affordable food.  The goal of this project is to provide a space for everyone to develop a relationship with the land.

Bartram High School students will be hired to plant, grow, harvest and sell the produce. Plans are that by next growing season, the 3.5-acre farm and resource center will have a crop field where the students will raise annual vegetables. There will also be a community garden with individual plots tended by residents, an orchard of 50 fruit trees, a 1,000-foot-long perennial berry patch and a new greenhouse to start organic seedlings.

Future plans for the farm and resource center include replacing a gravel parking lot with a food-education center, complete with a kitchen, a classroom space and a packing shed/walk-in cooler/wash station for pre-sale vegetable preparation.

Neighbors have been complaining about some folks dumping their garbage near the abandoned house at 629 S. 49th Street. We went over to check it out and here’s what we saw.