Last summer, Kensington Health Sciences Academy special education teacher Edward Colfer had an idea for a senior community service project: a program that would allow students with learning disabilities or behavioral needs…
News Features
Tiger Poets: “It’s about … being able to see what you have went through, and what you overcame”
“Strong, rowdy, teamwork, and loyal,” are the words that come to assistant coach Fantaja Jones’ mind to describe the members of Tiger Poets — the Kensington-based poetry team. Established in 2017, the…
Youth United for Change seeks to increase voter engagement with VOTA! project
Last summer, Elinetzy Pagan, a 2019 graduate from Kensington Health Sciences Academy (KHSA), was inspired after an encounter she had with an older woman in Kensington. Pagan, 18, met her while going…
Play Captains bring Playstreets to life in Kensington
In 2016, Rebecca Fabiano, the president of Fab Youth Philly, jumpstarted an idea that would take Philadelphia’s Playstreets one step further: she created “Play Captains,” a program that would employ teenagers to…
Kensington cheerleaders: “We have a record to uphold, and we’re not going to fail for anybody”
On an early-June afternoon, chants of “T-I-G-E-R-S” echoed off the walls of a dance studio at the Kensington Creative & Performing Arts High School (KCAPA). The award-winning Kensington High School cheerleading team…
Kensington Soccer Club: “My kids are here to stay”
Before moving to Bristol, PA, Blanca Ayala’s children were members of the Kensington Soccer Club for four years. But after they moved last year, she would travel with them by train and…
Transitional housing program teaches life skills to youth in Kensington
Editor’s note: Names marked with an asterisk (*) are those of people who requested we use their first name only due to the sensitivity of the subject matter. In early March, 20-year-old…
“This kind of work will drain you”: How trauma is affecting people responding to overdoses in Kensington
On a cold March morning earlier this year, Roz Pichardo was driving into work on Kensington Avenue when she heard someone scream from outside her car window — “I need Narcan!” With…
Another Kensington garden is losing land to development
When members of the Philly Socialists formed the César Andreu Iglesias Community Garden at Arlington and North Lawrence Streets in 2012, they did it to reclaim the vacant land for the community.…
Restoring Victor’s garden
Next to Hope Park on the 3000 block of A Street, a broken fence borders the remains of Victor Ortiz’s neighborhood garden. “The garden used to bring so much light into the…