Police are asking for the public’s assistance in locating two teenage girls who recently went missing in the area.

Lajaida Beverley

Lajaida Beverly, 15, was last seen on Thursday, April 9, at her residence on the 5800 block of Cedar Avenue. Lajaida is  5 feet 7 inches, 120 pounds, with brown eyes and black hair. She was last seen wearing a black/gray leather jacket, black pants with leather front and white sneakers. She may have run away with other female juveniles, according to police.

Jannat Williams is also 15, and she is from the 5700 block of Delancey Street. She was last seen at school (Freire Charter, 2027 Chestnut Street), on Thursday, April 9, at approximately 4:30 p.m. Jannat is 5 feet 2 inches, 120 pounds, and has green eyes and brown hair. She was last seen wearing a gray shirt with white block writing, black jeans, a black hooded jacket, and multi-colored Muslim garb.

Anyone with information about the whereabouts of these persons is asked to contact Southwest Detective Division at 215-686-3183/3184 or call 911.

Jannat Williams (Photos from Philly Police Blog)

On Saturday, April 11, thousands of people throughout the city will take to their neighborhood streets, parks or lots for the annual Philly Spring Cleanup. This will be the 8th Spring Cleanup organized by the city and supported by many local organizations. As always, there is an opportunity for everyone to participate in this important neighborhood cleaning and beautification event, and you can now choose and sign up for projects in your area (see map below) by visiting the Philly Spring Cleanup website.

Or just step outside your house or apartment building and pick up some litter, dead leaves and sticks!

There may be some progress in the ongoing efforts to re-open Squirrel Hill Falls Park, the enigmatic gated pocket park at 48th and Chester that has been locked for years. The Friends of Squirrel Hill Park community group have launched a new campaign that they hope will help give the park new life. The newest effort to reopen the park, which was designed and built in 1996 by West Philly artist Danielle Rousseau Hunter, comes after Friends Rehabilitation Program Inc., the organization that owns the lot, indicated that they are interested in an agreement about the park’s reopening. All earlier efforts seem to have fallen through (read our previous story about the park here).

Community support is essential in this process, and the Friends of Squirrel Hill Park are asking all interested residents to participate in a short survey and sign a petition titled “Let’s make progress at Squirrel Hill Park!”

“As a neighbor of the long blighted former park at 48th and Chester, I would like to see something positive at this corner. The park is waiting to once again become a great amenity to our neighborhood, and we are ready to join together to make it happen. We ask Friends Rehabilitation Program to work with the Friends of Squirrel Hill Park to help us bring new life to this unused community space,” the petition reads.

The survey includes such questions as what type of programming you would like to see at the park and how much help you can offer to the Friends of the park.

For more information and to access the survey please go to the Friends of Squirrel Hill Park website. You can also find more information about the neighbors working to reopen the park on the group’s Facebook page.

As was reported recently, Philadelphia’s first bike share program, Indego, is expected to launch on April 23, and some bike docking stations already started popping up in our area. Eleven stations are planned for West Philadelphia for the initial phase of the program, though unfortunately only as far west as 44th Street near the Supremo Shop ‘n Bag.

This bike share station is being installed in front of Penn’s School of Dental Medicine on S. 40th Street near Spruce.

Finally, we have the launch date for Philadelphia’s inaugural bike share program, Indego. Mayor Michael Nutter announced today that the program will kick off on April 23, 2015. The festive kick-off event will take place on that day, starting at noon, at Eakins Oval in Center City. Indego members will also hop on their bikes at the event and demonstrate how to ride them. Another preview event will be held on Thursday, April 2 from noon to 2 p.m. at Paine Plaza across from City Hall. During the event, a docking station and bikes will be on display, and visitors can try the system, find out about membership options, and purchase memberships.

Starting today, memberships are available from www.rideindego.com, and users are encouraged to sign up before the April 23rd launch. A few membership plans are available. Indego30 ($15 per month) is a 30-day membership plan that provides members unlimited one-hour rides (you can pay with a credit or debit card, or cash). With a pay-as-you-ride option, you pay only for the rides you take (each Indego station has a kiosk for payment).

The bike share stations will operate 24 hours a day all year round at 70 locations across the city. Here’s the map of the docking stations in West Philly (click here to access the full map):

For more information, visit the Indego website.

A support group for a great local library is seeking feedback from community members and stakeholders that will help improve their work. The planning committee for the Friends of Walnut St West Library is asking for just five minutes of your time to share your thoughts about their work in bringing library services, programs and events in an online survey. The results of the survey will help shape the Friends’ support of the library over the next three to five years.

“The more we can learn about why or how people use the library (or don’t) and what community interests the library might meet, the better we can assess how to supplement the Friends’ support of the library moving forward,” the Friends of Walnut St West Library president Kathy Wheeler wrote in an email.

Another goal of the survey is to gather information on how folks learn about events so they can not only attend library programs but be able to volunteer their skills and time.  Continue Reading