Phil Thomas (right) and The ‘G’ Word crew with their prize. (Photos courtesy of Phil Thomas)

The Sloppy Film Fest (Facebook page), a neighborhood festival of short DIY films, took place at the Beaumont Warehouse on Saturday and we hear it was a great success. Today, we present a film that won the Audience Prize for best film. The film is called The ‘G’ Word (“G” for “Gentrification”) and is mostly set in West Philly (Clark Park and Baltimore Avenue).

Phil Thomas wrote and directed the film (thanks, Phil, for sending us the info). The cast and crew are all West Philly folks: Phil, Andy Holman, John H Dukes, and Heidi M. Smithee. Phil hopes that you’ll enjoy the film and says that his crew will be shooting more movies in West Philly.

Here it is:

Homestead Exemption Map created by Aaron Kreider. Source: http://www.campusactivism.org/

Have you applied for the Homestead Exemption yet? Just a reminder that this exemption can save homeowners up to $400 on their annual taxes and the deadline for application is on Saturday, Sept 13.

Aaron Kreider, the West Philly based activist and programmer who built JusticeMap.org, has recently created a Homestead Exemption Map. The map is an estimate of qualified properties in the city that haven’t applied for the homestead exemption. The map is based on Philadelphia Office of Property Assessment data from April 2014.

“A while ago I read a NewsWorks story that an estimated 30% of homeowners haven’t applied for the homestead exemption,” Kreider wrote in an email. “So I decided to do a small project to encourage people to apply.”

Kreider, who is working with the West Philly Socialists (the West Philly branch of the Philly Socialists) who are committed to economic equality, points out that you can see on the map how low-income areas have a lower application rate (red shows eligible households who haven’t applied for the exemption; green indicates households who applied and received full homestead exemption).

Check out the map and more information at: http://www.campusactivism.org/blog/node/423

To apply for the homestead exemption online, visit this page. You call also apply over the phone: 215-686-9200.

The School District of Philadelphia (SDP) announced today that all Philadelphia public school students are now eligible to receive free school meals. Families will no longer need to complete applications to determine eligibility. All students in the SDP can receive free breakfast and lunch starting this fall, according to the announcement.

The new School Breakfast and Lunch program requirements have been introduced as the District’s Division of Food Services transitions to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) for the 2014-15 school year. The new benefits will “include better access to school meals by easing the strain on household budgets, reducing the paperwork burden on families and eliminating the stigma associated with the free lunch program,” the announcement reads.

“Our goal is to provide as many students as possible with access to healthy, nutritious meals,” Dr. William R. Hite, Superintendent, said in a statement. “We want to keep students’ focus on learning, not hunger.”

Julián Castro, head of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, will be in town on Friday, Sept. 5 to tour parts of West Philly designated as a Promise Zone.

Castro will be in parts of Mantua, Powelton, West Powelton and Belmont. The tour is related to the recent $4 million initiative by the William Penn Foundation and Drexel University to transform early childhood education in West Philly. The initiative seeks to increase the number of neighborhood children in high-quality child care and to raise children’s performance on literacy tests.

Project organizers hope that improving early childhood education is the first step toward changing life in the Promise Zone, which includes some of the poorest neighborhoods in the city.

Neighborhoods included in a “Promise Zone” are placed in the front of the line for federal grants and aid in an effort to help create jobs, reduce violent crime, improve educational opportunities and assist local leaders navigate federal programs.
 

A group of millennials who hope to wield their privilege and social capital for the “redistribution of land, wealth and power” in Philadelphia and nationwide are holding an organizing meeting in West Philly on Monday, Sept. 8.

The newly formed Philly chapter of Resource Generation, a nationwide non-profit whose mission is to organize young people “with wealth and class privilege in the U.S. to become transformative leaders working toward the equitable redistribution of wealth, land and power,” according to the organization’s website.

The idea is “to convince our elected leaders to tax rich people more, creating and participating in a cross-class giving circle, and giving young, wealthy/class privileged people tools to use their positions to help redistribute land, wealth and power,” said organizer Julia Stone in an e-mail.

Locally the group is pushing for the end of tax breaks to help fund schools. “Tax us rich folks more to fund schools,” a flyer reads.

The meeting, which will include light refreshments at 6:30 p.m. and a presentation at 7 p.m., will be held at location that will be passed along to those who RSVP at RGPhillychapter@gmail.com.

We hope you are enjoying your Labor Day Holiday despite the hot and sticky weather that set in in the area. We have a few reminders.

• All government offices and public libraries are closed today in observance of the holiday.

• Post offices are closed and there is no mail delivery.

• SEPTA is operating on a Sunday schedule (visit septa.org for more information and schedule).

• There will be no trash and recycling pick-up today. Trash and recycling collections will be one day behind schedule for the rest of the week.