The Barnes Foundation and the People’s Emergency Center Community Development Corporation (PECCDC) are continuing their collaboration with a new project – Everyday Places Artist Partnerships. The project, which began rolling out last month through the Barnes and PECCDC’s collaborative initiative Barnes West, will provide West Philly residents with spaces to engage with multidisciplinary artistic projects that “offer inspiration and promote ​hope and healing.”

This week, the partners have announced five West Philadelphia-based social-impact artists who have been selected to participate in Everyday Places: Keyonna Butler, Marshall James Kavanaugh, Jahwula Seapoe, Karen Smith, and Andrea Walls. The selected artists will partner with neighborhood businesses and sites – including grocery stores, restaurants, laundromats, public parks, and community organizations – to build interactive, participatory projects. Continue Reading

“Meet the NAS” night at Community Education Center (3500 Lancaster Ave.) was held Tuesday, Sept. 17. Special invited speaker was Raymond Jones, Director of External Relations for State Senator Vincent Hughes. Participants enjoyed a light reception and presentations from each candidate (Photo courtesy PEC). 

Residents of some West Philly neighborhoods have a chance to help determine future members of the Neighborhood Advisory Sub-Committee at PECCDC (People’s Emergency Center’s Community Development Corporation). These members help support community program activities provided by PEC and the City’s Division of Housing and Community Development. The NAS is a sub-committee of the PEC Board of Directors and its function is in an advisory role, acting as community level liaison. Elections are held every two years.

The next election will take place this upcoming Monday (Sept. 30), from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. at two locations:  Continue Reading

Though its Friday celebration will include a life-sized West Philly-themed board game, the People’s Emergency Center (PEC) knows their work is dead serious. Created 25 years ago, the group’s Community Development Corporation (CDC) has worked to ensure that the neighborhood’s ongoing transformation creates far more beneficiaries than victims. Now, at an outdoor party on 4050 Haverford Avenue, the CDC will mark what it believes has been a successful quarter-century.

“The history… It’s tremendous. It’s not easy doing this work,” said James Wright, PEC’s Director of Community Economic and Real Estate Development.

Wright says that PEC has helped catalyze an economic turnaround in the five neighborhoods it focuses on: Saunders Park, West Powelton, Belmont, Mantua, and Mill Creek. Vacancy has plummeted while incomes and high-school graduation rates have risen, and the group said home values quadrupled between 2000 and 2013. PEC has contributed to this upswing by converting vacant lots into housing; eliminating vacancy tends to increase surrounding home values.  Continue Reading