The University of Pennsylvania’s community outreach office is hosting a community meeting on Thursday morning, Dec. 5, to discuss public school initiatives, including its program at the Henry C. Lea School (47th and Locust).

The meeting will run from 8 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. at the Walnut Street West Library (40th and Walnut). Representatives of Penn’s Graduate School of Education, Lea School University Partnership and Netter Center for Community Partnerships will be there to talk about their programs.

Thursday’s meeting is part of the regular First Thursday Community Meeting series that Penn routinely hosts.

The 2010 move-out sale. (Photo courtesy Penn News)

It appears that the salad days of discount mini-fridges, 4-year-old TVs and bargains of all shapes and sizes that signal the end of another school year at Penn are over.

PennMOVES, the university’s organization that in the past has collected discarded stuff from students as they clear out of the dorms, will not conduct the annual sale that had people lining up in past years. PennMOVES is still collecting the stuff this week, but instead of the sale the items will go directly to Goodwill stores around the area.

Much of the merchandise will go toward stocking a new Goodwill store in West Philly at 5050 Parkside Avenue in late summer/early fall.

“A sale at Penn is no longer necessary,” according to a PennMOVES statement.

It is still unclear how this may impact the curbside treasure trove that usually starts to build this time of the year, a time many locals refer to as “Penn Christmas.”

More than 100 Henry C. Lea Elementary students have been invited to spend a day at the University of Pennsylvania this Saturday (Dec. 1) when they become honorary college students during College Day 2012. The goal of this event (held three times each year) is to “excite students about the college experience, so they will be motivated to work hard in middle and high school and strive for a college education.”

Lea students are expected to come in the morning and stay until about 4 p.m. Penn students will be mentors throughout the day, sharing their college experiences with the kids and showing them around the campus. College Day participants will also take a mock Wharton management course and complete a class project – working in groups, they’ll design products that college students would want to purchase. At the end of their visit, Lea students will see a performance of Penn dance and singing groups.

Spruce Street traffic is being diverted between 40th Street to 34th Street as Penn students pack up for the summer. That section of Spruce Street will be closed from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. today and tomorrow.

The eastbound 42 bus is turning down 42nd Street to Baltimore Avenue. Even bicycle traffic is being diverted on parts of Spruce.

The upside of the traffic diversion is that it’s almost “Penn Christmas” – the curbside rummaging that accompanies the student move out at the end of every school year. To lighten the load on the landfill, Penn is once again organizing donations from students – everything from clothes to microwaves to television – that will be sold to the public on June 2. For more information on that, visit the PennMoves website.

One of the two men who died during the Philadelphia Marathon on Sunday was a University of Pennsylvania senior.

Jeff Lee, 21, of Cerritos Calif., died soon after crossing the finish line of the half marathon, which preceded the full marathon race. Lee was a nursing and business major.

G. Chris Gleason, 40, of Clifton Park, NY died about a quarter of a mile before the finish of the full marathon on Sunday. Gleason was an experienced triathlete and marathon runner. Philly.com has a story about him here.

Penn students gathered to remember Lee on campus yesterday. The Daily Pennsylvanian has a report here. The Channel 6 report is below.

Penn Park, the rejuvenated 24-acre strip of land along the train tracks between Walnut and South streets, officially opens on Thursday.

The park occupies former parking lots and vacant land in a once fairly desolate area that was a parking area for postal trucks. It is now part of the University of Pennsylvania campus.

So what can your typical West Philly resident get out of the new park? Some of its facilities will be open to the public on a regular basis. Those include about two acres of grassy open areas, including a “picnic grove,” with a good view of the Center City skyline in and around newly constructed athletic facilities. The area also includes 548 new trees.

“Penn Park marks the first time that the University has, by design, developed open space for the use of the Penn community and beyond,” said Penn President Amy Gutmann.

Those athletics facilities include a spiffy 12-court tennis center, a 470-seat multi-purpose stadium and two athletic fields with synthetic surfaces. A parking lot for 210 cars sits along Walnut Street near the Class of 1923 Ice Rink. In case you had any notion of getting your Nadal on and playing tennis on those new courts (we did), Penn has said that they will only be open to the public on special occasions.

Still, the park provides a nice place to relax, enjoy the skyline and maybe take in a field hockey game.

The park is accessible by Walnut Street to the north, a walkway near the picnic grove to the west and another entrance near the South Street bridge. Here is a map of the park: Penn Park map

The park cost $46 million, but not a dime of public money went into it, according to Penn officials.

Tomorrow’s ceremony begins at 5 p.m. and will include a ribbon-cutting, recreational activities and a fireworks display at 7:30 p.m.