Public school students in West Philly need our help now more than ever. Budget cuts have led to closed school libraries and hits to literacy programs. Luckily, the West Philadelphia Alliance for Children (WePAC) is doing its best to keep elementary school kids reading – but they need volunteers.

WePAC, which opens and staffs closed elementary school libraries, is seeking volunteers for the upcoming school year to help students develop literacy skills. Volunteers will read stories to children and help them select and check out books. Most elementary schools in West Philadelphia no longer have open libraries, according to WePAC. The program keeps the libraries open at no cost to the school.

This fall, WePAC will be serving Anderson, Blankenburg, Cassidy, Cook-Wissahickon, Gompers, Heston, Lea, Leidy, Longstreth, McMichael, Powel and Rhoads elementary schools.

WePAC volunteers serve as literacy assistants in K-2 classrooms and help run after-school newspaper clubs in several schools. As these programs grow, many new volunteers are needed. The minimum time commitment is 2-3 hours each week.

Orientation sessions begin this week and continue through August. If you are interested in volunteering, please visit WePAC’s website at www.wepac.org or call (215) 990-6084.

• The Philadelphia Tribune and WHYY’s Newsworks site both have stories about the innovative high school program located in the Navy Yard called The Sustainability Workshop, which has deep West Philly connections. The school, which teaches students to solve real-world problems, is run by West Philly resident Michael Clapper, a former teacher at West Philadelphia High School and until recently an education professor at Saint Joseph’s University, and Simon Hauger, who gained national attention as the director of West Philly High’s Hybrid X Team. The program gives about 30 seniors from West Philadelphia, South Philadelphia and Furness high schools the chance to spend a year focusing on energy efficiency, climate change and other issues.

• Today’s Philadelphia Inquirer includes a story about the efforts of the West Philadelphia Alliance for Children (WePAC) to keep school libraries open. The organization has helped reopen 10 libraries at schools in West Philly that were or would have been shuttered due to budget cuts. WePAC supplies volunteer storytellers and librarians and has donated a heap of books. We have also reported on WePAC’s good work.

• The City Paper‘s online restaurant blog Meal Ticket alerts us to the opening of Chewy’s food truck, which slings sandwiches, burgers, hand-cut fries and “tater tots tossed with buffalo sauce, Whiz, bacon crumbles and ranch dressing.” Meal Ticket reports that they also have an “Apples to Apples” BLT that includes Granny Smiths and cider mayo. The truck is a joint venture between Charlie Sokowski and Terence Jones, an old street food hand. The truck operates between 34th and 35th streets on Market from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday.

A small and relatively new West Philly non-profit recently received $100,000 to help keep school libraries open and stocked with books, just as schools look to cut funding.

The West Philadelphia Alliance for Children (WePAC) recieved the grant from the philanthropic organization Impact 100 Philadelphia on June 9 to significantly bolster its “Open Books Open Minds” program, which collects and donates books and staffs closed or severely limited libraries at several West Philadelphia elementary schools. WePAC volunteers help students select and check out books, guide research, read to students and, perhaps most importantly, they have enabled underfunded libraries at several schools just to stay open.

WePAC Executive Director David Florig called the grant a “game changer” for the organization, which started with six volunteers during the 2003-2004 school year. The money aside, the grant will help instill confidence in other potential donors because “a very significant group has chosen to invest in this,” he said.

WePAC will use the money to help keep open libraries at up to five schools and help extend services at several others. The group will also initiate new after-school “newspaper clubs.”

Made up exclusively of women ages 21 and older who each contribute at least $1,000 to a grant fund, Impact 100 Philadelphia chose WePac from some 150 applicants. A day after the grant was awarded, WePac posted a job ad for a coordinator of the Open Books Open Minds program.