Region 1 Mark of Excellence Award from the Society of Professional Journalists

Christine Fisher - Multimedia Journalist

This March I was honored and humbled to win the Region 1 Mark of Excellence Award for general news reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists.

This award recognizes the best collegiate journalism in the country, and Region 1 spans along the Eastern Seaboard from Maine to Pennsylvania. During this award cycle, SPJ received more than 4,000 submissions from the 12 regions, and the other recipients of this award were from Harvard and Yale.

I received the award for the series I produced on the Philadelphia Housing Authority’s property auction in 500 vacant, scattered-site properties were auctioned for more than $11 million. Because a majority of the properties were sold in bundles of anywhere from two to 25, many local residents were upset.

I could not have received this award without the award winning, hyper-local news site PhiladelphiaNeighborhoods.com or partner site PlanPhilly.com, and I truly appreciate the support they provided.

Continued work with PlanPhilly

After working with PlanPhilly through a partnership with PhiladelphiaNeighborhoods.com, I’ve continued to work with PlanPhilly and its blog arm, Eyes on the Street.

My most recent stories can be found through the links below…

Mariposa and Common Market Work to Meet Fresh Local Food Demand
When Common Market started in 2008 as a way to provide a direct link between regional farmers and urban food providers, it had just five customers. One of those customers, Mariposa Food Co-op, was a four-person-staff, 700-member co-op operating a single-aisle storefront grocery on Baltimore Avenue.

Since then, Common Market and Mariposa have experienced remarkable growth, and this March that growth became visible when Mariposa managed a $2.5 million relocation from its 500-square-foot storefront to a nearly 5,000-square-foot retrofitted, historic bank just up the street from its former location.

West Philadelphia Fresh Food Hub to Launch this April
This April Preston’s Paradise and Greensgrow Farms plan to launch the West Philadelphia Fresh Food Hub, a mobile grocery store that will serve Lancaster Avenue and the surrounding communities.

“Preston’s Paradise has been running a push cart market for about five years now, and we were looking for a way to scale up and be a more consistent access point to fresh food in our neighborhood,” said Ryan Kuck, West Philadelphia Fresh Food Hub project manager.

Debut of Japanese Garden’s Sakura Pavilion Kicks off Cherry Blossom Festival
Of the more than 200 buildings built in West Fairmount Park for the 1876 Centennial Exposition, only four remain, and two of those – originally built as “comfort stations” or bathrooms – were in dire need of attention before theFriends of the Japanese House and Garden and the City of Philadelphia began an adaptive reuse restoration project in 2010.

On March 31, Friends of the Japanese House and Garden hosted the grand opening of that completed project.

Small Scale Development Company Wins Preservation Alliance Award 
When Power House Development, Inc. began building on a vacant lot at 1824 Diamond St. the company had no idea the lot was part of the Diamond Street Historic District or that it would have to build the house in accordance withPhiladelphia Historical Commission guidelines.

For a small, locally owned and family operated company like Power House, such news can be intimidating given the perceived costs of historic construction, but Power House, which also happens to be female and minority owned, exceeded the Historic Commission’s expectations, and for that, the company will receive two grand jury awards at thePreservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia’s Preservation Achievement Awards luncheon this May.

Multimedia Series: PHA Property Auction Causes a Stir

In October I went to a informational community meeting meant to educate Philadelphia residents about the auction of 400 Philadelphia Housing Authority properties. It was immediately clear that local residents were upset by the auction. The following series of multimedia pieces follows the auction and the differing opinions.

The series combines text articles with photo, audio and video segments.

• North Philadelphia: Philadelphia Housing Authority Auction Upsets Residents http://sct.temple.edu/blogs/murl/2011/11/10/north-philadelphia-philadelphia-housing-authority-auction-upsets-residents/

• Center City: Housing Authority Makes Money on Auction; Critics Complain Neighborhood Buyers Left Out http://sct.temple.edu/blogs/murl/2011/11/17/center-city-housing-authority-makes-money-on-auction-critics-complain-neighborhood-buyers-left-out/

• North Philadelphia: Resident Wonders if PHA Auction Will Have an Impact http://sct.temple.edu/blogs/murl/2011/12/07/north-philadelphia-resident-wonders-if-thursdays-auction-will-have-an-impact/

• West Philadelphia: Housing Authority Makes $4 Million on Second Property Auction http://sct.temple.edu/blogs/murl/2011/12/08/west-philadelphia-housing-authority-makes-4-million-on-second-property-auction/

Multimedia Storytelling: Wooden Shoe Books

In the Multimedia Storytelling course I took in the spring semester of 2011 we revisited Final Cut Pro. For my video project I met with an employee of Wooden Shoe Books to learn more about the anarchist bookstore tucked away on Philadelphia’s South Street.

Wooden Shoe Books from Christine Fisher on Vimeo.

Hand Coding: CSS + HTML / Photo and Audio Slideshows

In the Multimedia Storytelling course I took with the Temple University Journalism Department in the spring 2011, we also learned how to code using CSS and HTML. To demonstrate my skills, I teamed up with Philabudance, a Philadelphia-based hunger relief organization, to produce two, hand-coded, interactive multimedia packages.

• Philabundance Fresh For All, an interactive slideshow

• Philabundance Community Food Center, a multimedia package

Fostering Change: Philadelphia’s Arise Academy Charter High School

This past summer I interned with Next American City in Philadelphia. The experience was extremely rewarding and overall one of the most encouraging journalism experiences I have had yet. My most recent contribution to the publication is on news stands now in the magazine’s winter edition. It can also be found below…

Fostering Change

By Christine Fisher

Illustration by David Senior

It is not uncommon for America’s half-million foster children to bounce from home to home, sometimes landing in three, four, even five or more placements in a year. As a result, they often bounce out of the education system completely, finding themselves at age 18, emancipated and living on the streets. Jill Welsh-Davis, founder of Philadelphia’s Arise Academy Charter High School, is hoping to change this reality.

In September 2008, Davis helped open the doors of Arise Academy, the nation’s first and only charter school that lets high-school-age foster students stay enrolled no matter where or how often they move. Ten months later the school’s first 10 graduates walked across the stage to collect their diplomas — diplomas that, according to statistics, only two or three of them would have normally received.

Of the 500,000 children in the foster care system, fewer than half will graduate high school. Fewer than two percent will graduate from college. “Every time they go to a different school they can lose up to six months of education,” Davis says. “They fall behind so they get discouraged, and they drop out.”

The purpose of Arise Academy is to keep foster children from getting academically discouraged, often the primary factor in a student’s decision to drop out. With approximately 200 students, the school offers small class sizes, internship and job placements and a year-round calendar. Students advance from one academic level to the next only when they have mastered the material, rather than advancing per term. Partnerships with local universities help the charter provide support services addressing behavior and health issues, also common among foster children.

The need for a program such as Arise Academy is particularly evident in Philadelphia, where 75 percent of all foster children drop out of high school. Davis points to a recent study that found that approximately 70 percent of inmates in the Philadelphia prison system have had some contact with the foster system in their lives. “For the most part these kids are over-age and very under-credentialed,” she says.

Despite the seemingly evident need, it took six years for the idea to come to fruition, and during that time, finances and practicality whittled the idea from a boarding school for foster kids to a year-round high school. In 2008, Arise Academy and 14 other programs petitioned the Philadelphia School Reform Commission for a charter. The commission approved just seven of the proposals, and though Arise Academy made the cut, it was granted a three-year charter. The school must now demonstrate its success before the charter can be renewed.

In Philadelphia, where in 2009 only 57 percent of district students completed high school in four years, Arise Academy is working to graduate every student. After demonstrating their success for another year, the staff of Arise Academy hopes to spread the model to other parts of the country.

Davis emphasizes the importance of educating foster kids because of the reality that, after they leave the system, they must rely solely on themselves.

“These kids are just invisible, and they slip away,” she says.

This article appeared in the Winter 2010 issue of Next American City magazine.  http://americancity.org/magazine/article/fostering-change/

Expat Thanksgiving in London

Happy Thanksgiving!

I had to work today, but my job was nice enough to let me blog about one Thanksgiving tradition. Click here for my “Black Friday Shopping” clip on World Reviewer.

This year I’m thankful for 1. Gmail letting me call my family for free 2. My experience in London 3. My friends (especially those visiting from Rome) and 4. The new friends here who put together such a nice (vegetarian friendly) Thanksgiving dinner here in London

The Van Seat

A personal essay for Metropolis

July 20, 2010 7:54 AM

By Christine Fisher

http://www.phlmetropolis.com/2010/07/the-van-seat.php

Whenever company asks how to get to my apartment in South Philadelphia, I tell them I live in the apartment between the flower shop and the van seat chained to an alley. These are the landmarks that define my corner of the world and while the flower shop is nice, it is the van seat that is the most popular feature in my neighborhood.

The grey seat, taken from your average soccer-mom van, hosts a rotating cast of characters. By day men who work and live in the neighborhood take breaks on the seat. They fan themselves in the heat and smile when my roommates and I come home.

In the evening the family who owns the flower shop gathers around the seat. One of the women bounces her adorable, chubby toddler on it. The toddler clambers around learning to walk and taking some of her first steps on the soft, grey fabric.

Sometimes a couple from around the corner naps on the seat. I found them there when I left the house at 5:30 one morning. Occasionally, when I return from work, they are sitting straight up, heads tilted back, mouths agape, eyes closed.

I tiptoe around them assessing their worn clothes, their frail frames and the open sores on their skin. I wonder if they have fleas or some sort of substance abuse problem? I wonder if they realize that the van seat is chained to the alley and not actually going anywhere.

When my un-air conditioned apartment becomes too much to handle in the summer heat, friends and I sit on the seat in the cool of the night air.  Other times the bench serves as a waiting place when friends arrive before I do, and on rare, scandalous occasions it is the site of late night make outs.

One frightful day, I came home to find the seat unchained and lying in the pile of trash on the curb. I feared it would be gone forever and snapped a few pictures to remember the memories friends and I made on it. I felt I had developed a bond with the neighbors who shared it, and it upset me to see it in the trash.

Two days later, I came home wondering if I would be able to find my apartment. Now it was just “that apartment next to the flower shop.” Without the van seat chained to the alley would I even recognize my front door? Just when I had nearly lost hope, I turned the corner to find a newer van seat chained to the alley.

This one was at least a foot wider. It had not yet lost the bounce in its cushion’s springs, and there were no tears in the fabric. Within that week I noticed two more van seats along the street. Each offered a place for passerby to sit, relax and catch up with neighbors – a South Philly stoop, if you will.

In the weeks that followed, I grew more attached to my South Philly neighborhood and the van seat that served as my landmark. I lived in North Philly for two years before moving to South Philly, and while I appreciated the experiences I had in North Philly, I came to see the benefits of living in South Philly — the diverse mix of people, the mixed uses that the neighborhood hosted and the sense of community. These things, I believe, are missing in North Philly. But something else is missing too. In North Philly there are no van seats chained to alleys or doorways. People have stoops, but they are not communal. They are not cushioned, and they are not cared for or replaced when they run down.

Maybe such shared spaces are what the rest of Philadelphia needs — to build community and foster a sense of ownership and responsibility for your neighborhood and for the city. Maybe what we need are more ratty old van seats, strategically placed, to serve as a modern version of the stoop.

Christine Fisher can be found sitting on the van seat on South Ninth Street.

Two tours highlight the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers

(Picture coming, Temple University’s computers and WordPress uploader don’t seem to get along)

By CHRISTINE FISHER
Philadelphia Daily News

fisherc@phillynews.com 215-854-5444

Printed 6-25-10

MOST OF PHILADELPHIA’S historic sightseeing trails are well-worn, the sights well known. But Philadelphians and tourists alike often overlook two of the city’s most important historic trails – the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers.

This spring, two tours aim to reconnect participants with the rivers and to offer a unique view of familiar historic sites as well as lesser-known landmarks.

Last month, Philadelphia Horticulture Society and Philadelphia Green launched “RiverTalk,” a cell-phone tour of 20 attractions along the central Delaware riverfront.

Participants can walk (it will take about 90 minutes), bike, boat or drive along the route that extends from Allegheny Avenue to just past Snyder Avenue.

Joe Walker, Fishtown native, actor and host of the modern-music online review show “Breakfast at Sulimay’s,” narrates the tour.

“It’s as modern as the day,” Walker said of “RiverTalk.”

“The river for me has an innate charm, and it’s such an asset to the city.”

Walker, 86, remembers swimming with friends in the river when it was “girls day” at the public pool. At a press event for “RiverTalk,” Walker recounted skinny-dipping at the end of Spring Garden Street, a point he and comrades called “B-A-B” or “Bare-ass Beach.”

He hopes the project will help others develop fond memories of the river.

Decades of industry followed by decades of blight have kept many people from the river, said Joan Reilly, senior director of Philadelphia Green. Recent public-private partnerships, a shared vision and the land’s beauty, though, have brought people back.

Reilly hopes “RiverTalk” will help bring even more people to this “world-class riverfront.”

RiverTalk: A 60- to 90-minute audio tour of the Central Delaware riverfront, starting at Penn Treaty Park, 1341 N. Delaware Ave. Bring your own feet, bike, boat or car; audio is available for free at 215-399-0616 and a downloadable brochure is available at rivertalk.org.

Across town, Schuylkill Banks and the Schuylkill River Development Corp. promote the city by sharing the beauty of the lower Schuylkill River and Bartram’s Garden, the nation’s oldest botanical garden.

Schuylkill Banks and SRDC partner with Bartram’s Garden to bring guests on boat tours from the Walnut Street Dock to the gardens.

“It’s a fun experience and a chance to view the city, the skyline and the river from a totally different perspective,” said Daniel Gray, of SRDC. “It’s a great way to get people down to the river in general but also to Bartram’s Garden.”

Once at the garden, guests walk from the river through the 15-acre meadow to the rest of the estate where, for the all-inclusive ticket price, they can tour the Bartram home and garden.

Gray noted that the tour approaches the estate in the same way colonial counterparts approached when the river served as the primary entrance.

Connecting visitors with the estate’s riverfront is a major motivation behind the tours, said Stephanie Phillips, director of development at Bartram’s Garden.

“When you’re in Bartram’s Garden, it’s hard to believe you’re actually in the city,” she said.

From the river, though, guests get a unique view of refineries and the city skyline, providing what Phillips calls an interesting juxtaposition between city and nature.

The river tours to Bartram’s Garden run on select Sundays through October.

Cruise Bartram’s Garden: 2 1/2-hour round-trip boat ride and tour of Bartram’s Garden, departs from the Walnut Street Bridge, 25th and Walnut streets; $25 adults, $20 children 12 and under; cruises scheduled for July 18, Aug. 1, Sept. 5 and 19, Oct. 3 and 17 at 1 p.m. Tickets and info: schuylkillbankstours.tix.com.

If cruising to Bartram’s Garden seems too tame, you can paddle your way there in a kayak. This is for advanced paddlers only (moderate to heavy exertion level). The tour starts at Walnut Street Dock at 11 a.m. and includes a boxed lunch and self-guided tour of the gardens. Expect the tour to last three to four hours.

Hidden River Outfitters, which runs the tours, has a number of other specialty tours, including romantic moonlight ones. The evening begins with a kayak lesson and then an hour on the water, traveling between the Walnut Street Dock and Fairmount Water Works.

Hidden River Outfitters Kayak Tours, Walnut Street Dock, through September. Basic tour, $40; advanced tour to Bartram’s Garden, $75; moonlight tour, $50; kayak and dine, $80. Tickets and schedule at www.schuylkillbanks.org.

Other river rambles

Spirit of Philadelphia: Lunch, dinner, moonlight and theme cruises on the Delaware River, departing from Penn’s Landing. Prices range from approximately $30-$75. Full schedule, ticketing and information available at spiritcruises.com/Philadelphia or 866-455-3866.

Philly Tours-Dinner Cruise: Three-hour dinner, dance and entertainment cruise along the Delaware River departs from Penn’s Landing. 6 p.m. Sunday, 7 p.m. Monday-Friday, 7:30 p.m. Saturday. Tickets start at $84; phillytours.us or 888-478-1479.

Ride the Ducks: 70-minute sightseeing tour of historic landmarks and the Delaware River aboard the amphibious duck boats. Departs from Independence Hall. Adults $27, seniors $25, students $23, ages 3-12 $17, children 2 and under free. Ticketing and information at phillyducks.com or 215-351-9989.

More than 50,000 exepcted at ‘Global GLBT summit’

By CHRISTINE FISHER
Philadelphia Daily News

Wed, Apr. 28, 2010

fisherc@phillynews.com 215-854-5444

The 18th annual Equality Forum, Philadelphia’s GLBT super event, whichkicked off yesterday, is expected to draw more than 50,000 participants over the next five days in support of the international gay-rights movement.The Equality Forum, which started in 1993 as PrideFest Philadelphia, has expanded from a weekend event with 15 participating organizations to a weeklong GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender) summit featuring more than 50 panels, parties and performances. “It’s the global GLBT summit,” said executive director Malcolm Lazin. “There’s really no larger event.”

Lazin said Philadelphia’s history of activism makes the city a prime location for such a gathering. “I think it’s a logical site because it’s where the original gay and lesbian movements began,” Lazin said, referring to the early protests for gay rights in the mid-1960s at Independence Hall.

These original activists chose Philadelphia in part because it is home to the Liberty Bell, which was a popular symbol for civil rights in the 1960s.

“We are the civil-rights movement du jour, as much as the civil-rights movement of the ’60s and into the ’70s was certainly the African-American movement,” Lazin said.

“Civil-rights movements go nowhere unless they enlist the support of the mainstream,” he added, noting that the goal of Equality Forum 2010 is to do just that.

A highlight will be Sunday’s National Same-Sex Commitment Ceremony, staged to increase awareness of the 1,138 federal marital benefits denied to same-sex couples.

Other high-profile events include the big-ticket ($200) International Equality Dinner on Saturday, which honors lawyers David Boies and Ted Olson, who opposed each other in the 2000 Bush v. Gore election challenge before the Supreme Court but who now are working together to challenge the ban on gay marriage.

“They are straight allies,” Lazin said, “and if they are successful, this is essentially Brown v. Board of Education,” the case that outlawed racial segregation in public schools.

Among other summit highlights are:

* Tomorrow’s sports panel includes, among others, Brian Sims, who played for Bloomsburh University and was the first openly gay NCAA football captain; former Inquirer reporter Gail Shister, who was the first out female sportswriter; and Dee Mosbacher, producer/director of “Training Rules,” about Penn State’s women’s basketball program. (Arts Bank, 601 S. Broad St., 8:30-9:45 p.m. tomorrow, free.)

* SundayOUT! – the region’s largest GLBT street festival – moves from Old City to the Piazza in Northern Liberties this year. Vendors will line the streets outside the Piazza. In the Piazza itself will be live and Jumbotron entertainment from noon to 7 p.m., including a fashion show, Philadelphia’s Gay Men’s Chorus Cabaret, dance performances and the Philadelphia Freedom Band.

For more information and a complete list of activities, visit www.equalityforum.com.