On a recent sunny Saturday morning, crabapple, Sargent cherry, and Kentucky coffee trees found new homes as street trees in Swarthmore. Members of the borough’s tree committee and community volunteers planted 12 new bare-root trees on Yale Avenue, Haverford Place, Union Avenue, Bowdoin Avenue, and Brighton Avenue. The November 21 planting was the culmination of months of advocacy and logistical maneuvering by committee members. Swarthmore Borough Council funded the project.
Isys Nelms is in ninth grade at Strath Haven High School, and is the eldest child of Swarthmorean associate editor Satya Nelms.
Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights, began last night. To me, the menorah always looks forlorn on the first night, with just the one candle (plus the shamash) burning. But I like knowing we’ll add another every night. It seems like recompense for the minute or two of sunlight we are still losing daily. It’s been a dark year by pretty much any measure. As we move into winter, I hope all of you have lights to kindle. Glimmers of promise for the new year.
The Swarthmore and Morton/Rutledge fire companies have been informed by their Christmas tree wholesaler that they will not be able to supply trees this year due to damage from an early frost. This fundraiser typically raises $6,000 for the fire companies.
As previously noted, the local wine-buying options have significantly opened up recently, hence our Unscientific Survey asking where you procure your vino.
Earlier this year, as the Class of 1963 planned to celebrate our class members turning 75, the pandemic hit. What to do? Abandon our reunion? Postpone it a year — or more? Could we come together at this significant milestone in our lives? Yes! A reunion, online. And so we embraced the future, as we have always done, by holding four reunion sessions via Zoom on November 7, 8, and 9.
Swarthmore Town Center, Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, seeks a part-time Town Center Coordinator. The Town Center Coordinator is responsible for the promotion, event-planning, and physical aspects of Swarthmore’s town center in order to enhance the town’s retail environment and community engagement.
The doors to Swarthmore Ballet Theatre’s Park Avenue home have been closed to the public since March of this year, due to COVID-19. But Artistic Director Lori Ardis — along with her daughter, choreographer Amber Flynn, and former Pennsylvania Ballet Principal Dancer William DeGregory — have continued teaching ballet to students, with live accompaniment, using Zoom.
The Environmental Advisory Council is composed of seven voting members, plus a number of associate members, and volunteers. Meetings occur at 7:30 p.m. on the fourth Tuesday of the month. Voting members are appointed by the borough council to serve a term of three years. New voting members will be appointed in 2021. To be eligible for appointment as a voting member, you must be a current resident of Swarthmore Borough.
Linton Stables, President of the Swarthmore Senior Citizens Association, was awarded the 2020 Swarthmore Lions Club Citizen of the Year Award. He got involved in community work when he was living in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood in the 1990s, but his is involvement in Swarthmore came about more accidentally. This is a story of how his community contributions evolved, and his affinity for fundraising, which he calls “telling a story that shows you what the opportunities are for you to be generous.”
Members of the Black Affinity Coalition, which organized a student strike that began November 16, suspended the strike on November 26.
A November 23 order by Pennsylvania Health Secretary Rachel Levine imposes new limits on the number of people who can gather indoors, due to what the order called a “serious increase” of COVID-19 cases in Delaware County. The order is in effect through January 2. Among the new restrictions is a limit on the number of diners who can share a table (four) as well on people attending indoor “gatherings,” which include parties, funerals, and sporting events (ten). Religious services and school instruction are not affected. Strath Haven High School Athletic Director Pat Clancy sent an email to the school community announcing that winter sports are now “postponed until further notice.”
Last Friday, the volunteer Friends of Little Crum Creek Park convened for work. Our goal was removing invasive plants such as Norway maple, Acer platanoides; Amur honeysuckle, Lonicera maackii; and the burning bush, Euonymus alatus. We were discussing some good native alternatives to these plants when I thought of a counterpart to the burning bush: Euonymus atropurpureus, the Eastern wahoo. Unlike burning bush, which has choked out most of the understory in parts of Eastern forests, this shrub is not invasive.
The Alternative Christmas Shop, a project of the Swarthmore Presbyterian Church, offers the opportunity to purchase “gifts” that are actually (tax-deductible) donations in the gift recipient’s name, supporting any one of 23 local, national, or global charities, all of which have been vetted by the shop’s organizing committee.
As many readers know, Santa has been coming to our village on Christmas Eve since the 1890s – no matter how deep the snow or bitter the winds. This year, however, Santa has been following the COVID-19 pandemic closely from the North Pole, and knows that everyone, including Santa’s family, elves, and reindeer, needs to adjust how Santa’s visits will be handled this year.
I came across a plain ole ridiculous article on Chester’s reigning NBA Slam Dunk Champion, Derrick Jones, of the NBA Portland Trail Blazers — formerly of the Miami Heat and Phoenix Suns, from NBC Sports Northwest. I was going to let it slide until I spent some time with an 11th-grade Philly high school football player this weekend. We talked sports, and life, and somehow I remembered this crazy article about Derrick Jones. I showed it to him as a lesson on how you have to own your own story and watch what you say to reporters, because they don’t always do their homework.
The carefully crafted “Carrier” tells the fictional story of a Black long-haul truck driver and single mom who finds herself transporting something very strange in her reefer (“refrigerated trailer” to you).
Swarthmore’s annual Home for the Holidays 5K will be virtual this year. This will be a no-frills charity run with no T-shirts or medals awarded. But participants are still encouraged to wear seasonally appropriate costumes. And since it is a virtual event, you can complete it any time between December 12 and 19.
