Gov. Tom Wolf’s March 19 order to close physical locations of non-life-sustaining businesses has hit Swarthmore’s town center hard. Only a few stores in the business district — like the Swarthmore Co-op, Swarthmore Hardware, and the two dry cleaners, as well as some restaurants open for take-out — fall into the life-sustaining category. But across town, merchants are rising to the occasion and creating innovative solutions to keep themselves in business until they are permitted to reopen.
Strath Haven High School was ranked the ninth-best public high school in Pennsylvania for 2019, according to U.S. News and World Report, which tracks 24,000 schools across the country. SHHS received a score of 97.62 out of a possible 100.
We are in this for the long haul. That, at least, is the general opinion of Swarthmorean readers. In Unscientific Survey No. 6, we asked how long you thought it would take before things returned to relative normal. Among those who responded, 73% thought it would take at least a year, and almost half of that group predicted 18 months or more.
I remember my last day of in-person school. Never in my wildest dreams had I imagined that we would be heading into a seemingly endless quarantine. As I was getting ready for school, I stopped myself. I wondered, “What if this is the last day I will go to school?” Later, as I was giving a friend a ride home, I asked, “What if we just had our last day of school?” “That would be crazy,” he said. I interviewed a few Swarthmore residents to learn about their last regular days.
W. Marshall Schmidt of Princeton, New Jersey, formerly of Swarthmore, sent this report on the Swarthmore High School class of 1942:
While in-person cultural happenings are still on hold, virtual offerings are proliferating. Here are a few recommendations for art and theater from Swarthmore College and Hedgerow Theatre.
This spring has been one of the coolest in memory. Cool days without excessively cold nights have extended the blooming seasons for many plants. These include Swarthmore’s profusion of magnolia trees, especially the incredibly floriferous saucer magnolia, Magnolia x soulangeana. Some saucer magnolias have bloomed for three to four weeks this spring! Likewise, tulip season has seldom been better.
Best bird photo of the month goes to Fred Tinter of Swarthmore for a photo of an eastern screech owl (red morph) which settled into the owl box he recently installed. “About two weeks ago, I put up an owl box in hopes that we might have a screech owl move in next year. Today, we were surprised to see that I was very far off in that estimate.”
Swarthmore Borough and the Children and Adult Disability and Educational Services (CADES) reached an agreement on Sunday allowing for the continued use of the Rutgers Avenue school as a quarantine location for CADES clients with COVID-19 who normally live in group homes in the community. Swarthmore Borough had filed an injunction in the Delaware County Court of Common Pleas on Tuesday, April 14, seeking to remove patients diagnosed with the coronavirus.
Five Chinese women, all local residents, raised over $6,000 from 60 families over just a few days in early April to buy masks and other personal protective equipment for local medical professionals and first responders.
“Thanksgiving on steroids.” That’s how Swarthmore Co-op General Manager Mike Litka refers to the tempo of grocery shopping at the store on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays during the pandemic. Since mid-March, Litka has supervised the transformation of grocery shopping at the Co-op.
On April 13, the Wallingford-Swarthmore School Board (WSSD) convened (over Zoom, due to the COVID-19 outbreak). Board president David Grande opened the meeting by thanking parents, teachers, and students for their efforts in adjusting to online learning. “Our community and our children are going through an unprecedented challenge right now,” he said.
Occasionally Yours remodeled its restaurant last fall, and revamped its menu. This spring, amid the coronavirus outbreak, it’s recasting its mission too. The restaurant is not only continuing to feed the local community (though now only through curbside take out and no-contact delivery), but it’s also taking on a new goal.
Strath Haven Middle School eight-grader Isys Nelms decided to make a questionnaire and send it to various members of her community, including teachers, students, principals, and the superintendent. It turns out we are much less alone than it may seem.
The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board (PLCB) this week began accepting orders by phone for curbside pickup at 176 locations statewide. Phone orders can be placed between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m., or until a store reaches its maximum order capacity each day.
This aspirational edition of the community calendar comprises a collection of events we wish were happening this week.
Swarthmore Borough Council held a Zoom legislative session on Monday. Approximately 14 people, including borough council members and staff, attended. Much of the evening’s business consisted of ratifying resolutions related to the pandemic. The council ratified Mayor Marty Spiegel’s March 12 declaration of a state of emergency in the borough, as well as the council’s decision to hold meetings virtually as long as the emergency declaration remains in place.
Swarthmore Borough filed an injunction in the Delaware County Court of Common Pleas on Tuesday, April 14, seeking to stop CADES (Children and Adult Education and Disability Services) from housing COVID-19-positive clients in the Rutgers Avenue school, according to a press release from the borough.
Passover is one of the central holidays in the Jewish tradition. It’s a time when families congregate, eat traditional foods, and retell the biblical story of Moses leading the Jews out of slavery in Egypt. This year, because of the coronavirus, few could congregate. Instead, the seders of 2020 were largely held over Zoom.
