Years ago, Swarthmorean associate editor Satya Nelms decided to get creative with her Christmas presents. This year, she combined her DIY tradition with her love of books. She shares some of her gift prescriptions: stories of people who combine Black, female, queer, poor, immigrant, and disabled identities.
Jupiter and Saturn will make their closest approach in centuries on December 21, the winter solstice.
Over the years, I have attempted to be increasingly mindful of adding plants to the garden that will provide winter interest. Fortunately, in this area we have abundant choices.
Swarthmore Recreation Association presents its first ever “Resolution Run,” to be held on January 1, 2021. In past years, the association has held an annual New Year’s Day 5K race. This year’s Resolution Run will be different: It will be virtual, and it is not limited to 5 kilometers.
Information about Christmas worship services and events in our area..
In a sometimes fiery meeting that lasted over three hours, Swarthmore Borough Council voted on Monday not to raise taxes in 2021. The vote was 6 to 1. The most contentious part of the meeting was a report on the increasing nuisance of bicycles in the business district. Business owners have complained that cyclists are riding down the Park Avenue sidewalk with little regard for pedestrians and leaving their bikes obstructing the sidewalk.
Last summer, Stephanie McDonough of Wallingford posted on the Nether-Swarthmore TimeBank website that the St. Katharine Drexel Food Pantry in Chester needed contributions. Andrea Knox, a member of Swarthmore Friends Meeting, saw the post. “I figured members of the Meeting would welcome this opportunity to fight the pandemic in a constructive way,” she says. So Knox began soliciting contributions for this food pantry in the Meeting’s weekly email newsletter. She reports, “We’ve sent food to the pantry almost every week since.”
An equity audit of the Wallingford-Swarthmore School District is on hold for now, pending an investigation into who might best perform it, board member Kelly Wachtman reported at the board’s meeting on Monday. Also, Superintendent Lisa Palmer reported that the school board has begun equity training with Heather Bennett, Director of Equity Services for the Pennsylvania School Boards Association. Palmer anticipates that the board will produce an equity statement and an equity policy by the end of the school year.
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.”
