Mushroom strudel. Citrus-cured salmon. “Duck duet” risotto. Those were some of the dishes on the menu when Village Vine, Swarthmore’s first-ever wine bar and bistro, celebrated its grand opening last week. On the wine list: selections from Italy, Turkey, Chile, and upstate New York, among many other places. For owners Lori Knauer and Jill Gaieski, opening day was a long time coming. Free to read and share
We’ve been hearing a lot of questions about how to vote in the November 3 election. The Swarthmorean has assembled some information that we hope will help you choose your voting method (in-person, by mail, using a drop box, or at a new Voter Service Center), and then vote efficiently. Free to read and share
Will school buildings reopen later this month? Maybe. The Wallingford-Swarthmore School Board discussed the possibility — and what a reopening could look like — at a three-plus-hour meeting on Monday night. Also: concerns about screen time, sports, and more. Free to read and share
Issues around eating and body image are complicated. But the evidence is clear. Charlotte Markey, a psychology professor at Rutgers University-Camden who lives in Swarthmore says, that people with a poor body image are particularly vulnerable to anxiety, depression, and eating disorders — including anorexia, bulimia, and binge-eating disorder. Markey had recently received advance copies of her book “The Body Image Book for Girls: Love Yourself and Grow Up Fearless” when she visited my porch one afternoon last month for a conversation with another visitor, Emma Borgstrom, a 21-year-old Temple University student and Strath Haven High School graduate, who struggled with an eating disorder for years. Free to read and share
The new principal of Strath Haven High School has been a teacher, a basketball coach, and an assistant principal, as well as a school counselor. But the counseling feels central to his 20-plus years as an educator. “As a leader, you need to understand people,” Hilden says. “People need to be heard.” Free to read and share
The Wallingford-Swarthmore School District plans to open schools for in-person instruction this fall, Superintendent Lisa Palmer wrote in a July 3 email to the school community. “However,” she continued, “we know school must look different.” Palmer went on to discuss the district’s tentative plans, which seek to balance the district’s preference for in-person instruction with concerns about the spread of COVID-19.
School in the Wallingford-Swarthmore School District will start one week earlier than originally planned. The school board hopes this modest but significant measure would mitigate effects of a second wave of the coronavirus by keeping people out of school buildings for longer periods this fall and winter. Also, the anti-bias organization Teaching Tolerance will conduct a series of professional development workshops for WSSD teachers and staff next year.
June 19 is Juneteenth, the anniversary of the day in 1865 when enslaved people in Texas finally learned that, two and a half years earlier, the Emancipation Proclamation had legally set them free. If regular Juneteenth commemorations have been held in Swarthmore, they have not been announced in the pages of this newspaper, which record observances and public celebrations of Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, Chanukah, Christmas, and Kwanzaa. I would like to change that.
The Strath Haven High School Class of 2020 had a senior year like no other, and they had a graduation ceremony like no other. Class members never expected to finish their last high school classes remotely, and they never imagined watching their own graduation on a computer screen at home. But the one-hour commencement video produced by the Wallingford-Swarthmore School District is full of joy, energy, music, and humor. The video was released at 5 p.m. on June 5, after a slow stream of graduates, each accompanied by two family members or friends, received their diplomas one at a time in the SHHS auditorium.
Swarthmore has been home to at least eight Guggenheim winners over the years. The distinguished fellowships have been awarded since 1926 in the humanities, sciences, and arts. In 2020, 175 people, out of an applicant pool of about 3,000, were granted fellowships. Author and Swarthmore resident Ben Yagoda is one of the award recipients.
Wallingford-Swarthmore School District Superintendent Lisa Palmer reported in an email to WSSD families on Sunday that “a hurtful and disturbing video...is circulating within our community.” School district officials forwarded the video to the Nether Providence Police Department on Thursday, May 28. The department is investigating. Chief David Splain said that the results of the investigation will be presented to the Delaware County District Attorney’s Office to determine if a crime was committed and whether to file charges.
The Swarthmore Farmers Market is opening on Saturday, June 6. There will be strawberries and scallions, cheese and chickens, peanut butter cookies and portobello mushrooms, just as there are every June. Other things will be different.
Adjusting to remote learning was the focus of the Wallingford-Swarthmore School Board meeting on Monday, April 27. Also, proposal to lease 1,300 Google Chromebooks — one for every student at Strath Haven Middle School (SHMS) — was unanimously approved by the board. The board also voted unanimously to appoint Gregory Hilden principal of SHHS, starting July 1.
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.
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.
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Local company Keystone Quality Transport, like many medical providers, has struggled to acquire the personal protective equipment they need to function safely during the COVID-19 outbreak. Chief Operating Officer Justin Misner says hand sanitizer became unavailable from his usual suppliers in the middle of March. “The resources were depleted,” he says. “We tried to keep our ear to the street.” They got lucky when the company’s risk and safety director, Brian Eberle, heard that Eight Oaks distillery, which makes bourbon, gin, and other spirits, had recently produced some hand sanitizer as well. “They told us, you can come out here, and we’ll give you some, but you’ve got to come now,” Misner reports. “We sent a driver out there immediately.” What started as a modest experiment by a single distiller was about to get a lot bigger.
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As is becoming widely known, the masks most needed by medical personnel are N95 respirators that, when worn correctly, filter out 95% of particles that can cause disease. But simple cotton face masks are in demand as well. A well made cotton mask worn over an N95 mask can extend its lifetime. Now, three local women are busy over bobbins and foot pedals making masks.
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Kabeera Weissman, who founded the Delaware County Coalition for Prison Reform (Delco CPR), expressed concerns at a 2017 phone-banking event about the George W. Hill Correctional Facility — the only private prison in Pennsylvania — to Delaware County Council members. The county payed GEO Group, the organization that manages the prison, approximately $50 million a year — about a sixth of the county’s total operating budget. At the time, she didn’t know much about private prisons, but she knew she didn’t believe in companies making profits by incarcerating people. That was the moment that sparked a movement.
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Board president David Grande emended usual procedure to open the meeting with a statement. Over the past week, he said, the community had been dealing with a number of challenges — coronavirus, field trip anxieties, questions about sleep and school start times, and concerns over what the district is doing around diversity and inclusion. Many people had been in touch with the board about these and other issues, Grande said. “I want to make sure everyone knows that we receive your messages and read each and every one of them.”
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When you drive down Chester Road in Swarthmore these days, you may notice a house you haven’t seen before — or at least not for a long while. 211 S. Chester Road has been hidden behind thick trees and overgrowth for years. In December, a great crane drove onto the property and began taking down the trees. Now, two months later, not only has the ground been more or less cleared, the house itself has been emptied. This is its story.
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