Spirits to Sanitizer: How Local Distillers are Helping Fight the Coronavirus

Spirits to Sanitizer: How Local Distillers are Helping Fight the Coronavirus

Rachel Pastan

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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Combating a Pandemic with Needle and Thread

Combating a Pandemic with Needle and Thread

Rachel Pastan
People of Swarthmore

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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History Coming to Life: A Teen’s Perspective on Social Distancing

History Coming to Life: A Teen’s Perspective on Social Distancing

Sophia David

Just three months ago, I sat at my desk brainstorming potential topics for my junior paper, a notorious ten-page history paper written by every eleventh grader at my school. I sifted through various possibilities, such as Roosevelt’s New Deal and 1940s internment camps for Americans of Japanese descent, but it did not take me long to settle on the influenza epidemic of 1918. I was immediately drawn in by the strangeness of the situation, how the entire world shut down in a matter of days. As I read old newspaper articles, listing school closure after school closure, I thought, “Wow, that’s crazy.” I never imagined that I would be experiencing something like it just three months later.

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People Before Profits: How One Phone Call Launched a Movement to Deprivatize Pennsylvania’s Only Private Prison

People Before Profits: How One Phone Call Launched a Movement to Deprivatize Pennsylvania’s Only Private Prison

Rachel Pastan
Criminal Justice

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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District Prepares for Coronavirus, Parents Deplore Book Removals

District Prepares for Coronavirus, Parents Deplore Book Removals

Rachel Pastan
WSSD

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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Where I’m From

Where I’m From

Jeannine Osayande

The Wesley A.M.E. Church in Swarthmore held its annual Black History Tea on Saturday, February 29. There was food, singing, prayer, poetry, dancing, and a fashion show featuring African clothing. The tea was in part a fundraiser for the small, Bowdoin Avenue church, which will be celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2021. As part of the program, Jeannine Osayande read her poem, “Where I’m From,” which describes her experience growing up in the historically black neighborhood of Swarthmore, where the church is located.

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The House Behind the Undergrowth

The House Behind the Undergrowth

Rachel Pastan

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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Counting the Trees

Counting the Trees

Rachel Pastan
Borough Council

This week’s Swarthmore Borough Council meeting was all about trees: a new inventory of the borough’s street and park trees, issues with PECO’s tree trimming, and more. We also excerpt a letter from the Tree Committee about the many benefits of trees.

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Energy Efficiency Expert Shares Strategies for Saving Money (and Maybe the Planet)

Energy Efficiency Expert Shares Strategies for Saving Money (and Maybe the Planet)

Corey Ullman
People of Swarthmore

Home energy use accounts for an estimated 20 percent of a household’s overall footprint. These days, with the dire warnings about climate change a part of our daily consciousness, many people are working on ways to substantially reduce the size of their carbon footprint. In doing so, they can reap some cost savings as well. Phil Coleman, president of aFewSteps.org, an expert at energy efficiency, sets a high bar for his neighbors. I should know, I live across the street from him.

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Souls Shot Exhibition Gives Gun Violence a Human Face

Souls Shot Exhibition Gives Gun Violence a Human Face

Guest User

Helen Mangelsdorf is one of 28 artists participating in the third iteration of the Souls Shot project, which connects artists to the families and loved ones of victims of gun violence for the purpose of painting their portraits. The project memorializes the victims, while also calling attention to the breadth of the United States’ gun problem. Individual by individual, the portraits present the vibrant faces of the lost.

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The Physics of Everyday Things: Two Swarthmore College Scientists Awarded NSF Grant

The Physics of Everyday Things: Two Swarthmore College Scientists Awarded NSF Grant

Rachel Pastan
Swarthmore College

Granular materials — like sand, rice, or powdered pharmaceuticals — are everywhere, yet their behavior is poorly understood.  In some ways behaving like liquids, in other ways behaving like solids, such materials have unique properties and pose unique questions to answer. Swarthmore College physics professors Cacey Bester and Amy Graves received an NSF grant to study granular materials.

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What Do You Think of Singer Hall?

What Do You Think of Singer Hall?

Ben Yagoda
Swarthmore College

The aesthetics of Swarthmore College’s Singer Hall — which will eventually be the home of the psychology, biology, and engineering departments — have been controversial since ground was broken in 2018. Some people think the building’s great, while others have declared it a monstrosity, or worse. Surprisingly few are lukewarm. What do you think?

College’s Newest Building Phases Into Use

College’s Newest Building Phases Into Use

Robert L. Richardson
Swarthmore College

The new building, a 158,000-square-foot home for Swarthmore’s biology, engineering, and psychology departments, was first conceived in 2011 as part of an institutional strategic plan. In December 2012, the college announced a $50 million gift to be used toward the project. This, the largest gift in the school’s history, came from alumnus and philanthropist Eugene Lang ‘38, who died in 2017. 

Gaieski Brings a Blend of Talents to Borough Council

Gaieski Brings a Blend of Talents to Borough Council

Guest User
People of Swarthmore, Borough Council, Local Business

Jill Gaieski has worked for the state attorney’s office in Broward County, Florida, and collected DNA from Bermudians. She has started an organization to fight gun violence, served (almost) two terms on the board of the Swarthmore Co-op, and earned her advanced sommelier certificate at the Wine School of Philadelphia. Since a swearing-in ceremony on Monday, January 6, she is now a Swarthmore Borough Council member as well.

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2019: An Inventory

2019: An Inventory

Guest User
Borough Council, Local Business, People of Swarthmore, WSSD, The Swarthmorean

How to inventory a whole year? What to remind you of, and what to skip? What would you rather forget, but maybe shouldn’t? What have you already forgotten that might interest you to recall? Collecting (recollecting) these happenings and lives and milestones is a way to consider what we have accomplished and aspired to and worried about as a community, as we take the first steps into 2020. To think about where we have succeeded, where we have more work to do, and where we might want to start all over again.

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