South Philly Review

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With Hanukkah, Christmas and Kwanzaa as its chief occasions, December dominates the gift giving calendar. Lower Moyamensing Civic Association president Kim Massare hopes locals can make the other winter months equally notable expressions of philanthropy.

She has centered her aspirations on South Philadelphia High School, 2101 S. Broad St., which two months ago became one of the city’s 10 participants in the Recyclebank Green Schools Program. The initiative will further environmental pursuits at the institution, but learners need the public’s help if they are to maximize their goals.

Massare, of Ninth and Wolf streets, and her five-year-old organization have assisted Southern since 2009, with more than two dozen new trees, an orchard and a composting bin proving the site’s receptivity to showing civic pride. LoMo’s UnLitter Us campaign’s fall launch on its grounds also solidified the facility’s commitment, which Massare sought to reward and strengthen by applying for a Land Beautification and Cultivation grant.

“LoMo’s work at South Philadelphia High School is one facet of our organization’s plan to help create a healthier and more sustainable environment,” she said Monday of having sent her thoughts to New York-based Recyclebank.

The eight-year-old company, which began its interaction with the Philadelphia Recycling Rewards program in Dec. ’09, opened its submission period in mid-September. Its website describes its schools outreach as a means “to promote green education and encourage innovative thinking.” Massare, who in November received a Local Hero award and a $5,000 grant from Bank of America for her neighborhood labors, easily beat the December deadline, seeing empowering Southern as a key step toward area advances.

“I’d say that LoMo is working hard locally to fulfill both Mayor [Michael] Nutter’s mandate to make Philadelphia the greenest city in the United States by 2015, as well as Councilman [Mark] Squilla’s goal to make the 1st District the cleanest and greenest in the city,” she said.

Southern, whose students have enjoyed summertime employment through the state’s Department of Community & Economic Development and Massare’s civic, responsible for Eighth to Broad streets from Oregon to Snyder avenues, initiated its latest move to alter environmental attitudes. In mid-December, Recyclebank gave the school, which also buddies with LoMo for April’s Philly Spring Cleanup, three months to convince conscientious citizens to donate the compensation from their green endeavors.

With multiple accolades, including designation from the World Economic Forum as a Technology Pioneer and inclusion on the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ Outstanding Excellence in Public/Private Partnerships list, Recyclebank encourages communal responsibility mainly through promoting household recycling and reducing residential energy usage.

“We trade the actions you make that have a positive impact on your home by saving energy, community by recycling and the environment by conserving natural resources for points that you can use for rewards you choose,” according to the Recyclebank website.

Prize recipients may choose from products, discounts and coupons to more than 3,000 local and national partners enticing consumers to remember their carbon footprints’ consequences. Signing up at recyclebank.com or through the cleanup allows enthusiasts to collect points, with E-ZPass technology-containing collection trucks reading each bin’s colored stickers. Since late last year, procuring points has become the Southern pupils’ principal priority.

Green Schools Committee Chair Randi Desiderio e-mailed Massare to announce Recyclebank’s favorable examination of the application she and Southern English teacher Michael Southerton composed. The two received $2,245, which will require them to raise 561,250 points, the equivalent of $1 for every 250 points.

Most accumulated figures come via curbside recycling and reducing trash and overall waste, but the Recyclebank website’s “earn points” tab reveals other ways to acquire the means to order items such as magazine subscriptions and restaurant gift cards. The Green Schools Program link, which lists the nation’s educational enrollees, explains how to donate and provides looks at each school’s progress through graphs.

“We have such diversity at my school,” Roxborough’s Southerton, who instructs freshmen and juniors, said, noting the student body speaks 19 tongues. “Many learners come from rural countries and have a garden background, so we thought a project like this would show similarities are more powerful than differences.”

Massare and Southerton will sate any horticultural hankering through an impressive roster of plans. Their grant will help them to fund supplies to green a vacant space in Southern’s parking lot, add another composting bin and decorative planters, install a rain barrel and plant more than 1,000 daffodil bulbs. The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, a common collaborator with LoMo, is again teaming with Massare through its City Harvest Growers Alliance. The relationship will yield raised beds the youngsters will use to plant crops.

Massare will use her Local Hero endowment to create a Student Growing Program coordinator position. The hire will confer with the students to help them to grow fruits and vegetables. They will then peddle their produce at modest prices, most likely at the Farmers Market at Broad and Ritner streets.

“This will be a student-led growing program, so what we will be growing will be up to the participating students to decide,” Massare said. “We are looking forward to the bounty and beauty they will be growing.”

Southerton is spreading the message to students and will discuss the grant’s elements, including the managing of a greenhouse, with his contemporaries at an upcoming professional development session.

“We will be teaching one another,” he said of the opportunity to be community visionaries.