The current budget passed by the commonwealth left the Philadelphia School District looking at a $178 million gap. Fernando Gallard, the director of media relations for the district, says that cuts will be made in operating costs, not in the budgets of the schools themselves. He explained that jobs would be shuffled around, basically realigning the administrative offices.

In the Brewerytown and Strawberry Mansion neighborhoods, schools like Strawberry Mansion High School, James G. Blaine Elementary, Edward Gideon, John F. Reynolds and Robert Vaux High School are already underfunded.

Students have limited access to books and computers. Parents in the area …

Dave Jordan went to 47 baseball games when he was a young boy, between 1948 and 1952. His team lost 41 of them.

On Wednesday the Philadelphia Phillies lost game six of the World Series to American League foes the New York Yankees. Though the fall of the beloved and dynamic Phillies will be one the city will come to terms with and accept in the next few ways and weeks, Jordan, a lifelong baseball fan, knows one pain that is much harder to get over.

“You get used to losing ballgames,” Jordan said, “but losing your whole …

David Smith is a limo driver. Edward Taylor is the pastor at Church of the Living God. However, both men have second jobs.
Although these two men have different occupations and operate in different sections of North Philadelphia, Smith in Strawberry Mansion and Taylor in Brewerytown, both run small businesses as a means “to connect with the community,” said Smith.
Born in New York, but now residing in Philadelphia, the avid Yankees and Giants’ fan sells clothes, houseware, electronics and  furniture outside his house on Ridge Ave. at an affordable price. Most of his merchandise has been donated from …

Computer access can be taken for granted by Blackberry-wielding e-mailers, but for many people, getting to a computer is not so effortless. Libraries, community and recreation centers play a primary function,

giving residents in urban neighborhoods access the Internet as well as many other services.
In Brewerytown, residents have been able to utilize the resources and collective knowledge found within the Brewerytown Community Development Corp. President James Carter plays an integral role in keeping …

Richard Wagner looked nothing like what we expected. When he arrived 40 minutes late at the designated meeting spot, pulling his large white van up behind our compact car, our suspicions of the day’s events grew.
The morning began with dark skies and heavy rain, which put a damper on our moods and the video equipment we were carrying. Shortly before 11 a.m. on a Wednesday, three journalists sat in a car, the windows clouding from our hot breaths, though our bodies shivered from the unexpected cold temperature.
We felt as if we were involved in a sting …