Linn Vaughters is in the last place she thought she’d be when she started her career: North Philadelphia.

As a private school teacher, she held a negative view toward Philadelphia’s school systems that stemmed from her parents, both teachers in the School District of Philadelphia for decades.  So when a friend she ran into by chance at a Starbucks suggested a job teaching Spanish at Community Partnership School.

“I was informed by the awful conversations my parents had at dinner about what went on in their classrooms, …

Preston Barnette loves his job. As the head chef at Calcutta House, a non-profit organization that provides housing and support services for people living with AIDS in the Philadelphia and Delaware Valley area, he is always smiling at his residents every morning when he serves them breakfast. And the 18 residents in Calcutta House’s 16th Street and Girard Avenue location usually smile back. But lately, the lack of a state budget from July until early October loomed …