From `ashes' of West Philly, a community group rises up

If you follow Lancaster Avenue far enough north, you might eventually find Budd Street.

To your right are three abandoned row houses, their doors and windows boarded and nailed shut. To your left is a vibrant urban garden, filled with flower beds, growing vegetables and clusters of neighborhood children slathered in face paint and giddy with their latest arts and crafts project.

The garden, called Lots of Love, is the work of volunteers from the West Powelton-Belmont community. And the children participate in activities regularly run there by the Rising Phoenix Creative Collaboration, a nonprofit community arts organization.

The six-month-old non-profit is the brainchild of a few Penn students -- but it has since become the project of dozens of West Philadelphia residents.

College seniors Maya Gat, Marcy Caldwell, and College of General Studies student Abigail Maso first formulated the idea of creating a positive response to various deficits in the community. What they came up with was an arts-oriented community center, named for a Phoenix because it would rise from ash and refuse. The group's mission statement prescribes "art as a means of individual and group empowerment."

Rising Phoenix is in the process of finding a location for the community center, and the group will likely settle on the three abandoned row houses or another abandoned property in the neighborhood. In the meantime, group members run community activities, like children's arts and crafts classes and mural projects, out of the garden.

"It started with a lot of talk," said Gat, the president of the organization. "We were talking about problems we saw in the art world. Galleries are so consumer-driven, and there is not enough arts education in areas with fewer resources."

But she hopes to resolve these problems by creating a symbiosis between artists and the community. Group members hope to be able to eventually offer free studios and gallery spaces to visual artists. In return, the artists would teach art classes to neighborhood children or participate in other community service projects.

"Looking at these two problems we saw that those two put together sort of solve each other," Gat said. "Artists have a place to show their work and kids have a constant and ongoing place for continuous and excellent arts education."

Other elements of the plan include a space for live music, poetry readings, a small library with Internet access and a general safe space to meet the needs of community members.

"Another thing they really want is a space where kids can do graffiti with out being harassed by cops," said Mason, the vice president of Rising Phoenix. "People usually end up going to places that aren't the safest just to avoid cops. So we're going to have a wall of our place dedicated to graffiti, and then take photos of it when its full and have a graffiti art exhibit."

In addition to the garden, the group also plans to partner with other community service organizations, from battered women's shelters to rehabilitation centers, to meet the perceived needs in the neighborhood.

And for most members of Rising Phoenix, keeping up with the needs of the community means avoiding affiliations with the University, which has become notorious for what many Philadelphia natives consider an adversarial approach to lower-income West Philadelphia neighborhoods.

"Our biggest concerns are making sure that we're doing what the community wants and keeping good relations with the community. We did choose for it not to be a Penn thing," Gat said.

The Rising Phoenix board of directors and advisors ranges from West Philadelphia community members to gallery owners to business executives.

In drawing from such varied input, members of the organization hope to provide an open safe space that is part of the community, not an imposition on it -- a role that both Lots of Love garden and Rising Phoenix are already fulfilling to some degree, community members said.

"It's already made it a lot safer and more peaceful," said Pete Golden, who lives down the street and is a member of Rising Phoenix's board of directors. "Everybody in the neighborhood kind of watches out" for the garden.

Community members have developed a sense of pride in the garden -- which, like both organizations, has risen from ashes.

"This lot was completely weeds, and the soil is like 90 percent brick, but we managed to win 'Best First Year Garden' from the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society," said Alexis Heideck, a volunteer at the garden and a member of Rising Phoenix's board of directors.

And both organizations seemed to occur naturally to those involved.

"As soon as I let the idea out of my mouth, it just ran on its own," Gat said. "Politicians, artists, business people just jumped in our laps."

"The minute I mentioned this to anyone they want to know about it, what's going on with it, how they can help... everyone from a college kid to a business executive," added Caldwell, the non-profit's secretary.

Rising Phoenix is receiving offers of assistance from sources ranging from the Philadelphia Housing Authority to the local renovators, electricians and plumbers. Even their legal representation is done pro bono, through Ballard Spahr Andrews and Ingersoll, one of the largest law firms in Philadelphia.

But, group members said, a crucial step will be raising the money to become incorporated and to file with the Internal Revenue Service. Rising Phoenix is in the process of fundraising to generate the necessary funds.

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