New Kensington Community Development Corporation (NKCDC)

Caring Pharmacy takes pride in being there for their customers. "We're patient-friendly and treat our clients like family," says owner Anh Phung. Phung was born in Vietnam, her family moved to Kensington when she was just a teenager, and she graduated from Kensington High School. She grew up shopping along Kensington Ave and that's why she decided to open Caring Pharmacy on the avenue in 2005. She wanted to contribute to the local small business community and support residents that live and work in Kensington. Caring Pharmacy takes extra steps to make sure their customers receive the support they need. In addition to basic pharmaceutical services and health screenings, they provide Vietnamese and Spanish-speaking clients with translation services to ensure they understand the purpose and responsible uses of their medications. The pharmacy also helps Vietnamese and Spanish-speaking clients complete medical assistance forms and make calls to doctors to set up appointments and arrange referrals. Caring Pharmacy also offers refill reminders to their customers and free prescription deliveries for those who need it. "We're here all the time for our customers," says Phung, "they can call us, and we'll pick up the phone. There's no automation here and we don't put people on hold." To learn more about Caring Pharmacy, visit their website caringpharmacypa.com, call 215-739-9975, or stop by their location at 2541 Kensington Ave.

Young Ma, his wife Soon Ma, and his son Steve Ma, own M Jewelers at 2327 N. Front Street. The Soon family has worked in the jewelry store, previously called Kang’s Jewelers, for over 20 years. For the Ma family, the ability to offer high-quality, hand-crafted jewelry to Kensington residents has always been a point of pride. When their most recent lease ended at their previous storefront, the family was set on staying in the neighborhood. “People in this neighborhood normally have to leave this neighborhood to get what they need or to go shopping,” Steve Ma said. “It makes us feel good when a customer can just walk a few minutes to shop here, and we can help them find what they’re looking for.” For over 20 years, the Ma family has witnessed neighborhood disinvestment and decline and are now watching new developments emerge. Today, they say they are optimistic about the changes they see. They also hope that new businesses will begin to reopen along the corridor and that Front Street will return to the vibrance it once knew. “All that we know is having a business here, we cannot imagine anything else,” Young said. “What we know is selling jewelry, fixing jewelry, and making jewelry in this neighborhood.” NKCDC’s Commercial Corridor Manager, Lee Nentwig, profiles the small business in partnership with Kensington Voice ---->

NKCDC's Nourish program just wrapped up their summer virtual cooking classes - a free four-week class that provides meal kits to participants and teaches online cooking demonstrations, The recipes include ingredients accessible to the community and this time around, working with NKCDC’s Urban Agriculture and Community Gardening Initiative, Nourish was able to provide vegetables from community gardens right here in Kensington! Garlic grown in the Tusculum Gateway Garden was included in Nourish’s final class last Tuesday. Coming from Haverford Farms, these cloves were planted at Tusculum in October. grew for 7 months, were harvested in May and transported to the former Greensgrow Farms to dry for a few weeks. just in time to be included in the meal kits for Nourish’s final cooking class! By participating in Nourish’s cooking classes, residents cooked nutritious and tasty meals with ingredients grown hyper-locally. And as part of a new composting pilot with Bennett Compost some of those ingredients moved through the full cycle of the food system, from seed to scrap! Meal kits that included garden grown produce were picked up at Tusculum Gateway Garden before classes each week, participants cooked the meals together online, and each week when picking up their new mealkits, they dropped off their food scrap from the week before to be composted! While Nourish’s summer classes are over, food scraps can still be dropped off at any of our three garden locations every week!

This #NeighborWorks week, we’re proud to be a part of a network of nearly 250 organizations championing resident leadership. “NeighborWorks keeps us in spaces where we can keep identifying pockets of power,” Katsi Miranda-Lozada says, NKCDC’s Director of Community Engagement. NeighborWorks America provides us the technical assistance to work with block captains, support block projects, and build on leadership that already exists in the neighborhood. Last week, residents voted for new members for NKCDC’s Neighborhood Advisory Subcommittee (NAS): a group of neighbors who come together to share their priorities for the neighborhood and keep NKCDC aligned with the community’s vision for Kensington. This week, our community engagement team also met with a group of block captains to identify their hopes and needs for their blocks, keeping us connected to leaders in the neighborhood. It’s when residents are active co-creators in the future of their neighborhoods that solutions for the long-term are possible. NeighborWorks provides us with steady support so we can continue centering resident voice and push forward comprehensive, community-driven, and trauma-informed strategies for Kensington. Stay tuned this week as we share more on how NeighborWorks supports our work! #communitydevelopment #nwweek #communitysupport #communitybuilding #equitabledevelopment

As a member organization of a network of nearly 250 organizations, NeighborWorks America provides us with a critical operating grant, keeps us connected to a network of peers, and builds our skills as an organization through training and leadership development opportunities. This past February, Guillermo Gomez, NKCDC’s Housing Services Manager, attended the NeighborWorks Training Institute in San Francisco. “The provide an outstanding training program for housing counselors,” Guillermo says, “not only personally have I grown the skills I have, NeighborWorks has allowed me to think about the quality of service we provide.” Guillermo emphasized how national training allows him to take a broader look at housing services, to learn from a network of peers about what’s being done across the country, and to bring those ideas to NKCDC to build on our housing services. From this training, he was able to receive certifications in Rental Eviction Intervention and Advance Foreclosure and can now service clients in Philadelphia who face foreclosures. This training is building our capacity at a critical time. As part of a larger participatory planning process in Kensington that is pushing forward comprehensive, community-driven, and trauma-informed strategies for neighborhood revitalization, NKCDC launched $1.5 million in eviction and foreclosure prevention assistance at the end of February. The technical training NeighborWorks provides will support our ability to prevent displacement in one of the hardest hit areas from the opioid epidemic. Stay tuned this NeighborWorks Week as we share more on how NeighborWorks America supports our work! #communitydevelopment #nwweek #communitysupport #communitybuilding #equitabledevelopment

This #NeighborWorks Week, we’re proud to be part of a network of nearly 250 member organizations across the United States celebrating how NeighborWorks empowers communities for success! In 1968, Dorothy Richardson laid the blueprint for resident leadership when she led her neighbors in the Central North Side neighborhood of Pittsburgh to fight back against community decay and divestment. She brought regulators and elected officials, bankers, and affordable housing advocates to the table to try to fix problems of housing affordability, gentrification, and redlining in her neighborhood. Her work led to the founding of the first NeighborWorks organization, paving the way for resident-driven, place-based community development across America. At NKCDC, we’re guided by the expertise and leadership of residents in the neighborhoods we serve. With NeighborWorks America’s steadfast support, we’re able to build our capacity as an organization so we can continue to nurture and create opportunities for neighbors to remain, and thrive, where they choose to live. Stay tuned this week as we share more on how NeighborWorks supports our work!

As part of a new pilot program, NKCDC and Bennett Composting are partnering to make composting more accessible in Kensington! Our three gardens will be composting sites in Kensington. These spaces also grow nutritious food and serve as sites for our community events. Composting plays an important role in growing nutritious food, providing rich soil for plants to grow. Come to any of our 3 garden locations during these hours to drop off your food scraps and learn more about the benefits of composting and how it fits into the food cycle: Tusculum: Tuesday – 3-5PM, Saturdays – 10AM-12PM McPherson: Mondays – 4-6PM Greensgrow: Thursday 4-6PM, Saturday 1-3PM What’s the benefit? Reducing food waste is a solution to a massive waste problem and is as easy as putting food scraps into a composting container. If you are interested in learning more, stop by any of our three locations during the posted times and talk to our team!

“Kensington residents already face another danger, which hasn’t been discussed nearly enough: displacement through gentrification,” NKCDC executive director Dr. Bill McKinney writes in an editorial for the Philadelphia Inquirer. “But it doesn’t have to be this way. As plans are designed for Kensington, the city can — for the first time — connect its resources to a transparent, robust, and engaged community network. “As a direct result of the failures of the past, a stronger civil society has emerged in Kensington. Decision-makers can plug into a participatory framework that centers meaningful engagement and cocreation with the community. For the first time, the city can really work with us, rather than simply informing, placating, and, in the end, manipulating us as they have in the past.” Read Dr.Bill’s full editorial for the Philadelphia Inquirer here: https://lnkd.in/ex6gjAwy Learn more about a community-driven participatory process at kensingtonplan.org

NKCDC is partnering with Bennett Compost to address food waste in Kensington! Through several pilot composting programs, we’re determining the best strategies to reduce barriers and make composting more accessible for residents in Kensington. As the largest single stream of material in landfills, food waste accounts for 63 million tons of waste in the United States annually. Composting is one solution to this massive problem. Currently, Bennett Compost picks up from 6,000 households and businesses every week in Philadelphia, keeping over 100 tons of material out of landfills every month. Yet Bennett Compost’s fee-for-service models have not shown success in Kensington. To expand access, new approaches are needed. Free composting services through this partnership will build on existing NKCDC programs in urban gardening, nutrition education, and resident services to determine their ability to reduce waste and increase accessibility to composting for residents. By building on existing programs and partnerships that improve health outcomes, increase access to healthy food, and promote urban land and food sovereignty, this partnership aims to strengthen a more sustainable, resilient, and equitable local food system in Kensington.

Three years ago, after the 'indefinite' closure of the Somerset Station in Kensington, residents, community groups, nonprofits, politicians, and SEPTA workers came together for a March for Safety and Solutions. This moment was significant as community groups and residents collectively advocated for issues that had been plaguing Kensington for years. The pressure from residents and community groups and the collaboration of that moment made change. Only two weeks after its ‘indefinite’ closure, SEPTA announced the reopening of the Somerset Station. As a community, we continue building on those efforts and organizing, knowing that solutions are possible when we work together from our strengths. We continue to engage with one another and identify the community’s priorities for Kensington's so we can address the issues at hand with shared resources. For comprehensive, community-driven, and trauma-informed strategies, everyone needs to find their proper seat at the table. To learn more about how we build on collaboration and community participation, head to kensingtonplan.org.