Cultural Engagement

Toronto's Mail and Globe has a fantastic article about Opera's working outside-the-box, innovating and reaching new audiences. Examples cited include San Francisco's Opera at the Ballpark and Opera Philadelphia's simulcast and co-production of Salome. Read full story

On Saturday, May 11, GroundSwell pitched in at Clark Park for LOVE Your Park Week. Then on Sunday, May 12, we finished up our children's book donation drive for Philadelphia READS!

We're in the planning stages for our June action campaign now. You can sign up for our email list to make sure you don't miss the details, and follow us on Facebook and Twitter! In the meantime, here's a recap of the park clean-up and book drive:

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GroundSwell volunteers joined the Friends of Clark Park on LOVE Your Park Spring Service Day for a morning of planting, mulching and raking to fortify and beautify Clark Park for the spring and summer seasons. 

It was a truly vibrant day at the park, which is one of our region's greatest outdoor cultural hubs.  Clark Park is home to the Shakespeare in Clark Park theater company and the city's largest year-round farmers' market, which was in full swing during our clean-up! Volunteers also got to stick around after we were finished to enjoy the music, kids' activities, craft vendors and food trucks at the annual Spruce Hill May Fair.

Here's one of the pictures from the day—a shot of Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance President Tom Kaiden and Research Analyst Nick Crosson pitching in with weeding! You can find more pictures of the clean-up on Facebook.

 

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We also finished up our month-long children's book donation drive for Philadelphia READS last weekend.  The numbers are in, and we collected 752 books at our Center City drop-off point alone! Our partners at the Penn Museum, Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, Arthur Ross Gallery, Institute of Contemporary Art and the Office of Community and Public Affairs at Penn are still counting their books, but the numbers are looking good so far—we're ready to call this campaign a success! GroundSwell team members and Cultural Alliance staff took a photo to celebrate:

We'll sort and label the books, then take them to the book bank at Philadelphia READS. Since 2006, Philadelphia READS has donated over a quarter of a million books to Philadelphia's classroom teachers. Studies have shown that children who are not independent readers by the third grade are rarely able to catch up later on, so it's their mission to make sure Philadelphia's youngest and neediest children have the resources they need to become strong readers as early as possible.  With all the generous donations to the GroundSwell & Penn Museum Book Drive, we'll be able to help them reach even more students, and "do something good for a change" in our region!

 

 

 

Hundreds of arts supporters stopped by the GroundSwell booth to find out more about how to "do something good for a change" in Greater Philly, and a few lucky GroundSwell supporters got to play quizzo with our partners Philly in Focus and Johnny Goodtimes.

We were able to spread the word about the GroundSwell mission to make the Philadelphia region a better place to live, work and play, and we also had a ton of great artists—from amateurs to pros—draw us a picture of what their Philadelphia looks like, then pose for pictures on our Philly-style stoop.  Here are a few of the results. You can find the rest in the GroundSwell at PIFA album on Facebook—and please don't forget to "like" the GroundSwell page!

During the afternoon, festival-goers also competed head-to-head in Philly arts, culture and history quizzo with Johnny Goodtimes, and our partners Philly In Focus captured all the action! Click the play button below to watch the video on the Cultural Alliance Philly In Focus Channel and see how your local trivia skills match up against our brave contestants.

What Is Philly In Focus? Philly In Focus is a new community-driven, local media platform designed to connect the personalities, businesses and organizations that make this city great. 

Want to join Philly In Focus? It is completely free for local businesses, organizations and groups to create a channel, where you can manage and share your videos, photos, events and more. With Philly In Focus’ tools, you can:  

• Publish videos, photos and events and connect locally
• Expand your organization’s reach using PIF’s online sharing tools on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
• Track results using a robust data and analytics dashboard
• Connect on multiple screens and platforms, including online, OnDemand and mobile 
   

 

 

The Greater Philadelphia Tourism and Marketing Corporation (GPTMC) has launched a new campaign called Philadelphia Neighborhoods that spotlights 14 fun and culture filled neighborhoods outside Center City. Check out the Philadelphia Neighborhoods section of visitphilly.com to explore neighborhoods’ storied streets, buzzed-about restaurants, emerging art galleries, independent shops, intimate music venues, plentiful parks and annual festivals.

The neighborhoods included in the project are Fishtown, Northern Liberties, Callowhill, Spring Garden, Fairmount, Queen Village, Bella Vista, Pennsport, East Passyunk, Graduate Hospital, University City, Powelton Village, Spruce Hill and Cedar Park.

With an eye toward driving overnight visitation, GPTMC chose to feature neighborhoods that are a 15-minute walk or ride from Center City hotels. But the extensive information and interactive feature available on the website make it a valuable resource for both locals and visitors.

Photo by J. Fusco for GPTMC