West Philadelphia | Penn Today

A group of people standing on the sidewalk in front of a fence with a Clean, Green & Serene sign.

Deeply Rooted Collaborative awards more than $59K in ‘Community Green Grants’

The joint initiative from Penn Medicine and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia has awarded 21 grants to fund initiatives to fight food insecurity, community garden cleanup, education programming, and more.

robeson docent gives a tour to a student, holding a music record

A new generation reinterprets Paul Robeson, singer, actor, advocate, and all-American icon

In collaboration with The Netter Center for Community Partnerships, ninth-grade students from Paul Robeson High School trained to become youth docents at the Paul Robeson House and Museum through a program funded by The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation.

tamir harper sitting on a desk laughing with students

Seeking solutions to a shortage of educators

Penn’s Graduate School of Education contributes to the conversation about the scarcity of Black men as K-12 teachers.

A group of people in a small urban park in West Philadelphia.

Design and build, but first, collaborate

The Weitzman School’s spring design-build studio was a collaboration between students, community leaders, and residents to develop a key site as a visible distillation of the New Freedom District in West Philadelphia.

Outside entrance of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania–Cedar Avenue building.

Penn Medicine to open new crisis response center at Cedar Avenue facility

As part of a unified mental health care hub at Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania–Cedar Avenue, the new model brings together emergency, inpatient, and outpatient psychiatric care on the same campus, creating the health system’s second consolidated mental health care site in Philadelphia.

A student pedals a bike to provide energy to power a blender.

Netter Center marks 30 years of community partnerships

With science experiments, garden plantings, and twirling flags, the Netter Center for Community Partnerships celebrated its 30th anniversary at West Philadelphia High School.

A community social worker balancing gun violence prevention and trauma recovery

Denise Johnson has two roles in Penn’s gun violence prevention efforts as program manager for the Penn Presbyterian Medical Center-based Penn Trauma Violence Recovery Program and the Penn Community Violence Prevention team.

Four students dig a hole in a garden at Hamilton School in Philadelphia.

Green solutions are transforming a West Philadelphia grade school

With support from grants and the Netter Center, the Andrew Hamilton School in Cobbs Creek is now home to a food forest and a thriving garden, providing healthy produce, green space, stormwater management, and educational opportunities.

Students at Robeson High School learning STEM with Penn students.

Science and service at Philly’s Paul Robeson High School

Penn students in the Academically Based Community Service course Everyday Neuroscience team up with 10th-graders from Paul Robeson High School.

A man speaks at a podium with a woman waiting behind him. The screen says "An Interfaith Commemoration of the Life of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr."

‘Embodying love’ at the Martin Luther King Jr. Interfaith Commemoration

At the Interfaith Commemoration and award ceremony, student speakers and performers reflected on the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., and six Penn community members were honored for working towards positive social change.

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