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Swarthmore alums use their tech skills to deliver PPE to health care workers across the U.S.

Jessica Press

June 03, 2020 |

The Philadelphia Citizen |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

A group of tech-savy Swarthmore College alumni are helping to get a surplus of personal protective equipment into the hands of the medical professionals who need it most. Tapping into communities where it's not uncommon to have spare PPE due to environmental reasons such as wildfires, the group created a database that pairs donors with recipients. The process has allowed for more than 666,000 masks transferred to health care workers nationwide.

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PA should follow California's lead and mail ballots to every registered voter in the state

Roxanne Patel Shepelavy

May 15, 2020 |

The Philadelphia Citizen |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Pennsylvania

Governor Gavin Newsome in California ordered vote-from-home ballots be sent to all registered voters for the November 2020 election due to the Covid-19 pandemic. While some states allow people to vote by mail for any reason, a ballot is usually obtained only by request, which evidence shows does not lead to the same increased voter turnout as automatically receiving a ballot. Absentee voters do tend to be white and upper-middle class, but some voter-rights organizations such as Committee of Seventy have shifted priorities to getting everyone who is eligible to request a vote-from-home ballot.

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Dumplings Against Hate

Brianna Baker

April 20, 2020 |

The Philadelphia Citizen |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, New York, New York

The NYC-based campaign, Dumplings Against Hate, has raised tens of thousands of dollars for Asian Americans for Equality’s Emergency Small Business Relief Fund by bringing together a virtual community of support. As the COVID-19 pandemic picked up in early 2020, Chinatown restaurants and businesses saw a decrease in revenue because of xenophobia and racism, inspiring the group’s creation. Since then, it’s acted as a model for similar groups across the country, and is creating a toolkit for cities to create their own campaigns.

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Penn alums use 3-D printers to make face masks for local medical workers

Jessica Press

April 06, 2020 |

The Philadelphia Citizen |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

A group of University of Pennsylvania alums are working together to combine their skills and knowledge to make 3-D printed NIH-approved face shields for healthcare workers to use during the coronavirus pandemic. After using crowdfunding to support the project, and working with healthcare workers to perfect the design, the group is now being asked to send their face shields throughout the country.

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The Precisionists pairs people with autism in jobs in which they'll thrive

Jessica Press

April 06, 2020 |

The Philadelphia Citizen |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Wilmington, Delaware

A technology service company based in Wilmington, DE hires neurodiverse employees, people with developmental disabilities, to fulfill roles that they may typically be overlooked for despite their skillsets. TPI avoids the typical hiring practices that include interviews, small talk, or eye contact. Instead, they are tested through complicated LEGO kits, allowing potential employees to shine within their comfort zones. TPI's hiring practices have been so successful that they are in the process of scaling their business to other cities in order to tap into this typically overlooked pool of candidates.

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Local banks step up in the fight to keep Covid-19 economic calamity at bay

Larry Platt

April 03, 2020 |

The Philadelphia Citizen |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Throughout the economic crash of 2008, banks were "vilified" for their response, but as the economy again teeters on crashing during the coronavirus pandemic, regulators have been able to be proactive in their approach. While several banks are making financial contributions to philanthropies, and public health efforts or creating relief funds, others have agreed to temporary forbearance on certain types of loans which enables "local business owners and workers to defer payments without penalty to the end of their loan terms."

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This virtual tip jar helps Philly out-of-work food industry employees during the coronavirus

Roxanne Patel Shepelavy

March 19, 2020 |

The Philadelphia Citizen |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

As restaurants across the nation have been forced to close their doors during the coronavirus pandemic, some are turning to creative means to help account for the loss of revenue. In Philadelphia, restaurants have created a virtual tip jar to encourage patrons to "donate a tip" to a person or business while in San Francisco a restaurant owner has created a Facebook group that helps connect out of work servers with childcare jobs.

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(Environmental) Justice for All

Courtney Duchene

March 18, 2020 |

The Philadelphia Citizen |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Serenity Soular is a worker-owned cooperative that installs solar panels in an affordable way, focusing on communities of color in North Philadelphia. They employ local residents through an apprenticeship program, training high school dropouts to install affordable clean energy options. Because the solar energy nonprofit was rooted in Serenity House, a community center, they have successfully been able to get buy-in from local residents to help bring more solar energy to their community.

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Map the Vote app finds unregistered voters in cities and helps get them to the polls

Katherine Rapin

March 11, 2020 |

The Philadelphia Citizen |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Texas

Register2Vote (R2V) identified unregistered voters in Texas and built a platform for them to fill out the form online, which R2V printed and mailed to them with a stamped envelope addressed to their county’s registrar’s office. 112,000 of the 156,000 new voters they registered voted in 2018. R2V later created Map the Vote, a nationwide crowdsourced app that maps where unregistered voters live. It also provides tools to help organizations, or even neighbors, register new voters, including scripts that people can use to start a conversation about registering to vote and respond to common voting concerns.

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Wilmington's HBCU Week gives students a leg up for college. Philly students deserve the same chance.

Katherine Rapin

February 27, 2020 |

The Philadelphia Citizen |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Wilmington, Delaware

In Wilmington, Delaware, high schools are hosting college fairs featuring historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) to introduce students to institutions of higher education that they might not otherwise know about.

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