PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Some Kensington teenagers are getting ready to cut the ribbon on their summer project: a vacant lot that they turned from a dump into a garden.
Jade Cartagna grew up in a neighborhood where illegal dumping is a chronic problem, but he didn’t just accept it.
“Before we came here, it was a trash dumping spot with just straight dirt and trash dumping everywhere,” he said.
The Edison High freshman joined Klean Kensington, which pays teenagers to clean up the area, and he worked through the summer, even at the height of the heat wave, to transform the lot at Shelbourne and Willard streets into a community asset.
“I helped plant the trees,” said Cartagna. “I also helped with the benches and the artistic butterflies we put up.”
The 16-by-60-foot lot is now a miniature urban forest with pollinator gardens and seating areas. Mahari Jacobs walks by the lot daily, but never imagined how it would change.
“It was just dirty … and then I just watched it grow into something transformative, something nice,” Jacobs said.
The teens had help from Jefferson’s Park in a Truck and other beautification groups, but they did the heavy lifting. 17-year-old Julius Sanchez, 17, is proud of the results.
“It just overall looks beautiful, the designs, everybody’s creativity,” he said, adding he felt inspired by the effort, “like we could do more, especially more for the community, to better the community. The fact that we did this, what’s stopping us from doing more?”
Cartagna admitted it was challenging, but said when he sees the neighborhood kids sitting on the benches they made, under the shade of the trees they planted, it’s more than worth it.
“I feel proud that we can come together and do things like this, and provide experience for teenagers, as well as helping our community clean up dumping spots that we have because of the environment around us,” he said. “It’s very inspiring because we’re making use of what we can do instead of standing there looking at a problem and not trying to do anything about it at all.”
