Grassroots Culture
Not every Philadelphian eats out or goes to the theater, but most Philadelphians participate in local and community activities and organizations. Block parties and yard sales abound on weekends. Philadelphia has vibrant local markets, such as the biweekly market in Clark Park at 43rd and Baltimore, where local farmers sell produce and artists and antique collectors show their wares. Philadelphia is also home to food cooperatives such as West Philly's Mariposa.
Environmental preservation and maintaining local connections are important to many Philadelphia communities. Many Philadelphians choose bikes over cars, and car-rental organizations like PhillyCarShare have reduced the number of cars in the city. Philadelphia has a thriving horticultural community and numerous community gardens.
Philadelphia has a long history of graffiti culture. The Philadelphia Anti-Graffiti Network, which gave way to the Mural Arts Project, has reduced the incidence of graffiti, but South Street is full of graffiti, and writers still perform their craft, legally and illegally, on walls throughout the city.
Philadelphia has thriving non-profits in all areas of community service. Books Through Bars, which collects books to distribute at prisons, started in Philadelphia. Philadelphia is home to one of the largest National Network for Abortion Funds (NNAF) and the Women's Medical Fund. Philly Fellows, started in 2005, have been focusing efforts on "building capacity in the non-profit sector." Philadelphia also has important faith-based organizations.
Read more about this topic: Culture Of Philadelphia
Famous quotes containing the word culture:
“Here is this vast, savage, howling mother of ours, Nature, lying all around, with such beauty, and such affection for her children, as the leopard; and yet we are so early weaned from her breast to society, to that culture which is exclusively an interaction of man on man,—a sort of breeding in and in, which produces at most a merely English nobility, a civilization destined to have a speedy limit.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)