The Great Philadelphia Cleanup Day: A story in words, images and video.

For the first time, Heather Craig and Julia Hoff from the Drexel University Film Department went out to document the cleanup for PhillyEcoCity.com. See their video right here.

Two lines in the city tally of the Great Philadelphia Cleanup Day caught my attention:

- 200 Community organizations involved

- 14 Churches or faith-based institutions involved.

I think the impact of the Great Philadelphia Clean Up Day goes far beyond the statistics tallying the outcome of the operation. In my experience, the Great Philadelphia Clean up Day was a community building event.

I was assigned to the Simons Recreation Center in the Ogontz Section of the city. I got there and landed in a crew who was cleaning a long block of Walnut Lane bordering the sport fields of the Simons Recreation Center. Carl, Malcolm and myself discussed the finer points of comparative religion while picking up trash along Walnut Lane.