For the past 3 years, Clayton Chandler has worked with the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s Catholic Social Services as a part of their community development program to clean up the streets of Kensington. This program works to provide street cleaning and garden organization on Lehigh Avenue, as well as Kensington Avenue and Front Street.Monday through Friday, Clayton and other members and volunteers clean up these streets, removing trash and other waste from sidewalks and corners. The area they clean is known as the “triangle”, which consists of the 2600 block of Lehigh Avenue, down Kensington Avenue and into the 2400 and 2600 blocks of Front Street.
“When I started, I was picking up about 100 needles a day from the streets. Since we’ve been doing what we’re doing, I now pick up probably 50 needles a day,” Clayton says.“We stay within the triangle right now. I wish we could do more but we stay within the mapped area for now."
This clean up program hits different streets each day, and two of those days are spend in residential blocks that sit off of Lehigh and Kensington Avenue.
Mary Zagar Brown, the Corridor Development Manager for Catholic Social Services, says this program not only cleans up the streets, but also offers to assists in the creation of green space, open space and families interested in homeownership.
“A lot of people are concerned with the amount of rental space there is in the area, and they want an opportunity to work with the diocese and the city in owning the houses and creating more space for their families.”
CSS also works with businesses in the area by supplying flyers to residence so they can become aware of a particular business. This is used to supply Kensington with more economic and financial growth
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