Week 2: Our first site visits!

This past Monday we went to our first offical site visits. I don't even know how to begin to put our experience into words! We visited two sites, and the first was Fairmount Park Conservancy! We met with Adela, Luke and Ellen. Who knew that that the conservancy was so versatile? They do so many different things to make us look at parks in new and invigorating ways. (Art, Shows, Events, etc.).They believe that nature is important to the urban communities, and Fairmount Park is one of the largest urban park areas in the world with a history that few of us even know about. We learned about the Boxers Trail and Joe Frazier's story also that 9 parks make up Fairmount Park! I can not think of a better way to get together to explore, exercise , or just simply take a load off alone or with the family.

Our second meeting of the day was at Little Giant Creative to have a interview with Tayyib Smith. Tayyib considers himself a “serial  entrepreneur” Which is evident in his present and previous endeavors which include: Pipeline Philly, Little Giant Creative, The Institute of Hip Hop Entrepreneurship, Co-publisher of 215 Magazine, and also a music promoter for over 10 yrs. Tayyib graciously sat down with us and gave us some insight on his process  and also allowed us to ask him questions about his life, career, success and failures. When I asked him “When was the moment you knew you made it?” he replied “ I still haven't made it!” Which I personally found to be very humbling. Sitting in a conference room overlooking City Hall and the City of Philadelphia was extremely inspiring and ground breaking to 4 individuals who have previously been incarcerated.

Written by Lindsey Massarelli