Maleka at Maplewood Mall. (Photo: Rasheed Z. Ajamu)

Reasons to be Proud

2025 has been very busy but really fulfilling for me in my work as a community organizer and reporter for Germantown Info Hub.

I’m really proud of the way our small team has branched out to try and cover as many parts of the neighborhood as possible, and reach out to folks we haven’t talked to before.

This year was the first time we tabled at Careerlink Philadelphia as part of one of their job fairs, talking to neighbors who never heard of us, and also the first year we tabled at the Pulaski Block Sale. We also started our G-Town Text Line, and worked on multimedia ways of telling stories, producing great videos, and social media by Rasheed and Pryce.

I’m feeling grateful for the ways our neighborhood has shown up for us, and for each other.

Top Three Stories

I really loved so many stories that Germantown Info Hub covered this year, but I picked three of my favorites. They include mentorship and the ways in which our community builds each other up, even after and through struggle. They connect through food, or fitness, or just conversation, and in the end, not all our problems have been solved, but the people working together in the stories are making others feel seen and heard.

1. ‘LONG LIVE NARD’: How one man seeks to fight gun crime through fitness in his brother’s name
2. A Labor of Love: A Look at Men Who Care’s Real Talk program
3. At the Crossroads Women’s Center, food isn’t just ingestible, it’s actionable

Top Three Engagements

It’s been a busy year! It feels like Germantown Info Hub has been everywhere. And that makes sense — on busy days when multiple things are happening, we have our small but mighty team branching out and each hitting up different events and meetings. 

I loved starting 2025 with three months of listening sessions throughout the neighborhood with organizations like West Central Germantown Neighbors, Why Not Prosper, Center in the Park, Northwest Victim Services, and more, all talking about what they would find helpful and valuable to them in a community text line. The G-Town Text Line has been running since mid-June, and this fall we’ve been following up with organizers, engaging with folks at different festivals, and getting more people signed up for our weekly messages. 

I also really enjoyed the weather and vibes at the annual fall bazaar run by Friends of Vernon Park; always a good time. And it was great to meet the owner of INIK Boutique in East Germantown and talk to families getting ready for school at a Back to School giveaway hosted by State Rep. Andre Carroll. 

Top Three Neighborhood Themes

Collaboration

Community leaders and community organizations across the city and here in Germantown are leaning hard into partnership, knowing that our resources and our strength as a community are much more powerful when pooled together. I’ve seen gun violence prevention advocates working together on so many different programs, small business owners thinking of innovative ways to build their customer base collaboratively, and artists creating projects on teams. 

Archiving as a neighborhood anchor to solutions

Coleman Library has been producing excellent programming all year on how archiving is a living and present practice that can anchor us into the solutions we are looking for to our current problems. Germantown Info Hub’s collaboration with Chalkbeat Philadelphia on what past school closures can tell us about present-day school challenges was a great example of this.

Community Resilience

More and more, I see organizations and organizers across the board working on sustainable ways to be resilient in the face of adversity and crisis, and with good reason. Climate change is real, and it’s coming, and Germantown is already prone to flooding in specific areas of the neighborhood. I see more and more neighbors, especially our friends at GREAT, prepping and building out community resilience action plans that are preparing our blocks for a very realistic future where we need to be more resilient than ever. 

Enjoyed our content or presence this year? From now through Dec. 31, Germantown Info Hub is raising $14,500, alongside Resolve Philly — and every gift is matched dollar-for-dollar through NewsMatch. Your support helps us keep reporting with our neighbors, not just about them. Give here.