Party With Purpose

Do you really have a more important commitment scheduled for 4:00-8:00 p.m. on Sunday, March 13?

A party has been planned for you, your family and friends by a collection of your thoughtful, dedicated and conscientious neighbors.

Imagine if partying could have saved the Titanic from sinking or if partying could cure cancer. Now imagine if partying could revive the economy, rebuild community, reduce environmental damage and reverse destructive energy policies.

Attending this party could help give you some tools to transform some of today’s depressing headlines into tomorrow’s hope and security.

At least that’s among the aspirations of the worldwide Transition Movement of which Transition Cheltenham is a part. March 13 celebrates the grand launch of the local collaboration, which in recent weeks came of age as one of 80 official Transition Initiatives in the U.S. and 352 internationally. Another 360 or so communities are in pre-official stages. Transition efforts are happening in 31 countries.

Transition Cheltenham joins Denver, Los Angeles, Portland (Maine), Ann Arbor, Montpelier (Vermont), Tucson, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Palo Alto, NE Seattle, and Houston among prominent Transition communities that had already been mobilizing local sustainability efforts.

“The idea is to gather community, reach out, raise awareness, connect with groups already on the right path,” explained Beverly Maisey, an energy engineering consultant based in Wyncote and member of Transition Cheltenham’s initiating team.

Maisey recapped the one-and-one-half year process leading up to the March 13 launch party. Events included an “un-car picnic,” a “locavore banquet,” and a series of environmental workshops – for example on permaculture and on energy efficient (and even energy-producing) buildings and passive home design. “Gathering the Genius” events and “Sustainability Salons” also welcomed the ideas of all participants. Maisey estimated that 500-600 people have attended these events so far.

Kathy Hampton is Commissioner of Cheltenham’s Ward 4. She said she appreciates Transition Cheltenham’s perspective on how to change environmental habits to reduce the carbon footprint and reliance on fossil fuels. She said she hopes they can effectively educate the broader community in both environmental science and in how to make a difference at the household and policy level.

The Transition Cheltenham website – www.transitioncheltenham.org – has an impressive listing of resources, including films, to provide background information on carbon, climate, fuel, food and water, etc. The website also describes the various ongoing action committees open to all interested members of the public.

Free of charge, taking place at the cafeteria at Cheltenham High School, the March 13 party includes music, a special scavenger hunt, and of course, a cake. Guests will learn some Tai Chi and have a chance to express their creativity in the arts. They’ll feast on a potluck banquet – you’re asked to bring a dish and beverage to share, as well as your own “bowl, eatin’ irons and a cup.” The latter contributes to Transitioners’ goal of moving toward zero unnecessary waste.

Maisey emphasized that Transition Cheltenham is “all about the good of the community.”

Long-time environmental educator Judith Gratz echoed that sentiment with a metaphor about an old-fashioned bucket brigade to tame a fire. The future of a community depends on “an increasing number of people joining in and offering their ideas, skills, experience and wisdom,” she said.

“I’m eager to facilitate innovative projects such as roving work parties,” Gratz said. For example, she envisions “Cooperative gardening, in which small groups come together for a few hours to help each person with his/her garden from time to time as needed, or neighbors teaching each other simple skills – building a compost bin, and so on.” Gratz also hopes to facilitate meetings with experts on “best management practices to hold rainwater on our properties to reduce creek flooding, and then get funding to implement our plans.”

Commissioner Hampton emphasized the importance of putting theory into practice. She noted that Transition Cheltenham has some great ideas that “hopefully won’t just sit on a shelf collecting dust.”

These folks passionately believe in protecting our environment and in the power and value of community. Do you? They’re inviting you to a party. See you there.

Sunday, March 13, 4:00-8:00 p.m.

Cheltenham High School Cafeteria

(500 Rices Mill Road, Wyncote, PA 19095)

www.transitioncheltenham.org

The Party's Moving: SGS Paper Still Thrives

For real pinwheels on your toothpicks and the perfect-sized Chinese take-out box for your craft sale, or other goodies you never knew you needed, your store of choice is celebrating its new move.

Thirty-one years after the very weekend he opened his paper, invitation and party goods store in Wyncote, Barry Schwartz intends a new grand opening around February 16. SGS Paper Company has been perched since 1980 in a warehouse along the railroad track crossing where Rices Mill Road blends into Highland Avenue. Its new home is Glenside, only 1-1/2 miles northwest on Mt. Carmel Avenue, just before it hits Limekiln Pike.

Listening to Schwartz carry on about the festivities for the upcoming kickoff, you’d think he was planning a party for his beloved grandkids. Which may be the case as well. Afterall, the letters S.G.S. represent their mother’s name. Stephanie Gwen Schwartz, daughter of Barry and his wife, Monna, was very little when her eponymous store was born. (There is also a son, who became a graphic designer.) SGS remains a mom and pop place, a family enterprise, at which Stephanie now also works. Monna is the bookkeeper, who is joined in the office at least once a week by Schwartz’s 92 –year-old mother. “Her mind’s great, she looks fantastic and she still drives,” he said.

Other employees he considers family as well. “Dedicated, wonderful. No attitudes, no ego problems. We weeded all those out,” Schwartz laughed.

“It’s going to be a huge grand opening,” exuded Schwartz. “Free food, entertainment for the kids – a caricaturist, animal balloon specialist, face painters, maybe even a dunk tank! Remember those old booths you could go into, make a face and get a bunch of photos fast? We’ll have one of those,” he continued, on.

Then, he said, after they’ve re-opened, they’ll try to have these celebrations once a month. “We’re more than just a party store. We’re a fun place for children.”

Sometimes Schwartz teases that SGS means “specializing in great service.” Which is also true. Service seems to account in great part for the success of this retailer, when so few others remain standing past the first few laps.

“We try to listen to the needs of the customers. If they ask for a different line, or a particular theme, we’re happy to bring it in,” said Schwartz. “I like to think it’s the customers’ store.”

Over the years, for instance, SGS was increasingly stocking a wider selection than their competitors, and adding accessories and novel items to coordinate with an expanding array of party themes.

“You want Tikki Bar, we’ll get you your lighted palm trees,” Schwartz nailed his point.

SGS Paper typically fills 1000 helium balloons a week, he said. They do a lot of wedding invitations. They sell every imaginable size cooking tin made. Piñatas dangle from the ceiling to remind you how easy it is to party.

“We can’t make it on price alone, when there are mass merchandisers like Target, Costco and Sam’s Club,” he started outlining his apparently successful business strategy. “We need to be able to provide people with every possible color napkin, table covering, utensils, florals. Every kind and size of plastic wine glass – bowl, fluted, stems … If we don’t have it, you don’t need it.”

Another facet of his strategy is volume. Schwartz acknowledges the impact of the recession, which has cascaded from corporate downsizing and streamlined habits down the chain to caterers, restaurants and households. He says his own costs are “out of control,” with suppliers suddenly charging 15 percent more than six months ago for paper bags and some utility expenses jumping from $1600 to $2400 a month.

So he’s trading in what he calls the “air space” of the warehouse for a brighter, more accessible venue for merchandising. Most important, he’s abandoning a parking nightmare that accommodates five cars in exchange for a well-designed parking lot that holds closer to 50.

Schwartz started out working for Sweetheart paper manufacturer in Philadelphia. He eventually decided he wanted to do his own thing and started SGS Paper, aiming at both commercial and retail paper goods. Over the years, he said, he recognized an under-tapped market for retail party goods. Although he still delivers paper and cleaning supplies to commercial accounts and serves a substantial number of commercial caterers and restaurants, now 80 percent of his business is cash and carry.

This 64-year-old businessman has no plans to retire. “I love the interaction. Every day is different. It’s exciting to go to work every day.” He expects to play a larger role in the local chambers of commerce groups. And Schwartz concedes that he’s a pushover when schools organizations and scouts approach him for advertisements and donations.

“They help us make a living. We try to give back to the community,” he said.

It takes Schwartz little time to learn his customers by name, and he rarely forgets. “We are so grateful for the loyalty of our customers. I’m sure you remember your friends’ names,” he noted. “My customers are my friends.”

Community Mourns Dear Friend - Frank Sessa: 1947-2010

“You know, you do way too much of that,” Frank Sessa rebuked me, while we were chatting one day after he entered Hospice.

“Huh?” I asked, suddenly worried about what I might have done to provoke such a remark from my friend.

“Worry! You said you were worried. How does that help? Now cut that out!” he said in his crisp, authoritative way.

Sure enough, I’d been rattling on about some assignment I was working on and had mentioned a detail I’d been worrying about.

This friend never minced words. His comments were typically bold and incisive. So that particular piece of advice is among the most comforting memories I’ll always cherish.

Frank Sessa, 63, of Wyncote, chemist with multiple patents, tutor, guitarist, and 4^th Dan karate instructor, passed away on Saturday, December 18, at Keystone House Hospice after a gritty fight with carcinoid tumor disease of the liver.

“A technicality,” he might have said, while acknowledging that it was a pretty significant one. The scientist with a wry sense of humor, Sessa was employed as an applications specialist with FMC Corporation in Center City at the time of his death.

Frank Sessa was no shrinking violet. His principles were crucial to him, and if pressed, diplomacy less so.

Once in the 1980s, when walking with his wife through London’s Piccadilly Circus, Sessa noticed a gang of kids surrounding a few teen tourists from Germany. Things weren’t right, he sensed, and then realized he was observing a robbery. Recounting the episode, he told me he took off running after the thugs, “thinking ‘I hope someone else gets there first ‘cause that guy has a knife.’” Sessa did get there first, interrupting – but too late to prevent - the crime and calling attention to the need for help. “I was pissed off,” he said later about his split-second response to help strangers in need in a foreign land.

Born August 3, 1947 in Stamford, Connecticut, Sessa grew up in Bridgeport with his twin brother, Lewis, and older sisters Cathy (Hunyadi) and Cynthia (Pound). The non-shrinking violet began to bloom during his years at Trumbull High School, while working part-time at Terrace Pharmacy.

The teen loved sports, playing on whatever teams he could. Although he’d landed a spot on the school football team when he was a freshman, he was cut the next year. Devastated but determined, he tried out again his junior year, and was again disappointed.

“Perseverance,” Sessa later taught his chemistry tutees and students at Glenside Shotokan Karate Club. He tried again senior year and made the team. “After two games, I was the starter. I was both offense and defense. I was not going to be denied. I was like a crazy man,” he said.

By the time he reached Southern Connecticut State University, he was focused. Because he got A’s in his classes, he was offered jobs as biology and chemistry lab assistant. He received his B.S., graduating with department honors in chemistry, after completing the honors program in 1970. His Masters of Science in materials science (1973) followed from a fellowship program from the University of Connecticut.

He met Mary Lou at a dance when she was a freshman in college. They clicked, and after dating for four years, married in the same Connecticut church – Assumption Church Fairfield - which he later selected for his funeral Mass.

In sentimental moments, he called her a “jewel” and said, “I’d never want anyone else.”

He said that watching his daughter, Stephanie, grow into a young lady “has been a delight.” It was when Steph was a young girl that she rekindled her father’s love of music. He’d taken classical guitar lessons in college, and eventually linked up with fathers of her friends.

Mary Lou, a vocalist in bands during her own youth, joined the mature group, Mid-Life Crisis, which performed pro bono for neighborhood gatherings and nonprofit organizations in the region.

Sessa credited his brother for introducing him to karate. He was instrumental in bringing to scale the fledgling karate club at the University of Connecticut. Perhaps his favorite aspects of karate were the tenets it teaches about life. He liked the adage about getting knocked down seven times and getting up eight times. “Karate is about you. You conquering you,” he said.

Those were pieces of the philosophy that also guided his coaching of girls’ softball for six years – along with friends and neighbors Mary Ann Goss and Peg O’Rourke - for the Glenside Athletic Association.

Sessa came to Philadelphia in 1977 as a research scientist with Betz Laboratories, which is where he was involved with the work that earned the patents in corrosion and deposit control. He also worked for a number of years at Stonhard, Inc. prior to arriving at FMC.

Friends remember the many times Sessa would come to their aid – whether on house projects or in times of personal grief.

Our family recalls some years ago when he traveled down to Virginia for a weekend to guide my husband through re-flooring a room in our daughter’s home. There were countless additional examples.

With other friends, he shared their heartaches as his own.

Frank Sessa was very there for his family and friends. Fortunately, his healthy voice will remain strong in our ears and his life will remain vibrant in our hearts and memories.

In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to Fox Chase Cancer Center (333 Cottman Ave., Philadelphia, PA 19111) or to Friends of Frank & Family (c/o 114 E. Waverly Rd., Wyncote, PA 19095).

More Fitness Locally

The hope apparently is that some 9000 folks in and around Abington, Jenkintown and Cheltenham will be drawn to greater fitness. Or maybe away from other gyms?

Without fanfare, the signs were up by December 6 announcing the opening of the new L.A. Fitness at the corner where Wharton Road meets the transition from Rices Mill to Highland, a blink away from Jenkintown Road’s intersection with Baeder Road. This is the ground of the old Williard building, and where residents later opposed development proposals for a supermarket.

An official grand opening is expected to take place sometime around December 15-18, according to Manager Jay Palermo, who comes to the Abington site from the corporation’s Allentown operations.

In the meantime, the gym is open on a modified schedule for preview. On the weekday morning of my visit, the class schedule and phone links to the Healthy Lifestyles program weren’t yet up or running. However, the pool hosted a couple of lap swimmers and the fresh equipment was getting a workout by a steady stream of about 35 bodies. A tiny sampling of those suggested the gym was drawing local L.A. Fitness members who’d been trekking out to the Fort Washington and were delighted to have a facility closer to their residences.

Rasheed Jenkins is Assistant Manager of the Training Department. Among other duties, he helps coordinate assessments to link members with personal trainers. He said he especially enjoys training because of “the response I get when people see themselves getting healthier. It’s great when they see themselves reaching their goals.”

Award-Winning Literary Novelty

“Adorable” isn’t quite the description most people would give to a 38-year-old man and prize-winning author of three books. But that appeared to be the consensus of an audience of about fifty listening to Peter Manseau discussing his novel, Songs for the Butcher’s Daughter, recently at Keneseth Israel in Elkins Park.

“I’m a bit of a novelty act on the Jewish book circuit,” said the son of a nun and a Catholic priest. Which would actually make him a novelty act on any sort of circuit. He says his stock also includes French Canadian and Irish ingredients. He’s personable and grins even more impishly in three dimensions than the photo on his book jackets would suggest.

His novel – the previous books were non-fiction – is many things, though essentially a love story. It’s also a tale of immigration - out of pre-1917 Russian pogroms and into early 20^th century sweatshops and automats of New York City. Perhaps the loudest theme is the role of Yiddish – or perhaps any at-risk language – in identity and community.

The tale is spun by two narrators, a Catholic youth and a Yiddish poet. The authentic voice of the former sometimes fools the reader into needing periodic reality checks, while the historical fantasy of the latter expertly marinates the main dish.

Manseau was invited to Elkins Park by Ellen Sklaroff, retired instructor at Arcadia and educator in Cheltenham School District. The avid reader had been scouting for books to recommend to her book group, and was funneled to him by Amazon, based on her previous affinity for Junot Diaz and Nathan Englander. Intrigued, she shot him an email. He replied.

Sklaroff’s book group promptly received an early save-the-date and get-the-book notice, along with a dinner invitation to greet the author at her home.

A relatively new member of the Board at Keneseth Israel who serves on their Adult Education and Library Committees, Sklaroff arranged Manseau’s speaking engagement there.

The author subsequently accepted a speaking session with graduate students and faculty at the University of Pennsylvania for earlier in the day. He resides in D.C. with his wife – an international trade attorney – and two young daughters. Manseau occasionally teaches journalism at Georgetown and occasionally takes time from his preferred commercial book life to work on his Ph.D. dissertation in religious studies.

“The novel stirred something in me,” said Sklaroff, who has also read Vows, Manseau’s biography of his parents. “We’re used to thinking of Jews as the outsiders. It’s remarkable to have such a knowledgeable outsider provide such learned perspective.”

Manseau spent a number of years working at the National Yiddish Book Center in Massachusetts, where he thinks he was hired not because he’d graduated U Mass as a religion major, but rather because he could drive a diesel truck. “It was never a simple affair collecting Yiddish books from homes,” he explained. “A face would suddenly appear saying, ‘You look hungry. Sit, have some tea and kugel. My granddaughter will be here soon.’ ”

Manseau has studied Hebrew, Yiddish, Latin and Greek. He has read more Yiddish literature than most members of his audiences. When he speaks about tradition and transgression, he observes that the most effective transgressors are those whose actions are derived from and laden with tradition.

He also speaks about the transformative power of translation and the meaning and implications of the concept of bashert (destiny, fate).

Sklaroff was delighted, if a little surprised, that Manseau turned out to be so engaging and entertaining. “We’re lucky to have gotten him at this stage in his career. He has the capacity to become a very important person.”

No Need to Guess

Were you one of hundreds of voters November 2^nd who had no idea what in precinct they belonged?

Knowing this little detail could have saved you annoyance, embarrassment and time.

Here’s how.

You know when you show up at the polls, you sign in. Your name appears in the books of the precinct that includes the residence for which you’re registered.

The complication is that dozens of polling places host more than one precinct. You may walk into a large gymnasium, and wonder which set of tables and voting machines are yours (and why). What distinguishes them?

If you go to the wrong set of tables and books, they won’t have your name, and they may send you across the room to the other precinct.

Granted, not all voting tables have great signage announcing their precinct number. This should be improved. Sometimes they have nice maps to help you identify your residence, and this helps direct you to the correct tables and voting machines. Other times, you just try to remember which set of tables you went to at the last election, and return there.

Here’s how to avoid the guessing game. Your voter registration card has your voting precinct number on it. It’s generally part of two numbers, for example: 4-3, or something like that. The first number indicates your ward in your municipality; the second is your precinct.

If you’ve lost your card, you can get those numbers again by calling your county election board voter registration office (in Montgomery County: 610-278-3280) and asking.

Bottom line: You shouldn’t have to guess which set of tables contains the books with your name. Expect proper signage and know your precinct number.