Shameless beg for a neighborhood cause

Signal boost gratefully accepted. Click the photo, right, for more pictures -- it looked better then than it does now.

Our neighborhood has a neglected pocket park on a dark drug corner. We're applying for funds to improve it (and especially to light it up) through one of those online challenge doodads. I'd be grateful if you could go online and vote -- and also send a text message. You can vote twice a day if you do both. Last I looked our standing had climbed from 115 to 103 in three days, but we have to be in the top ten to get the $50,000. Details from an email sent around the neighborhood:

VOTE FOR A NEW PARK AT 22nd and CATHARINE STREETS!!
VISIT http://www.refresheverything.com/2200catharine every day this month to vote and tell all your friends!!

This month we are in the running for a PEPSI REFRESH grant of $50,000 to implement plans for a pocket park at 2200 Catharine Street.

The 2200 Catharine Street park is an innovative attempt by neighbors to add green public space on city-owned land. The space at 22nd and Catharine streets has long been closed to members of the public. This project will open it up to everyone, and set a template for the rejuvenation of hundreds of similar lots around the city of Philadelphia. When implemented, this park will make a dangerous corner much safer, and will stimulate the investment in the vacant commercial lots on the other corners of the intersection.

This project is the result of more than a year of partnership and collaboration between nearby residents and SOSNA to transform a small, city-owned, fenced-in lot into a public space for the whole neighborhood to enjoy. The detailed plans can be reviewed at the Pepsi Refresh page. The new park would have benches, permeable paving, new planters and shrubbery, tasteful lighting, and small children's play area. The plans include the removal of all existing concrete out to the curb to be replaced by brick, in line with Madison Square, immediately to the south.

In this economic climate, money to fund this project is difficult to secure. We've applied to multiple regional and national foundations, and the SOSNA Board has already made a generous allocation as a down-payment on the importance of this plan. Therefore, the PEPSI REFRESH initiative is but one of multiple fundraising forays, and a difficult one at that. There are 1147 other projects up for funding and only the TOP TEN in each category are awarded money.

So, please please please take the time at least once a day until Oct 1st to vote for the Park at 2200 Catharine Street!! Tell all your friends, and your friends' friends, and kids. Everyone. You can vote by:

1) Visiting http://www.refresheverything.com/2200catharine - you just have to create a quick account one time, and then each day sign in and prove you are not a robot by filing in two randomly selected, scribbly words (you likely know what I'm talking about). Then each day after you just sign in and vote - takes 30 seconds tops.

2) Text 102217 to PEPSI (73774) - no hassle. Standard fees apply but a great easy way for those who have unlimited texting - kids especially, who text like the world's on fire these days.

3) Facebook - visit the project's facebook page - and share it with all your friends, post on walls. You can also vote from the Pepsi refresh Facebook voting application.