ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME: Earlier this year Nancy Small of Oreland taught conversational English in South Senchi, Ghana, as a volunteer, a once-in-a-lifetime experience. You, too, can have an unforgettable, ever-enriching experience like Nancy’s. To learn more, see the article on page 21. (Photo by Global Volunteers)

FAIR TRADE AT INFUSION: Jason Huber, owner of InFusion Coffee and Tea, 7133 Germantown Ave., and Equal Exchange rep L.J. Taylor present the new organic fair-trade coffee, ‘Independents Peruvian Select.’ The Independents Coffee Cooperative began informally in 2003 when four independent, fair-trade coffeehouses in Philadelphia realized they could have a greater impact on “people, profit and the planet” if they worked together. They currently have six members who represent nine stores in the city. For more information on coop members and locations, visit www.independentscoffee.com. For InFusion, call 215-248-1718.

IS THIS THE ONLY ELEPHANT LEFT IN PHILADELPHIA? No there is another one. Sara Steele is the artist who did this elephant. I met her down the street at Weavers Way. She was happy to see it in a house with children.” Mary Halfpenny, mother of Jude, shown here with “Exuberant Elephant,” Mt. Airy.

GFS 10th Grade Tours Harlem The Germantown Friends School tenth grade recently spent a day in Harlem. “A study of the Harlem Renaissance has long been a part of the tenth grade English curriculum,” explains teacher Yolanda Palacio of Germantown. The students examine the early work of writers Wallace Thurman, Langston Hughes, and Zora Neale Hurston; study the blues song as a poetic form while hearing the work of musicians such as Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, and Bessie Smith. “I wanted our tenth graders to have the experience of walking the same streets as Hughes and Hurston,” explains Palacio, who organized the trip to Harlem with the help of other GFS faculty. Pictured are sophomores Natalie-Rose Sampson of Mount Airt, Kofi Brooks of Logan, Desiree Grant of Logan, Renee-Bonita Johnson of Germantown, and Maya Williams of Mount Airy in front of one of the celebrity murals at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem.

Springside student submits abstract
Springside senior Alexandra Levitt just found out that her summer research work for the National Institutes of Health at Research Triangle Park will be submitted in abstract form to the American Thoracic Society international conference to be held in San Francisco – exciting news for a high school student, especially when her name is the first one listed! Levitt is no stranger to independent research work, having focused on gene expression in mice for Genaera Pharmaceuticals, Inc. for a six-week internship in summer of 2005. This summer’s internship took her to North Carolina for eight weeks where her project was an expansion of the previous one, but broader in scope and more sophisticated due to the resources available at an institution like the NIH.
Levitt worked in a large lab at NIH with 15 postdocs and fellows from the United States, Korea, and England. She presented her lab updates in meetings just like the others and to the lab chief, Dr. Stephen Kleeberger, Chief of Laboratory Respiratory Biology. She