All the buzz around America’s upcoming 250th birthday has had me thinking about our own shared history here in West Mt. Airy. On a mission to learn more, I recently spent the afternoon at Temple University’s Urban Archives — if you haven’t been, it’s a treasure trove — and I stumbled onto boxes and boxes of WMAN’s early ephemera. Looking through it all felt like flipping through a family album.

The faces, the gatherings, the newsletters, the hand-drawn flyers… they were touching, funny, and so familiar. Digging into those thousands of documents dating back over six decades, what really struck me was how clearly today’s WMAN carries forward the same values our neighbors first championed in 1959.

My guess is that if you make West Mt Airy your home, it revolves around some of the themes depicted here -- the sense of community, devotion to diversity, green spaces, walkability, quality of homes, proximity to transit, strong public schools -- so many of the aspects of our social, physical and natural environments that WMAN works on so tirelessly on your behalf, and on behalf of the 15,000 households that we serve.

Please know that we aren’t just looking to the past, but also planning for the future. We are in the early stages of establishing our roadmap for 2026. In addition to continuing our current initiatives, we’re also working toward creating the Mt. Airy Safe Home Coalition to help neighbors age in place, assisting in the development of a stewardship plan for Carpenter’s Woods, convening community conversations regarding development pressures, and making streets safer to cross with eye-catching crosswalk projects, so stay tuned!

WMAN is the only organization devoted solely to this magical little corner of the world, and we need your support to keep doing what we’ve been doing since 1959. So please get involved, donate, or join WMAN today — visit wman.net or email me, josephine.winter@wman.net.

Thank you, and I hope to see you around the neighborhood.