Residents from Mt. Airy gathered at the Richard Allen Lane train station on Sunday afternoon for a Community Planting & Pizza Day event, put on by Cresheim Village Neighbors. 

The event started off with volunteers bringing garden gloves and tools to plant native flowers and pollinators in the garden by the train station. It ended with free pizza provided by Cresheim Village Neighbors from Evo Brick Oven Pizza. 

The community organization, which started in 1988, is celebrating its 35th anniversary this year. For all 35, Steve troiman has served as the coordinator. The group conducts monthly meetings over Zoom, has an active listserv and an informative monthly newsletter, helps maintain the grounds at the Allens Lane Train Station, holds an annual porch sale, privately contracts to have their streets plowed during the winter and secures grants from the city to help fund the neighbor association, among other initiatives. 

They have been awarded by the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations for outstanding work, and by the Philadelphia Police Department for their involvement with neighborhood issues, Stroiman told the Local.

The group started out as The Mt. Airy-Nippon-Bryan-Cresheim-Durham town watch, but switched from a town watch to a neighbors association in 1998, with 300 households spanning eight blocks, 10 years into its existence.