Community members clean up broken glass on June 1 outside a McDonald’s and other businesses on 52nd Street in West Philadelphia.
While walking her dog early on June 1, Una Massenburg spotted debris and merchandise scattered near the City Avenue Shopping Center in the Overbrook section of West Philadelphia, where stores had been damaged the day before following a weekend of protests against police killings and systemic racism. As she walked, she also saw people with brooms and garbage bags cleaning — and when she got home, she knew what she was going to do next.
Massenburg, who is Drexel’s director of Travel & P-Card, met up with a fellow Procurement Services colleague, Strategic Sourcing Specialist Charlene Rice, and they worked for four hours to remove shattered glass and trashed goods outside of impacted businesses.
That same morning, other Drexel faculty and professional staff from the Office of University and Community Partnerships were offering their services to businesses along the 52nd Street corridor near Market Street, where on May 31 the scene was filled with tear gas and property damage. Less than two weeks later, Massenburg and Rice were joined by two more colleagues from Procurement Services — Director of Supplier Inclusion Allen Riddick and Director of Disbursements and Surplus Services Bo Solomon — at an event hosted by the Urban League of Philadelphia to help clean up the area around 52nd and Market streets.
The 52nd Street corridor is a busy commercial avenue in a predominantly Black neighborhood located west of Drexel’s campus. It is home to a mix of small, often minority-owned businesses as well as chains such as Foot Locker and McDonald’s, and it has been a locus of efforts to beautify and revitalize street life. On May 31, it was one of the city’s streets hit by conflict in a series of ongoing demonstrations, rallies and marches in protest of the May 25 death of George Floyd while in police custody in Minneapolis. In Philadelphia as in other cities, civic action related to Floyd’s death has been a complicated mix of sometimes-peaceful and sometimes-confrontational actions by disparate members of the public and by police as the movement has grown into an international societal reckoning aimed at redressing systemic racial inequities.
For individual shopkeepers, the movement has had collateral consequences, with locally owned businesses experiencing vandalism, looting or street closures on top of losses caused by the pandemic. In late October, anger erupted in the city again, with damages on the same street, following the shooting of Walter Wallace Jr. by police in West Philadelphia.
“I just felt like I had to help where help was needed,” Massenburg says. “Your heart goes out to the people who have been here for the community. These are livelihoods that were impacted by people who don’t realize how their actions impact the whole sum.”
Community cleanups are just one of the ways Massenburg and her colleagues demonstrate solidarity with the community, and Procurement Services is just one Drexel unit helping West Philadelphia businesses weather recent events. Over the years, the University has built community engagement into its volunteerism, academics, partnerships, strategic plans, social gatherings — fostering opportunities to meet up and connect with the neighbors adjacent to its campus.
“We didn’t just suddenly jump into action these last few weeks,” says Jennifer Britton, director for communications and special projects in the Office of University and Community Partnerships. “This is a set of business supports and relationships that we’ve been building and cultivating for almost 10 years.”
Drexel was already working with some local businesses that were suffering from stay-at-home closures or diminished sales as a result of the pandemic. Those efforts include building websites, supporting business plans, and assisting with marketing and branding.
More recently, Director of Workforce and Economic Inclusion Soneyet Muhammad in the Office of University and Community Partnerships helped Kline School of Law volunteers staff an insurance pop-up clinic for business owners filing property claims.
“The damage done to several commercial corridors we represent is severe and many of our businesses are on the edge of closing permanently,” says Jabari Jones ’16, founder of local business association West Philadelphia Corridor Collaborative. “In these challenging times, I am thrilled that Drexel has made this commitment to boost support for local businesses and continues to support us in efforts to rebuild quickly.”
In June, the Office of University and Community Partnerships also contributed $5,000 to the Lancaster Avenue 21st Century Business Association’s fund to support businesses near or on Lancaster Avenue (from 34th to 44th streets) and Market Street (from 34th to 38th streets).
“This is an opportunity for us to show we mean it when we say, ‘We stand with you in solidarity,’” says Muhammad. “It means we recruit volunteers to help folks rebuild after disaster. We give money to help small businesses rebuild. We share our time, talent and treasure, and we’re doing all of these things to make sure that we work as a neighbor, as a partner and as an anchor institution to rebuild the communities we collectively value.”
In addition to providing external support, the University has also been working over the years to build its internal institutional investment in civic engagement — that means buying local, hiring local and building local not just at Drexel, but also with Drexel partners and vendors.
Protesters and police faced off at 52nd and Chestnut streets in West Philadelphia on May 31, 2020.
In 2018, Associate Vice President of Accounts Payable & Procurement Services Julie Jones was brought in to better align Drexel’s purchasing practices with a “buy local” mentality, both through direct purchasing and by offering local businesses mentorship and connections to other opportunities.
When spending tightened due to the coronavirus, her team became even more strategic about what to buy and who to buy it from. In June, Procurement Services accelerated the University’s payment terms to businesses in need of immediate payment for their services. And Drexel Surplus strategically aligned with the Enterprise Center, the People’s Emergency Center and other local nonprofits to donate Drexel’s gently used office equipment to businesses.
“With the most recent events within West Philadelphia, it’s been a complete acceleration in regards to the care, intent and even financial commitment as people are really beginning to open up to change,” says Procurement Services’ Riddick, who oversees the University’s Supplier Inclusion Initiative to develop partnerships and arrangements with diverse businesses.
“We’re also reaching out to some of the larger suppliers that we work with to say, ‘Hey, how can you help out or what can you contribute to West Philadelphia? Our community is important to us and needs to be important to you, too,’” explains Riddick.
At the start of the pandemic, he started a monthly call with peers at more than a dozen colleges and universities to discuss how universities can help their local diverse businesses recover. He sponsors similar discussions with other large Philadelphia institutions who are members of Philadelphia Anchors for Growth and Equity initiative, of which Drexel is a founding member.
“We understand that all of our work alone isn’t enough to play a part in economic impact and economic equality, so we’re working together with other institutions to find and help navigate relationships with those businesses,” Riddick says. “A large part of what I do is really about connecting good people together.”