South Philly Sausage Fest helps to improve the community in Newbold, West Passyunk

South Philly Sausage Fest, the new festival that happened on Saturday at Broad Street and West Passyunk Avenue, has a lot more to it than just sausage and beer.

While supporting local businesses like the soon-to-open Chaat and Chai, Grubhouse and more, the organizations behind it all also work to further improve the west-side of Broad Street, with greening, job development and more improvements.

Read more about what went into Sausage Fest from the South Philly Review:

Horizon House’s team-up with the CDC’s worked in conjunction with greening projects at some key spots along the burgeoning West Passyunk corridor: the intersection of Snyder, Passyunk and 16th Street; the war memorial at 18th and Passyunk; a small space at South Lambert Street and Passyunk Avenue; and a pocket maintained by the shopping center at 23rd Street and Passyunk Avenue.

“Every CDC has [cleaning and greening] as one of its top two or three issues,” Lidiak, who was tapped by John Longacre in 2008 to sit on the CDC board, bringing City Planning experience such as attracting the arts to South Broad St. in the 1990s, said. “To green and clean the neighborhood and improve all the public spaces, in that time we could attract private investment. There’s a stable environment now, and there’s a group that’s trying to pro- mote the neighborhood,” he added. “It takes time, we’ve been working on this for five years, but it’s now starting to bear some fruit.”

“We have a total of about 12 workers who clean ap- proximately 32 hours a week, four days a week, and it’s really been a success story,” Pam Nabried-Abdullah said of Horizon House’s team-up with Newbold CDC. “We dispel myths that people with disabilities can’t work. They can. We’ve been really well-received in the neighborhood – they come out and thank us. It’s also an opportunity to look at other venues for employment and some job devel- opment in the area.”

The Horizon House folks are dealing with intellectual and mental disabilities, but all of them have an enthusiasm for working.

Were you at South Philly Sausage Fest on Saturday?