Our Victories

Stay Tuned for our 2024 Victories Coming Soon!

THRIVE 2023 HIGHLIGHTS: CAMPAIGNS

  • Philly Thrive has TWO campaigns for the first time in our history, continuing our activism around the oil refinery land and launching our housing campaign
  • In April, we organized a day-long conference attended by 300 residents (including 100 high school students!) that featured over 30 panelists sharing education about the refinery development
  • We achieved the first in-person public meeting in South Philly with Hilco Executives present
  • We created new literature explaining what the $#@ is going on with housing Grays Ferry, circulating to the community about our biggest canvas yet – 23 canvassers and 300 new contacts. Nearly 100 residents filled out our housing survey and attended our housing public meeting in October!
  • We successfully advocated with SEPTA to keep the 12 bus line
  • We engaged in negotiations with Hilco throughout 2023, including about the CBA with support from our new legal counsel Julian Gross
  • RCO Circle monitored development projects across Grays Ferry, achieving an unprecedented agreement for $1 million in community investment for the for the the expansion of Pennovation
  • Received coverage of our organizing in 18 different press pieces, including FOX29, GRID Magazine, and a Letter to the Editor in the Inquirer.
  • Conducted nearly twenty oral history interviews with core Philly Thrive members
  • We are running a cohort that is investing deeply in the leadership of five Black Philadelphians. Over the next eight months, we’re training the cohort in media skills, and ultimately they will co-create and produce an interactive walking tour that preserves history of Grays Gerry that’s being erased by development, and presents residents visions of the future

THRIVE 2023 HIGHLIGHTS: COMMUNICATIONS

THRIVE 2023 HIGHLIGHTS: YOUTH

  • Alternatives to Gun Violence ran a youth program for the first time, engaging 12-15 year olds in community- and skill-building for nonviolence
  • WeeThrive Summer Camp supported 22 children to have a fun & enriching summer with trips to the Franklin Institute, the Philadelphia Zoo, & more
  • In its second year, the Carol Hemingway High School internship doubled in size with 11 teenage participants across Philly high schools – building organizing skills
  • The first-ever ACTivism youth program created & performed a play titled, “The Air We Breathe”
  • The Board hired three new staff members: Resourcing Coordinator, Policy Fellow, & Leadership Development Coordinator
  • We mourned the passing our beloved Ms. Jeanette Miller, holding several gatherings and a group therapy session to support our commuinty
  •  Thrivers showed up in solidarity with movements across Philly & beyond, including Save Chinatown, UC Townhomes, Chester, & Palestine
  • Received several new grants, including funding for nature trips & a women’s retreat in 2024
  • Thrives represented at NYC Climate Week, Arizona, Atlanta, Orlando, Buffalo, and Durham
  • 27 new members attended our orientation!
  • Held five tech distribution clinics where we introduced participants to Thrive and wrote emails to City Council. 80 participants walked away with computers, including 2-4 generations of several families!
  • Mutual Aid Circle gave out 150 bags of non-toxic cleaning supplies, 60 backpacks with school supplies, and 1560 bags of food
  • Our partnership with Drexel, THRIVEair, succeeded in putting air monitors up across South Philly

THRIVE 2023 HIGHLIGHTS: ORG-WIDE

Right to Breathe Campaign

  • 2016

    Southport Campaign

    As our first campaign, Philly Thrive stopped a proposed expansion of the PES refinery at Southport, a large property on the Delaware River that would have allowed PES to ship oil overseas. Through direct actions at the PES refinery, the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority, and at public meetings, Philly Thrive worked in coalition to head off the vision for fossil fuel expansion in our city.

  • 2017

    Dump Wells

    As part of a multi-issue coalition, we successfully pressured the Philadelphia City Council to end their banking contract with Wells Fargo, highlighting the bank’s investments in prisons, the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the PES refinery, as well as its racist lending practices.

  • 2017

    We Decide

    Our We Decide campaign intervened in the City of Philadelphia’s process for planning the future of our energy system, which had no intentions of engaging residents most impacted by energy insecurity & injustice. Philly Thrive engaged over 300 Philadelphians in a community survey and a town hall meeting to identify priorities for our energy future. As a result, the Mayor’s Office of Sustainability referenced our survey results in the energy planning document, and our organizing provoked an unprecedented discussion on the need to transition the PES refinery. Read our report here.

  • 2018-2019

    Pay Up PES

    Philly Thrive’s Pay Up PES campaign elevated the desire for reparations from the refinery amongst South & Southwest Philadelphians. When construction of a biogas plant was proposed for the refinery land, we trained residents up to contest the permits and demand investment into the community. We responded to further plans for natural gas expansion in South Philly by joining up with over 30 power-building organizations in the Alliance for a Just Philadelphia to put the pressure on City Council for racial, economic, & environmental justice. Through the Alliance, we were part of organizing the largest forum of At-Large City Council Candidates to date where transition of the PES refinery and a moratorium on fossil fuel development was among the top priorities being advanced.

  • 2019-2020

    Contesting for Closure

    In June 2019, a series of massive explosions at the PES refinery almost killed over 1 million Philadelphians and shuttered the refinery. This horrifying incident vaulted Thrive into a national spotlight and a new campaign for permanent refinery closure. Across generation, neighborhood, race, religion and gender, we mobilized residents to countless public meetings, empowered dozens of Philadelphians to tell our stories, and applied strategic pressure on the U.S. Bankruptcy Court’s decision regarding the future of the land. We saw the devastating effects of the City’s failure to plan a thoughtful transition, as refinery workers were laid off without benefits and pitted against impacted communities, all while PES extracted millions in bonuses for executives. Thrive members planned a bold series of direct actions and won a meeting with Mayor Jim Kenney with the goal of holding the City accountable to defending our Right to Breathe. We organized a bus to the refinery auction in New York City and on February 13th, 2020 the bankruptcy judge confirmed the sale of the site to a company who planned to redevelop the land for non-refinery uses.