ABOUT AWF > Partners

We could not accomplish our mission without a strong network of partners both inside out community and throughout the region. We take great pride in our relationships with other neighborhood groups and institutions, including Tasty Baking, 22^nd Street Business Corridor, schools, the Neighborhood Transformation Initiative, the Department of Community Economic Development, and community resident groups, including civic organizations and churches.

Some of our key partnerships include active civic associations such as Community Action Group, RAH Civic, North Penn Civic and Woodstock Civic, who have a long relationship with the neighborhood’s other core institutions including employers, churches and city offices. They help keep us focused on genuine community needs.

The AWF relationship with Tasty Baking is also a core partnership that links the power of a community-oriented nonprofit with a major corporation that cares deeply about the future of the community surrounding it. By combining corporate muscle with a grounded vision of the needs of local residents, we are able to keep community development projects moving through the many barriers of political, economic and social challenges.

We also work cooperatively with established service and business organizations such as:

City Year
The North 22^nd Street Merchants Association
The Hunting Park West - Germantown Business Association
The Mural Arts Program
Philly Green
The Martin Luther King Center for Non-Violence

Our affiliated advisory and governance boards include a wide cross-section of leaders from the local business, banking, education and civic community, including:

Rev. A. W. Dock, Pastor, Berean Baptist Church
Ray Desiderio, Senior Vice President, PNC BANK
Pauline A. Grier, Woodstock Civic Association
Alvin B. Little, Fe-Male Fashions
Charles Pizzi, President and CEO, Tasty Baking Company
Constance N. Scott, Assistant Area Director, United Negro College Fund
Elliot Shelkrot, President and Director, Free Library of Philadelphia

In addition to these economic development goals, we are building strong partnerships with the local police and administrations of local schools, including Gratz and Dobbins high schools. Because we have built very strong relationships with agencies such as City Year, Philadelphia Cares and Timberland Corporation, we are able to mobilize manpower for community service projects, creating tremendous potential to address major issues like lack of tutoring in the schools and the need for a safer, cleaner community.