Preston’s Paradise is a resource center for improving community health, happiness, and sustainability. Our mission is to assist groups of neighbors in increasing their own self-sufficiency and inter-reliance.
The name Preston’s Paradise started a few years ago when some of our neighbors were sitting around admiring the fine work they’d accomplished on Preston St. in West Philadelphia.
“This is like paradise!”
Now we’re taking that feeling and spreading it to other blocks.
We operate in four main programmatic areas: food security, neighborhood beautification, natural building, and energy conservation. But primarily we work at being good neighbors with skills and a community to share.
Current projects include:
- hosting a weekly farmer’s market to increase awareness of fresh fruits and vegetables
- our community meals series featuring local chefs with local ingredients
- organizing weekly trash clean-ups
- facilitating mural painting and graffiti removal projects
- managing a revolving community fund
- supplying vegetable and flower starts to neighborhood green spaces
- coordinating 3 community garden sites
- hosting workshops in approachable technology, environmental stewardship, and self-sufficiency
- operating a demonstration site featuring the city’s first functional greywater system; passive and active solar utilization, an intensive backyard agriculture project, alternative heating systems, material reuse, and environmentally friendly building products
- urban agriculture and natural building consultation and building services, and
- supporting the OURfarms backyard agriculture community
Preston’s Paradise is an all-volunteer project and relies heavily on community involvement. Most of our projects are financially self-supporting, but we depend a lot on individual monetary and material donations to support our outreach into neighborhoods and initiate new programs. To donate, click here.
Everyone is welcome at our events. Please contact us for more information, or to begin a dialogue on how we can work together.
To join our events listserve, simply send a blank email to prestonsparadise+subscribe@googlegroups.com.
Using our bodies, sharing our food – simple things that unite us all.
Preston's Paradise 