A THOUSAND WORDS: Springtime Santas

Natasha Bogan's West Philadelpia home is similar to all the other row houses on the street. It has quaint detailing around the bay window on the second floor, a front porch and is even directly across the street from a church. But Bogan's house is not like all the other ones on the street. A short time ago, it shared its front porch with a crack house, where drug use was rampant and prostitution common. "There were people always coming in and out," said Bogan, a 10th grade student at Martin Luther King High School. "I'd get up at five in the morning to go to school and I'd hear all these noises. I'd be scared to get out of my bed." But now, Bogan has a new next door neighbor. Volunteers from the Christmas in April program, which renovates houses in cities across the country, converged on the house Saturday morning. According to Lou Visco, a co-founder of the Philadelphia Christmas in April program, over 1,500 unskilled volunteers and 150 skilled Physical Plant workers from the University, renovated 32 houses with donated supplies on Saturday. They renovated 22 houses in West Philadelphia and 10 in North Philadelphia. Almost half of this year's volunteers were Wharton MBA students. The program, which began as an exclusively Wharton and Physical Plant program, has expanded to other universities as well as private businesses, said Mayor Ed Rendell, who visited the former crack house during the renovations. Visco, director of maintenance and utilities for Physical Plant, said that since he began the program in 1988, its scope and the level of participation have grown dramatically. "Once we started it the first year and saw the smiles on people's faces, we really got into it," he said. According to Visco, the Christmas in April program does more than renovate houses such as the one on 53rd street, which will eventually become a community center. It also renovates houses belonging to Philadelphia residents who can no longer take care of necessary repairs. Visco said houses that are chosen for renovation receive "everything from plumbing, painting and windows to electrical wiring." Volunteers visited the houses many times to assess the work and necessary supplies and to clean out their contents. Wharton graduate student and house co-captain Stephen Bratspies said that he prepared for Saturday's renovation by clearing out dilapidated furniture and other trash. An enormous dumpster in front of the house contained everything that could not be salvaged, while the furniture in better condition was loaded onto Physical Plant pickup trucks. Bratspies said that by the end of the day the house should be "serviceable" with renovated "walls, ceilings and paint." According to Philadelphia Police Captain John McGinnis of the 18th district, "crack cocaine and prostitution" were common at the house on 53rd Street. McGinnis said that young women would "sell themselves for three dollars," the price of a vial of crack. After the police made a series of narcotics arrests at the site, McGinnis said, a letter was sent to the house's owner stating that "if the narcotics sales continued, we'd seize his house under Pennsylvania state forfeiture laws." The drug activity continued, he said, and an advisory council was asked to "find someone to take the house and make it useful." The council contacted Visco and arranged for the renovations. McGinnis said that the house, which has been given to area churches, will be used for a number of programs. A retired teacher will organize a program for latch-key children on the second floor, he said. It will also serve as a center for community groups. "There will also be programs for drug abuse education . . . which will make the house the exact opposite of what it was," McGinnis said. Rendell said that while he believes the program benefits the residents whose homes are renovated, it is "even better for the people who volunteer." "I've tried to get people in this city to understand that the government isn't going to do it all by itself," Rendell said. "The people who roll up their sleeves are the ones who help the city, especially the neighborhoods that need it."