It’s tough being a teenager in modern society. It’s crushing being a teenager in Kensington- a community at the epicenter of the opioid and gun violence epidemics, seeped in intergenerational poverty, and in a system unprepared for complex challenges. Philly Bridge & Jawn, PB&J, aims to address the unique challenges faced by young people ages 12 to 19 in our community, particularly those who have experienced trauma and disconnection.
PB&J is an after-school cooking program that connects youth to caring adults, local opportunities, and essential resources while teaching life skills around food preparation, nutrition, self-care, and safety. Our innovative Cook, Eat, Connect, and Get Paid model combines contemporary, evidence-based educational and psychological techniques with the timeless wisdom about the peacemaking power of food. Through consistent engagement and a relationship-first approach, we ensure that no young person falls through the cracks of our system.
Our founder, Bryan, has worked in the community for almost 10 years. He began running after-school programming at McPherson Square Library and loved working with young people and community members. PB&J is a continuation of this work and this love. While still in the idea phase, the community chose PB&J for a ’23 KCR Fund Grant. With that community support, PB&J ran two 5-day pilot programs The success of those programs inspired us to plunge forward with regular program offerings. The community again showed faith in our organization granting us a ’24 KCR Fund Grant. Those funds let us launch our formal mental health programming and helped us build capacity.
Since August of ’24 (less than a year into our existence), we have had weekly programming on Sundays from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. The program started with space for 15 teens in a first come/ first serve format. The program is extremely popular and teens arrived earlier each week in hopes of securing a spot. By December, teens would arrive before noon and wait 4 hours. To address the high demand, we launched a weekly leadership training program on Wednesdays from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. In January, some of our teen leaders started graduating becoming station leaders, helping us expand our capacity on Sundays to 23 teens.
With further support from the community, PB&J continues to grow our capacity with daily programming as our goal. With all the chaos of the streets, our youth deserve more calm, stable, and nurturing spaces.
