The Borough of Yeadon Delaware County, PA is a small ever evolving diverse community suburb of the city of Philadelphia, Pa. It wasn’t always that way. In the late 1950′s and early 1960′s the community was partially segregated. Black people who applied for membership to the All White Yeadon Swim Club were denied membership. The constant denials lead to a group of local business people and residents to come together and form the Nile Swim club.

The venture became the first owned and operated Black swim club in the United States  at the time, gaining much notoriety and news headlines around the country. It was a thriving entity for many, many years. It survives barely in today’s struggling economy. On the other hand the former All White Yeadon Swim Club is now defunct having fallen on hard times and a depressed economy.

This five acre property was purchased by the Borough a few years ago for back taxes. In its day it had an Olympic sized swimming pool, club house picnic grounds and two tennis courts. Enter Jeffrey Harmon a Yeadon resident from Liberia Africa and a Tennis instructor who is also the founder for the Community Integration Program in Yeadon.

The Borough has a sizable African and African American population. Over the year’s friction because of cultural differences built up. Mr. Harmon thought that tennis might be a way to ease tensions and begin a dialog of understanding.  He hoped to use the Community Integration Program as a vehicle to bring the two groups together.

 He contacted Mr. Roy Hunter the Recreation Manager for the Borough and requested to use the two decaying and unused tennis courts at the Yeadon Swim Club property to bring the sport of tennis to the youth in the community.  Mr. Hunter indicated that the sport of tennis had not been visible in this suburban community for a number of years. Hunter remembered a discussion he had with me after my book signing of “The Games of Tennis” An African American Journey at the Yeadon Library in March, 2010, where I indicated that I had some tennis resources to help with the project through the Black Tennis Foundation of Philadelphia, Inc.

 I contacted Kitty Perrin a Tennis Services Representative for the USTA/Middle States Tennis Association. Together we planned a USTA Tennis “Block Party” for May 22, 2010. The Black Tennis Foundation furnished free tennis racquets. T-Shirts and Tennis Caps USTA offered “Quick Start” tennis short courts and wrist bands. The Yeadon Recreation Department contributed bottled water, the facility at the Yeadon Swim Club property and the circulation of flyers at key locations in the community of the upcoming event.

(See photos) http://www.photoshow.com/watch/BJ2ce3iA

The event was a smashing success. Those attending included a mixture up African and African American parents and youth. The two groups mingled freely, communicated and started an informal dialog that is the start of bridging and understanding of the different cultures and backgrounds. The Mayor of Yeadon Borough, Dolores Jones Butler a forward thinking individual learned of Arthur Ashe Kids Day at the US Open Tennis Championships in New York and initiated a bus trip for the youth that participated in the Tennis “Block Party.”

The youth and the Mayor along with some of the parents and tennis instructor Jeffery Harmon made the trip and had the wonderful experience of seeing this event. Louis Bolling, a Yeadon resident who resided in South Africa for a number of years, held tennis clinics for youth on the Nile Swim Clubs two tennis courts during the summer in conjunction with the programs that were held at the old Yeadon Swim Club property.

Mayor Butler, with the unanimous approval of the Borough Council is now planning to use part of the old Yeadon Swim Club tract to reconstruct the tennis courts and refurbish the club house with the help of the USTA, who has a program to assist communities who are promoting the sport of tennis. The benefits of playing the sport of tennis often reach beyond the physical aspects of the sport.

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Swimming pools always attract us as we can enjoy and make fun and excitement in water. But along with playing you need to be very cautious to avoid any accidents. Pools in your home or at any other outdoor places requires a fencing compulsorily. Whether it is ground level or up ground or in ground, a proper and strong pool fencing is must which prevents occurrence of unnecessary mishappenings. There are wide varieties of pool fencing options available in market suiting your budget, your styles, color combination, strength and most important your requirements.

Certain issues are meant to be considered during fencing your pools. First you need a fencing that could provide privacy for your swimming and nobody can climb it up. Fencing requires a hard surface to fix itself properly in ground to maintain rigidity for years. They are of utmost importance for maintaining safety and cleanliness around pools. Moreover they add beauty and elegance to your dull surroundings. There are many types of pool fencing available from which you can choose according to your comforts. Some of them are:

Aluminum fencing- With easy maintenance and easy availability, it provides strength and long lasting rigidity to your pools. It adds beauty and style to pool surrounding. They are coated with certain chemicals to avoid any rusting and damage due to moisture and environment changes.

Wrought iron fencing- although not in very much use these days, they were very strong and provide you complete privacy. You can do customized pool fencing with this type. Although provide much safety for your swimming pools they get rusted very easily with climate changes which reduces their usability.

Glass fencing- the most elegant and preferred choice among people. This gives an attractive look to pools along with maintaining cleanliness around it. Although a bit expensive but as they maintain the beauty of surroundings, with safe and higher durability, you can notice them everywhere in market. Glass fencing is easy to clean and some stylish glasses give a spacious feel in pools.

Mesh fencing- the greatest advantage of such fencing is it is easy to remove and fix. You can remove the fences whenever required, which make it best for house pools to avoid accidental drowning of pets and children.

Wood pool fencing- this is another very beautiful option to fence your pool surroundings. Extra care is needed to protect wood from water damage but wood gives an exclusive look with increased safety. Your privacy requirement is completely fulfilled in wood fencing.

Chain link fencing- a cost effective option with varied designs and forms proves successful for safety purposed. They are either galvanized or coated with some material.

All such different kinds of fencing provide safety for your swimming pools with certain advantages and disadvantages. Most of these fences are easily affordable with some being a bit expensive due to quality products used. These fences are easy to install and interlocking systems make it further easier. If you are not able to find any designs of your choice, you can order them from some online companies. They will make a soon delivery with installation instructions. Make yourself sure of the appropriate prices you are making them to avoid any deceit.

Whether fencing be of any type and of any price, what holds importance is the safety it provides, because nothing can be valuable than an individual’s life. So do not avoid putting pool fencing for safety and security purposes.

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The hardest part about getting into business is the startup capital that you need. Most businesses require a high initial investment that keeps many starting entrepreneurs from being able to get into business in the first place. But, the truly ingenious business ideas are the ones that allow for low startup costs and high potential income.

Looking at the many different franchise opportunities, you’ll be able to begin to see what I mean. Subway seems to top the list of best franchise opportunity no matter which list is comparing it. That’s because they have a great marketing package with a rather famous speaker who can boast of losing a massive amount of weight. New celebrities are joining the ranks and starting to do Subway commercials as well. That’s why a Subway is bound to be successful.

But, look at the startup capital you are going to need to open a Subway for yourself! The franchise fee itself is ,000. But, that’s not all! That’s just the surface. Your total investment can be as low as ,000, but it can be as high as 0,000 to get started. And then there’s the little unknown detail that is hardly advertised. A royalty of 8% is also charged for the right to have a Subway. For some people, it’s not hard to come up with that initial investment money. But for most beginning entrepreneurs, that initial investment money takes them out of the running.

For as low as about ,000, you can get started in a janitorial business that services office buildings. You’ll only need as low as ,600 for a franchise fee and then another ,300 is about as low as you can go for the initial investment for all startup supplies and everything. That’s much less than the 5,000 you would need for a Subway. But, even a janitorial service can cost a great deal to get into if you don’t have that kind of money to start up with.

Why would it be that high to start a janitorial service? You would need your own transportation to bring your services to each office you have contracts with. You would also need some supplies, which might require some major equipment. Buffers and vacuums aren’t cheap when you are talking about industrial strength equipment. Also, the chemicals and everything else you would need. Brooms, mops, mop buckets, paper towels, dustersa€¦etc. You can cut corners on some of the supplies you would need. But, it would still add up in the long run.

An art workshop center is a very low cost proposition. Especially if you would be willing to cut all the corners you can to at least get it up and running. Starting an art workshop in your own home takes most of the overhead away. With as little as a few hundred dollars, you can have all the supplies you need. Your students can be required to bring their own. But if you take tuition before class begins, you can offer your students bonus supplies to get them started and you’ll have the money to cover the expense.

Some franchise opportunities like Subway are sure bets if you have the money to get started and you are dedicated enough to stay from opening to close to grant your own success. Other franchise opportunities allow you to set your own hours and earn a high income potential while minimizing your effort like an art workshop. If you are serious about business, there will be plenty of opportunities come your way. Having a low startup cost versus high income potential will have you in business as soon as tomorrow compared to getting loans, acquiring supplies, acquiring equipment and all of the other hassles.

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When it comes to selecting a water purification technology to install at your home, there is a lot of debate about the advantages and disadvantages of using a water filtration system versus using a reverse osmosis (RO) system.

In this article, I hope to shed some light on the issue, by highlighting the top two (2) reasons why I personally think that it would be a better decision to select the water filtration system.

Chlorine removal

As you probably know, public water utilities use chlorine to disinfect our tap water. Numerous medical studies dating back to the1960s that have been published over the years, all seem to agree that long term exposure to this yellow-green compound through drinking tap water, can seriously harm our health.

In addition to the findings that chrorine is linked with atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries leading to heart attacks), what’s even more terrifying is that it is also found to be linked with certain form of cancers such as bladder, rectal and breast cancers.

Now, coming back to our water purification discussion, you should know that RO systems simply cannot remove chlorine.

This fact has to do with the way that this technology works: It uses high pressure to push tap water through a membrane that has very small pores. Whatever substance contained in the water happens to have larger molecules than the size of the pores is left in the input side, while the rest (including water) passes through.

While it is true that RO units manage to remove a large range of pollutants, nevertheless they are not successful with chlorine, simply because its molecules are physically smaller than water’s.

Unlike RO units, a water filtration system is capable of removing chlorine. This is done through entrapping (either through mechanical or chemical action) it on the medium inside the filter, which is usually carbon.

Removal of minerals

Another serious disadvantage of RO systems is that, again because of the way they work, they strip our tap water from the essential minerals (like potassium, calcium and magnesium) that it contains.

As studies have shown, long-term consumption of demineralized water poses a threat for our health.

You see, this kind of water tends to be acidic, having a pH lower than 7. This has two very harmful effects:

First, responding to the lowering of pH, our body tends to pull minerals from our teeth and bones to neutralize the acid. Thus, our body is gradually stripped from minerals that are essential for our well-being.

What’s worse, scientists claim that cancer cells grow only in an acid environment. Therefore, long-term consumption of water without minerals will probably be responsible for cancer incidents.

Water filtration systems, on the other hand, do not perform any kind of demineralization as part of the water treatment.

On my website, you will find information about the particular water filtration system that I personally recommend. Its innovative technology ensures more than 99% removal of all chlorine and its harmful by-products, while it uses an ion exchange process to enrich the mineral content of your tap water. This makes it healthier and more tasteful as well.

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Part of the value of being in Napa County is having access to the equally remarkable surrounding areas. When you are in Napa County, you are only a short drive away from an incredible amount of Northern California attractions, destinations, and cities. This includes the Northern California coastline, cities like San Francisco and Sacramento, major-league sports, national parks, award-winning wineries, natural wonders, international festivals, and headliner concerts.

Napa County may seem like a world away from civilization when you are enjoying a hike through a local park, but you can get to any major venue in Northern California in just a couple of hours.

The city San Francisco is only about an hour away from Napa COunty. Here, you can enjoy most anything that a world class city offers, and for visitors to the area, this means quite a few attractions including Fisherman’s Wharf, Alcatraz Prison and Island, the Golden Gate Bridge and Park, The San Francisco Cable Cars, China Town, Ghirardelli Square, the San Francisco Giants, Coit Tower, and the San Francisco Zoo.

North of Napa County, boating enthusiasts can enjoy Clear Lake, which is by surface area the largest lake in California. Clear lake is also believed to be the one of the oldest lakes in North America and is actually the product of a geological fluke. Also to the north is the capital of California, which is Sacramento. Located along the Sacramento River, it is the seventh largest city in California and has been named as one of the five “most livable” cities in America.

To the west of Napa County, you will find Sonoma County and the Sonoma Coast State Beach. The Sonoma Coast State Beach has long been a haven for those seeking relief from the summer heat in the Napa Valley. It is accessible by the famous Pacific Coast Highway via Coast Highway One and extends 17 miles from Bodega Head to Vista trail. Here, beach goers can sunbathe, swim, hunt seashells, fish, and picnic along the series of beaches that are separated by bluffs and headlands. Also in Sonoma County, nature lovers can marvel at the wonder of the Petrified Forest. This private park, located in eastern Sonoma County, is home to thousands of red woods that were preserved by an ancient volcano whose lava flow replaced the organic material of the trees with fine grained silicon and oxygen.

Just east of Napa County is Yolo County, which is best known for its organic farming. Like Napa County, Yolo has been contributing to the organic food revolution since the 1970′s and supplies most of the area’s restaurants and markets with olive oils, fruits, produce, meat, and dairy products. One of the great things to find in Yolo County is the fresh organic produce at the many farmers markets.

The areas that surround Napa County make it one of the best places to live in Northern California. You can find almost anything within a driving distance that you can possible imagine, or you can simply stay put and enjoy all of the amenities of Napa County.

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Drinking fruit juices help to bring vitamins and minerals quickly into your blood where they can supply what is necessary for acne free skin. Minerals quickly neutralize skin acids and bring the skin pH back to normal – slightly acidic.

Fresh juices have antibacterial action and contain digestive enzymes that help you digest protein and fat.

Because of the vitamins, minerals, digestive enzymes, pure water, and nutrients that juices have, they have the power to cleanse your body of toxic wastes.

Here are some juices to drink that will keep your face free of acne.

Apple juice

Drink at least 2 glasses of this juice every day. Apple juice has a high level of minerals and vitamins, which makes it ideal for skin health.

Apricot – berry juice

Mix equal parts of apricot and berry juice and add a little honey to taste. Drink one cup in the morning. Place the other two glasses into a thermos and drink one more glass at noon and one at dinner.

Cherry juice

Cherry juice is a powerful drink, because it has so many minerals. It will make your body more alkaline by neutralizing acid waste in the blood, in the lymph liquid and wherever it goes. It will also help keep you regular.

Lemon Juice

Lemon juice is one of the best juices you can drink for your skin health. It contains many minerals, which will eliminate acid waste. Lemon juice will help constipation, liver disorders, reduce mucus accumulation, improve digestion, reduce infections, and help to clear skin disorders like acne.

One way I use lemon juice is to squeeze the juice of one lemon into 16 oz water and drink it during the day.

Melons

Melon juice is also an excellent drink for acne. It is almost a perfect food in that it has many vitamins and minerals. It is most helpful with constipation, kidney disorders and skin disorders.

Orange and grapefruit

Prepare half and half of orange and grapefruit juice using a hand juicer. The flavor is extremely tasty. The combination of these two fresh fruits will give you a powerful start in the morning. They will give you a vitamin C boost with plenty of flavanoids and minerals.

These combined fruits will cleanse your intestinal tract, help in blood disorders, liver disorders, lung disorders and skin infections.

Orange and lemon juice

Mix 3 parts of orange juice with one part lemon juice. Add a little water and honey and put into a thermos. Drink the juice all day long for glowing skin.

Lemon juice helps the skin to rejuvenate and grow new skin. It helps the skin to flake off old skin and improve the skin’s metabolism.

Other juices to drink

There are many other fruit juices to drink. Here are a few more.

* Peach juice
* Pear juice
* Pineapple juice
* Prune juice
* Strawberry juice

Try to use organic fruit when making your juice. It is better to make your own juices since most bottled juice contain no life force or natural live enzymes. Drink the juices soon after you juice them. If you want, put them in a thermos for later in the day. If you can’t make your own juice, the buying bottle juices is second best for clearing your acne.

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What do you think? Could the above statement be true? Is tap water cleaner than bottled water sold at stores? On the weekend of August 23rd and 24th of 2008, one group of environmentalists demonstrated a readiness to give a “yes” answer to the question that headlined this article.

Who approached them with the question: “Is tap water cleaner than bottled water sold at stores?” What was their exact answer, and what facts did they offer in order to support their answer?

Actually, this one group of environmentalists, all residents of southern California, had begun explaining how they had abandoned their habit of drinking water from a plastic bottle. They did not want to drink water that contained phthalates. They had chosen instead to carry with them a metal water bottle, and to fill that bottle with drinking water.

An adult female, a woman who was helping those environmentalists with an annual PR effort, asked “Where do you get the water that you put in your metal container?”

The man in charge of that PR effort said, “Why from the tap. Tap water is as safe as bottled water.”

That man knew that most bottled water does not come from an uncontaminated spring in the wild. Most bottled water has not bubbled to the surface from a clean and pure underground source. The majority of the water bottles on store shelves hold nothing more than simple tap water.

He had probably read the report released by the Natural Defense Council in March of 1999. That report did not begin with the question “Is tap water cleaner than bottled water sold at stores?” That article did, however, have this title: “Bottled Water. Pure Drink or Pure Hype?”

That article brought to light certain important facts. It called public attention to the extent to which tap water must adhere to certain standards, standards from which bottled water has been declared exempt. The FDA has no control over the contents of bottled water, unless that water has been transported across state lines.

When bottled water does not cross state lines, then that water can contain Cryptosporidium or Giardia, two common micro-organisms. Those same water pathogens are removed from all tap water.

The report issued by the Natural Defense Council set forth two noteworthy facts:

1) It is risky to drink tap water; and

2) Bottled water is no safer than tap water.

In light of those facts, it becomes clear that only residents of a home with some type of purification system can be assured of access to pure and good-tasting water.

Growing numbers of homeowners have elected to install a device that has an activated carbon filter. When combined with ion exchange and micron filtration, those filters can bring the number of unwanted chemicals in tap water down to an acceptable level.

When a home tap does not deliver water that has contains dangerous chemicals, then the homeowner can sleep soundly at night. That homeowner knows that residents and guests in the filter-equipped home can refresh themselves with clean and safe drinking water.

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Testing For Hard Water And Water Contaminants

Author: Joel Henderson

You might be asking yourself the question, “How do I know if I have residential hard water?”  You might also be wondering, “How do I test for contaminants in my residential water system?”

Hard Water Test:

It’s fairly easy to gauge whether or not you have hard water at your residence, hard water being an overabundance of calcium and magnesium in your tap water.  If you notice mineral deposits forming rapidly in your kitchen appliances or if soap doesn’t seem to foam up very well in your sink or shower, there is a pretty fair chance you have hard water.  Other hard water indicators are a slippery, oily sensation between your fingers when holding them under running water or the heavy mineral taste you might get when drinking water from the tap.  

There are a variety of hard water testing kits available on the market to test for the exact levels of calcium and magnesium in your tap water.  The general rule of thumb is anything over 5 grains (324 mg) per gallon means you have hard water.  If you’re not too concerned with being exact but you do suspect you have hard water, you can find the relative numbers in public water surveys and reports at your local county or city government.

Testing for Water Contamination:

Testing your residential tap water for contaminants can be a fairly straightforward process as well.  Chances are if you suspect contaminants for any reason, you are probably right, and by testing you will simply be confirming your suspicions.

There are several quick tests you can perform to get an initial feel of whether or not you have contaminated residential tap water.  Smell is a big indicator.  If you get that sulfuric, rotten egg smell from your water, or if you pour a glass and see floaties or sediment, then you most definitely should look into investing into some sort of water filtration system.

If you are suspicious that you have contaminated residential tap water, some of the specifics you should test for are bacteria such as E. coli and salmonella, chemicals like arsenic and lead, or other contaminates such as viruses and microbes.  Over chlorination of residential tap water is of great concern as well, and even small amounts have been shown to be of serious health concern over time.

Going further than simple on the spot tests of your household water supply, there are several types of self-test kits on the market.  Home test kits are usually effective at giving good “within the ballpark” results, however, if you want laboratory quality test results, there are water testing companies available who will come to your home and perform extensive testing for nominal fee.  Some companies require that you package and mail a quantity of water from your tap along with specific instructions on how to collect your samples.  Professional water testing companies provide analysis and advice on possible solutions to ensure you have a contaminant free water supply at your residence.

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My spouse and I have traveled through California many times on my way to see family in Monterey.  We have traveled the “101″ up the coast from Los Angeles and have used I-5 as well.  Everywhere you go in this part of California you will see grapes grown.  California can brag that it produces about 90 percent of the total wine production in the U.S.  Many say that if California were a country it would be the fourth largest wine producer in the world behind only France, Spain and Italy.

You cannot tour California’s entire wine country in a short period; it is wide spread and with too many different wineries.   It must be broken down into logical visitation stops and with a clear base camp of operations from which to travel.  Generally, the eleven wine growing regions in California are located in the coastal counties from Mendocino County in the north to Santa Barbara County in the south.  Other wine production can be found near Lodi and in the Sierra Nevada Foothills.

One of our favorite “base camps” on the “101″ route is the town of Paso Robles about 30 miles south of San Luis Obispo.  Paso Robles was aptly named in the 1800′s because of the huge oak trees that characterize the area.  Franciscan Friars, in the late 1700′s, planted the first grape vines in the area.  Grape vines became a common addition to the grounds of early Spanish Missions that were built in the area.  As in most areas, Prohibition set the local wine industry back, but new generations of wine growers have steadily increased vineyard plantings and wine production since the late 1960′s.  There are now over 200 wineries currently operational in the area around Paso Robles.  The wine production future of the area in terms of both quantity and quality is definitely on the rise.

Key leading grape varieties include Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Merlot, Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc, Syrah and Zinfandel.  Paso Robles enjoys a long grape-growing season due to the cool nights, warm days and late season rains.  The grapes grown in this area are held on the vine typically longer than other California grape growing areas; resulting in fully mature fruit.  Soils in the area are typically high pH and are primarily derived from bedrock materials like weathered granite, volcanic rocks and various ages of marine sedimentary rocks.  Other wine growing areas outside the central coast are geologically different and most often are characterized by fertile valleys with deep loam soils.

Touring the wine country using Paso Robles as your home base is relatively easy.  A day trip could be made by heading east of town on State Route 46F.  Another trip could be planned by heading south on Highway 101 to State Route 46E.  There are literally vineyards everywhere you go.  The Paso Robles American Viticultural Area (AVA) comprises 614 thousand acres with more than 26 thousand acres in grape vines.  This AVA lies on the inland side of the Santa Lucia coastal range with its western border just 6 miles from the Pacific Ocean.  Touring wineries in the area will keep you busy but the beauty of the landscape around you will keep you smiling.

Visiting Paso Robles will definitely result in your adding some new wines to your favorites.  As I always say, buy the wine you like, store wine properly in a wine cooler, serve it at the proper temperature and enjoy it immensely.

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