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Lincoln University announces new plans for event safety following homecoming shooting last year

Lincoln University at its board meeting Saturday announced new safety plans for large events after the on-campus shooting at homecoming last October that left one dead and six others shot.

No outdoor events will be permitted after dusk, and events will be held within “a controlled environment” so that guests can be screened, Lincoln University Police Chief Marc Partee told the board. The university will employ a zone plan for security with help from Chester County emergency management, the Pennsylvania State Police, and Lower Oxford Township, and at the upcoming Spring Fling event, only one registered guest will be permitted per student, Partee said.

University officials did not say at the meeting when Spring Fling would be held this year — Partee did not return a call for comment Sunday — but it’s typically in April.

Lincoln University is facing pressure from its Chester County neighbors after homecoming shooting

“We’ve … cultivated those relationships that were sorely needed in this area so that we can do what we need to do and protect our students and keep the community itself happy about what we’re doing,” Partee said.

Lincoln, a historically Black university with 1,650 students in rural Chester County, has been under pressure from its neighbors and Lower Oxford Township to make changes since the Oct. 25 homecoming shooting. Several officials in Lower Oxford had reported ongoing problems with parking, trash on neighbors’ lawns, disturbances, and, in some cases, crime when the university hosts events. After thousands gathered for homecoming, emergency personnel had to use all-terrain vehicles to transport patients on stretchers because ambulances could not access the campus, given how many cars were parked around the venue, they said.

The township’s board of supervisors has been discussing a plan to enact a special events ordinance. A vote could come as soon as the supervisors’ March meeting.

Lincoln University is conducting an ‘after-action review’ after fatal Homecoming shooting

Andrew Cope, who lived near Lincoln for nearly two decades and still owns property there, said Lincoln’s plan is “progress compared to past years,” but that concerns remain. He said there should be screening at the university gates, not just at the entry to an event, and that there was no indication as to how parking and trash will be managed.

A strong events ordinance is still needed with a permit process, he said.

“I am encouraged that we have seen a plan come out of the university,” he said. “I need to give them credit for doing something. I’m pleasantly optimistic … but I would still like to see some of the T’s crossed and I’s dotted.”

Partee said the new plans followed a meeting earlier this month between about 30 people from Lincoln, local and state law enforcement, emergency management, and the township. The Chester County district attorney and county detectives also participated, he said. And the collaboration will be ongoing, he said, as Lincoln plans for other events, such as homecoming

“We’re getting a lot more resources, a lot more collaboration,” Partee told the board.

But he said Lincoln ultimately has control over the plan.

“We’re not stepping back and saying, ‘We had this immense tragedy. Come in and take over,’” he said. “This is still our legacy.”

The plans also include input from the Student Government Association, he said.

Events after dark would be moved indoors, he said, noting issues that have arisen after dark at outdoor university events.

“What you’ll see is, and something that I saw, the crowd changed as the sun went down,” Partee told the board. “Our family started leaving. Other people started coming in.”

He noted potential sites for outdoor events, such as the auxiliary field with a fence.

“We’re able to control access to the fence, which means we can screen people coming in,” he said. “We have wands, all of these things that we can put in place to protect the event. We’re working on not having just a free-for-all because free-for-all gives people the impression that they can come here and do whatever they want to do.”

A sign for Lincoln University on its campus in Chester County.

He said events will be more structured, noting that students are talking about “zip lines and food trucks” for Spring Fling.

As for the zone security, Partee said his university police and security would man the “center ring” or “hot zone” for Spring Fling. The outer ring will be covered by Pennsylvania State Police, which have allocated 10 troopers that will be deployed in two-man teams, he said.

Other patrols will be stationed at areas outside the university gates to monitor illegal parking and other issues, he said. And Chester County, he said, has offered its mobile command post where cameras placed strategically around campus can be monitored and all radio communication can be patched together on one channel, he said.

“We’re going to have somebody dedicated to just watch cameras from Chester County Emergency Management,” Partee said.

For larger events, such as homecoming, more safety personnel will be deployed, he said.

“We’re able to scale it up and down,” he said of the plan. “Spring Fling will be our test case.”

February 22, 2026
Chesco towns are among the Philly area’s wealthiest, but big Bucks County is making gains

It abuts an internationally famous garden. It may well be the most affluent community in the nation that hosts a prison, a source of some unwanted attention a few years back.

And, according to recently released U.S. Census data, picturesque Pocopson Township is in a rarified zone for wealth in the eight-county Philadelphia region, with an annual median household income of $230,000.

Chester County towns dominated the top 50 list in an analysis of incomes in the region’s municipalities — compiled from self-reported American Community Survey data — calculated for the five-year period that ended in 2024.

But the analysis also showed that not only has Bucks County been gaining star power, some of its towns may merit the label “Big Bucks County.”

Legendary locale New Hope and neighboring Solebury — places associated with Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alumna Yolanda Hadid and actor Bradley Cooper — are among the towns that have made significant moves up the income chart, compared with the five-year period that ended in 2014.

Inflation-adjusted median annual incomes jumped 58% in New Hope, to $175,000. Incomes were up nearly 30% in Solebury, to $196,000, among the highest in the region.

The national median income was around $80,000, according to census figures.

Income figures are estimates, rounded to the nearest hundred, and are subject to margins of error. A total of 286 municipalities were included in the analysis; those with fewer than 2,500 residents were excluded. Here are some key findings.

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Chester County still has the wealthiest towns

Chester County towns held six of the top 10 spots, including Birmingham, adjacent to Pocopson.

The county evidently is rich in an amenity attractive to the wealthy — and to others.

“Chester County has been a leader in terms of the amount of land preserved,” said Andrew Svekla, Office of Smart Growth manager with the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission. “The availability of open space is an amenity that everyone is looking for.”

While the natural environment is an understandable attraction, not everyone who spends time in Pocopson comes for the green space: The Chester County Prison has been a mainstay in the township since 1959.

In August 2023, Pocopson and Longwood Gardens became international news when inmate Danilo Cavalcante escaped and set off a two-week investigative frenzy that mutated into a massive exercise of Where’s Danilo? He spent time hiding in Longwood and was eventually captured in South Coventry Township, about 20 miles away.

Otherwise, the likes of Pocopson and Birmingham have not exactly been centers of media attention, and the towns even have avoided the development-vs.-open-space conflicts that have erupted elsewhere, said Matthew J. Edmond, executive director of the Chester County Planning Commission.

“They aren’t in the path of growth,” he said. “These areas are off the beaten path.” The residents represent a mix of old and new money, he said.

He likened Chester County to a macro-version of Lower Merion Township, where neighborhoods vary from ultra-wealthy Gladwyne to the middle-class sections of Ardmore.

While overall the county has the highest median income in the state, “when you get down to the granular level, it’s a very diverse county,” he said.

Incomes in other counties in the region have grown

The overall picture of wealth in the eight-county region was quite a diverse one in the census survey, ranging from Pocopson’s median income to the $40,000 levels of Camden, the City of Chester, and Darby Borough.

But the preponderance of the higher incomes clearly were west of the Delaware River.

Jersey’s wealthier municipalities tend to be clustered in the New York metro area, Svekla said, and only six were on the top 50 list in the Philly region. They included Camden County’s Haddonfield, with a median income of $200,500, and Moorestown, at $160,000 and a favorite of professional athletes. They include ex-Phillie Nick Castellanos, onetime 76er Ben Simmons, Flyers legend Bobby Clarke, and former Eagle Terrell Owens, who famously drew media attention by doing push-ups on his driveway.

It also is the home of Kevin Patullo, the Eagles’ former offensive coordinator whose house was pelted with eggs in October after one of the team’s lackluster performances.

Haddon Heights and Haddon Township did not join Haddonfield in the top 50 but were high on the list of towns where incomes had grown substantially in the last 10 years.

Other places that experienced substantial paycheck bumps in the last 10 years included the Blue Route towns of Conshohocken and West Conshohocken. Both are close to I-476 interchanges and have experienced growth spurts in population and wealth since the highway connecting the Pennsylvania Turnpike to I-95 opened in the 1990s.

Bucks lags in population growth, but not wealth

Led by Chester County, population increased in all eight counties between the 2010 and 2020 census counts. “We’re growing mainly due to international immigration,“ said Greg Diebold, the Delaware Valley planning commission’s senior data analyst.

“Bucks has been one of the slower-growing counties,” he said, having added only about 4% to its population between 2010 and 2020.

In terms of median-income growth over the last 10 years, however, it had seven municipalities in the top 20, more than any other county.

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Not all the gainers were wealthy towns

One Delaware County town, Upland Borough, adjacent to the City of Chester and the location of part of the closed Crozer-Chester Medical Center, made the biggest-growth list with incomes up more than 40% to $61,000.

Bankrupt Chester itself, with one of Pennsylvania’s highest poverty rates, reported a 10% gain, to $41,000.

However, half of the 10 towns where incomes decreased the most were in Delaware County.

Speaking to the region’s overall prosperity, fewer than 25% of the 286 towns showed drops in income in the period that ended in 2024, compared with the five-year period that ended in 2014.

And only 20% this time around reported incomes below the national median.

February 22, 2026
At Croft Farm in Cherry Hill, these archaeologists are searching for artifacts from the Underground Railroad

To the casual observer, it’s just an L-shaped hole in the ground, about 40 inches deep, showing two distinct layers of dirt.

But to the archaeologists who dug the hole, it’s a portal into the past going back thousands of years.

Croft Farm is a national historic site. Its owners during the mid-1800s helped Black people escape from slavery. The farmhouse, outbuildings, and 80 acres of the farm are now owned by Cherry Hill Township, part of a recreational and educational space for the public.

The darker brown top layer of “silty sand” contains artifacts from the last 300 years, an era when both enslavers and those dedicated to emancipation lived on the site, according to Matt Kraemer, 27, an archaeologist from Summit, N.J.

Below it, the lighter-colored layer has revealed artifacts from a time when the Lenni-Lenape Indigenous people lived on the land along the Cooper River, in what is now Cherry Hill.

“It’s a very significant site for the fact that it has a Native American component, plus everything the Evans family left behind,” Kraemer said Saturday.

Alanna-Corinne Konkisre (center), 9, of Gloucester County, sifts through dirt to find artifacts at Croft Farm in Cherry Hill, N.J. on Saturday, Feb. 21, 2026. Croft Farm, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is now an active archaeological site due to the farm’s role during the time of the Underground Railroad.

The Evans family was part of the Quaker religious movement, and like many area Quakers of the time, owners Thomas Evans and his son Josiah were part of the New Jersey Abolition Society, “a group that advocated an end to slavery and also helped to maintain the Underground Railroad,” according to a history of Croft Farm provided by Cherry Hill Township.

Matthew Tomaso, senior director of cultural resource practices at PS&S, speaks to a crowd of people before the start of an archeological dig at Croft Farm in Cherry Hill, N.J.m on Saturday, Feb. 21, 2026. Croft Farm, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is now an active archaeological site due to the farm’s role in the Underground Railroad.

The farm’s historical significance presents a great learning opportunity, said Matthew Tomaso, the archaeologist leading the project for PS&S, an architecture and engineering firm with a location in Warren Township.

A year ago, PS&S was brought in to oversee cultural resource management as the township sought to stop groundwater from entering the basement of the brick house on the property, Tomaso said.

That gave Tomaso and his team a chance to see what they might find that would shine a light on the property’s role as a station on the Underground Railroad.

Animal bones, pieces of pottery, and other artifacts help tell that story, Tomaso said, by showing the dietary patterns, habits, and traditions of the people living there at the time.

Nolan Arcinese (left) and Aaron Arcinese (right) look through dirt to find artifacts at Croft Farm in Cherry Hill, N.J., on Saturday, Feb. 21, 2026. Croft Farm, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is now an active archaeological site due to the farm’s role during the time of the Underground Railroad.

That includes previously enslaved people known to have lived there, such as Joshua Sadler, as well as others who worked and lived on the farm, he said. Sadler went on to found nearby Sadlertown, a Black settlement located in what is now Haddon Township.

What they learn could be especially important since the Underground Railroad was not well documented at the time it was in operation, due to the need to maintain secrecy, Tomaso said.

Mostly, though, they have found bones, said Chelsea Carriere, 29, an archaeologist who called herself “the bone lady.”

Carriere explained that she was looking closely at cow, pig, and bird bone fragments — and the ways the animals were butchered nearly 200 years ago.

To her, the rough cuts on the bones show that these animals likely were raised on the farm or hunted, and were likely butchered on-site, rather than through a butcher shop.

“They were doing it themselves, and that suggests lower socioeconomic status,” Carriere said. Her team is still in the early stages of examining the artifacts.

To her, some of the most amazing finds so far were discovered deeper down in the dirt and would date back 2,000 or more years. These include a piece of argillite that she surmised was a spear point, and a basalt biface, an ancient tool that would have been used for cutting.

“This is a really good site,” Carriere said.

It was also a great experience Saturday for learners of all ages who listened to demonstrations and, with archaeologists’ guidance, used a sifter to search for artifacts in the dirt.

“I love to know what people were doing hundreds of years ago,” said Cherry Hill resident Debbie Kilderry, 71, as she watched children sift the soil.

She came to the site with two artifacts she had obtained — a small porcelain container and a stone — hoping that the archaeologists might have insights into their origins. Tomaso’s professional analysis: She had a real arrowhead, likely from the American West, and a cup once used for coffee cream.

To Kilderry, it is exciting to connect with those who came before her.

“I’m excited to see what they were doing, because they were people just like us — just with different inconveniences.”

February 21, 2026
Tired Hands Brewing turned its original Ardmore outpost into a private event space as it navigates the future

Tired Hands Brewing’s Ardmore Brewing Company brewpub has been turned into a private event space, for now, as its owner navigates the future of the beer company.

Tired Hands’ Kennett Square taproom and bottle shop is permanently closed, owner Jean Broillet confirmed to The Inquirer on Feb. 19. Tired Hands’ Beer Park in Newtown Square also will not reopen this summer as the property’s owners are looking to redevelop it, Broillet said.

Tired Hands’ Ardmore Fermentaria and Fishtown restaurant and brewpub St. Oner’s remain open for business. The brewing company’s MT. Airy Biergarten is a seasonal operation scheduled to reopen in the spring.

Broillet said the decision to shift to private events at the Ardmore Brewing Company location was born out of a number of factors: having two Tired Hands locations in Ardmore was confusing for customers; ongoing construction in Ardmore created a “prohibitive environment” for doing business; and the changing landscape of brewing has prompted Tired Hands to begin reimagining parts of its business model.

The changing face of Ardmore, and of Tired Hands

When Broillet opened the first Tired Hands location, the BrewCafé, in 2012, he said there was little by way of interesting, high-quality food and drink in Ardmore. At the time, he said, Tired Hands’ craft beer and artisan meats and cheeses stood in stark contrast to the Wawas and Irish pubs the area was accustomed to.

Now, that era is a distant memory as Ardmore blossoms as a culinary destination on the Main Line.

Ardmore “went from zero to 60 really quickly in terms” of dining and entertainment options, Broillet said. He added that Tired Hands was a catalyst for that progress.

In 2015, Broillet and business partner and wife Julie Foster opened the Fermentaria at 35 Cricket Terrace, just blocks from Tired Hands’ first location at 16 Ardmore Ave.

The Fermentaria was a major expansion for Tired Hands. It offered food options that extended beyond the BrewCafé‘s sandwich-and-salad-based menu, like steak frites and baby back ribs. It also quadrupled Tired Hands’ production capacity.

At the BrewCafé, Tired Hands’ brewers were able to produce 1,000 barrels of beer annually. At the time of its opening, Broillet anticipated that the Fermentaria would increase production to 4,000 barrels per year.

Tired Hands opened St. Oner’s in Fishtown in 2020.

In the years that followed, Tired Hands opened the seasonal Biergarten in Mount Airy, the Kennett Square taproom, and the Beer Park in Newtown Square.

In 2021, Broillet stepped down from daily operations after allegations of sexism and racism at Tired Hands proliferated on social media, including claims that women were held to different standards than their male counterparts and that employees were berated or publicly humiliated for mistakes. Broillet returned to his post at the helm of Tired Hands a year later.

Broillet said that “lots of valuable lessons, worldly lessons, were learned during that process” and that Tired Hands is doing everything it can to “prevent that from ever happening again.”

Ardmore Brewing Company, located at 16 Ardmore Ave. in Ardmore. Owner Tired Hands Brewing has transitioned the brewery into a private events space.

Changes in Ardmore, closure in Kennett Square

Though opening a second Ardmore outpost helped grow Tired Hands’ footprint on the Main Line, having “two of the same company” also made things “pretty confusing for people,” Broillet said.

In efforts to iron out the confusion, Tired Hands rebranded its BrewCafé last spring, renaming it the Ardmore Brewing Company, upgrading its interior, and adding more food and cocktail options while cutting down its beer list.

“The confusion was still there,” Broillet said.

Broillet also brought on a culinary team that had extensive experience with private events. They began to host a handful of events at the brewery — retirement or birthday parties, for instance — which were a success.

At the same time, major construction had created a “prohibitive environment for us to do business here on Ardmore Avenue,” Broillet said. Construction on the mixed-use Piazza project and Ardmore Avenue Community Center are ongoing, both of which are proximate to Ardmore Avenue and the businesses that operate there.

The brewery shifted to exclusively hosting private events in the last few months, a decision Broillet said he “couldn’t be happier” with.

The brewery owner said the Ardmore Avenue location will be open to the public again in the future, but did not specify in what form.

The taproom and bottle shop in Kennett Square will not reopen.

Broillet said he opened a Tired Hands outpost in Kennett Square, in part, to have a presence near his family members who lived there. Though it was a “fun” chapter, Broillet said it no longer made sense to operate in Kennett Square, where Tired Hands already has a strong network of distributors that can get their beers into people’s hands without making them trek to the bottle shop.

What comes next?

Broillet offered assurances that Ardmore Brewing Company will open up to the public again but said specifics aren’t clear yet. Tired Hands also plans on expanding its Mount Airy footprint with a permanent restaurant space.

For brewers across the country, the specter of people drinking less alcohol looms large. Sales of craft beer fell 4% in 2024, and there were more brewery closings than openings in late 2024 and early 2025, the first time in 20 years such circumstances occurred.

Brewerytown’s Crime & Punishment Brewing shuttered last April, with its owners citing a shifting culture around alcohol among the reasons for its closure. Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant, a Philly-area craft brewing pioneer, abruptly shuttered all of its locations in September.

Broillet said that though the changing dynamics of the industry remain on his mind, Tired Hands was not “acutely a victim of that downturn.” Sales had been down slightly over the past few years, but Broillet attributes that more to having two locations in Ardmore than to the state of the industry. He’s bullish about Tired Hands’ ability to distinguish itself and sees excitement in the changes.

“Those sentiments have a way of just propelling you forward,” Broillet said.

This suburban content is produced with support from the Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Editorial content is created independently of the project donors. Gifts to support The Inquirer’s high-impact journalism can be made at inquirer.com/donate. A list of Lenfest Institute donors can be found at lenfestinstitute.org/supporters.

February 20, 2026
Sledgehammer-wielding thieves stole $11,000 worth of Lululemon in Ardmore’s Suburban Square

Two men have been arrested after breaking into a Lululemon store in Ardmore and allegedly stealing nearly $11,000 in merchandise, police said.

Quran Harmon, 23, and James Jordan, 49, both of Philadelphia, used a sledgehammer to break through the front door of the Lululemon in the Suburban Square shopping center on Jan. 6 at 1:52 a.m., according to the Lower Merion Township Police Department.

Within five minutes, surveillance footage shows, Harmon and Jordan cased the Lululemon, broke the front door, and grabbed as much clothing from the men’s section as possible, said Lower Merion Police Superintendent Andrew Block. Afterward, police said, they fled the scene in a U-Haul pickup truck.

Lower Merion detectives soon identified the suspects and, with the help of Philadelphia police, tied them to a similar sneaker burglary at a Famous Footwear store in Philadelphia the night before.

Police served a search warrant five days after the robbery at a residence in Philadelphia, where merchandise from the Lululemon and Famous Footwear thefts was recovered, authorities said. Harmon turned himself in to Lower Merion police on Jan. 29 and is being held at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility.

Jordan was arrested on Feb. 6 by Upper Moreland police in connection with a separate theft-related crime and is also being held at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility while awaiting burglary and theft charges in the previous robberies.

February 19, 2026
Carlino’s has your back following Di Bruno’s closure | Inquirer Lower Merion
Hi, Lower Merion! 👋

Missing Di Bruno’s? Don’t worry — we’ve still got Carlino’s Market. Also this week, a popular gluten-free bakery has opened in Bryn Mawr, a Narberth artist used the recent snow to craft Swedish-inspired sculptures, plus a new hotel with a tavern and rooftop terrace is opening this spring.

If someone forwarded you this email, sign up for free here.

Carlino’s Market remains a Main Line go-to for Italian goods

Alejandro Perez is the executive chef at Carlino’s Market.

While Di Bruno’s recent downsizing left a hole in the Ardmore Farmers Market — and in some shoppers’ hearts — a longtime staple continues to serve Main Liners in search of Italian goods.

Founded in 1983 in Ardmore by husband and wife Nicola and Angela Carlino, who immigrated from Italy, Carlino’s Market has grown over the years and expanded into wholesale.

In the past two decades, the family-operated market, now led by their son Pat Carlino, has added a location in West Chester but continues to serve its core customers, some of whom Pat grew up with.

The Inquirer’s Denali Sagner checked in with the family on its measured growth plans.

Gluten-free bakery Flakely opens in Bryn Mawr

Lila Colello is the owner of gluten-free bakery Flakely.

Main Liners can get fresh gluten-free pastries closer to home now that Flakely has opened in Bryn Mawr.

The popular bakery held a soft opening for its new storefront this past weekend at the former Grand Middle East hookah lounge. The new space means more offerings than were possible at its previous home in Manayunk, including fresh gluten-free croissants.

“It’s a totally different experience,” said owner Lila Colello, an Ardmore native and Shipley School alum.

Read more about what you can find at the new bakery.

💡 Community News
- The Montgomery County District Attorney and the Police Chiefs Association of Montgomery County recently released a joint statement underscoring that they don’t enforce immigration action. Earlier this month, the LMPD released its own statement, reiterating that it doesn’t enforce or participate in immigration enforcement. The joint statement comes after recent ICE action in the area, including an arrest in Norristown that some local officials condemned.
- Montgomery County commissioners covered a wide range of topics during their annual State of the County address last week, from potential federal funding cuts to immigration concerns. While the top officials remain divided by party lines, they did underscore some bipartisan achievements, like the 2026 budget, as well as upcoming goals like opening more shelters for those experiencing homelessness. The Inquirer’s Fallon Roth recaps the key takeaways.
- The Ardmore Avenue Pool won’t be reopening in time for Memorial Day weekend this year. The township’s parks and recreation department said at a meeting that it expects the pool, which was closed last summer for construction of the Ardmore Avenue Community Center, to not open until late June or early July. The good news: Membership fees won’t be going up for the township’s pools this year, despite a proposal from the finance committee to increase rates at Belmont Hills by 4.25% for residents and 6.5% for non-residents. Commissioners decided against the increase for 2026, albeit not unanimously.
- Narberth artist Emily Stewart used the lingering effects of last month’s snowstorm to craft icy sculptures in her yard, where three Swedish lanterns glowed. More than looking cool, these pieces of public art provide a “little communal social interaction” among neighbors.
- A new hotel is coming to the Main Line. Brandywine Realty Trust plans to open a 121-room Marriott Tribute Portfolio hotel at 165 King of Prussia Rd. that will be called The Brandywine. The $60 million Radnor hotel is expected to open in time for college graduations this spring and will have a ground floor tavern and a rooftop terrace.
- A Lower Merion High School alum has thrown his hat into the ring to represent the 148th district after State Rep. Mary Jo Daley announced she will not seek reelection. Leo Solga, who graduated LMHS in 2022 and the University of Pennsylvania in December, is a criminal justice researcher at Penn’s Carey School of Law, and served on LMHS student council and Model UN. He will face Jason Landau Goodman, Andrea Deutsch, and Megan Griffin-Shelley in the May Democratic primary. (The Merionite)
- Tuesday is the last day to submit responses to the township’s Montgomery Avenue safety study survey, which you can find here.
- A note about last week’s newsletter: We’ve updated the photo accompanying details on the Montgomery Avenue safety study to better reflect the story.
🏫 Schools Briefing
- Black Rock’s home-school association is hosting an ice cream social tonight and tomorrow Penn Wynne has a fourth grade social. Tomorrow is also “Panther Pride” day at Penn Valley and Tuesday is STEM Night at Black Rock. Next Thursday, the Lower Merion High School Black Student Union is hosting its fourth annual “Shades of Black” showcase, featuring dancing, singing, and spoken word performances. See the district’s full calendar here.
- The 2026 Prom Boutique kicks off tomorrow at Lower Merion High School, where students attending prom can browse free dresses and accessories. It’ll be open tomorrow from 3:30 to 6 p.m. and again on Monday from 3:30 to 7 p.m. See all the upcoming dates here.
- The deadline to submit applications for the Lower Merion Township Scholarship Fund has been extended one week to Feb. 27. To be eligible, recipients must graduate from a Lower Merion School District high school, have attended one of the district’s high schools for at least two years, have been a student in the district for at least four years, and be a full-time student at an accredited post-secondary education institution.
🍽️ On our Plate
- Middle Eastern restaurant Malooga opened its Narberth outpost this week at 203 Haverford Ave. This is the second location for the Old City Philadelphia restaurant that specializes in traditional Yemeni dishes like lamb fahsah, made with potatoes, okra, and herb fenugreek; and saltah, a potato and okra dish.
🎳 Things to Do

🧊 Bryn Mawr on Ice: Ice sculptures will dot Lancaster Avenue between Roberts Road and Bryn Mawr Avenue. ⏰ Friday, Feb. 20, 4-7 p.m. 💵 Free 📍 Downtown Bryn Mawr

🔍 Best-Laid Plans: A Murder Mystery: Try your hand at sleuthing in this immersive whodunit at Stoneleigh’s main house. There will also be light food and drinks available. ⏰ Saturday, Feb. 21, 4:30-7:30 p.m. 💵 $75-$85 for standard tickets 📍 Stoneleigh

📽️ Ordinary People: Catch a screening of the 1980 Robert Redford-directed film starring Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore, and Timothy Hutton in 4K. ⏰ Monday, Feb. 23, 7:15 p.m. 💵 $11.75-$16.25 📍 Bryn Mawr Film Institute

☪️ Ramadan Crafternoon: Celebrate the holiday with themed crafts at this drop-in event. ⏰ Wednesday, Feb. 25, 3-5 p.m. 💵 Free 📍 Gladwyne Library

🏡 On the Market

A four-bedroom Wynnewood home with a screened-in porch

The home spans more than 3,700 square feet and sits on a half-acre lot.

Built in 1952, this four-bedroom Wynnewood home blends past and present thanks to its classic stone exterior. The home’s first floor features a living room with a fireplace, a dining room, a home office with an exterior entrance, a family room with vaulted ceilings and built-ins, and an eat-in kitchen with an island and double ovens. The bedrooms are all on the second floor, including the primary suite, which has two closets and a bathroom with marble floors and a steam shower. Other features include a screened-in porch, a flagstone patio, and a finished walk-out basement.

See more photos of the home here.

Price: $1.6M | Size: 3,724 SF | Acreage: 0.52

🗞️ What other Lower Merion residents are reading this week:
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This suburban content is produced with support from the Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Editorial content is created independently of the project donors. Gifts to support The Inquirer’s high-impact journalism can be made at inquirer.com/donate. A list of Lenfest Institute donors can be found at lenfestinstitute.org/supporters.
February 19, 2026
Racism in a restaurant spurred a woman’s life mission | Inquirer Greater Media
Hi, Greater Media! 👋

The co-founder of Media Fellowship House is being recognized this month by the local branch of the NAACP. Here’s why. Also this week, Sheetz is looking to plant its flag in the heart of Wawa country, a new stir-fry and salads eatery is coming to Granite Run, plus, we’re keeping an eye on another potential snowstorm this weekend.

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The local NAACP branch is remembering a woman who championed inclusion in Media

A mural of Marie Whitaker and Dorothy James, co-founders of Media Fellowship House.

It’s been 82 years since Marie Whitaker co-founded Media Fellowship House and 73 years since the organization opened on South Jackson Street, but its founding principles of inclusion, resilience, and courage live on.

She and another woman, Dorothy James, launched the organization after Whitaker was denied service at the Tower Restaurant at the corner of State and Olive Streets. James, a white Quaker woman, witnessed the interaction and approached a worker there, who said the waitresses did not serve Black people. Whitaker and James left the restaurant soon after and became fast friends. They later formed the Media Fellowship as a place where residents of all races and religions could gather.

Its mission has since expanded, but remains rooted in “bringing people together and having people speak across what seems now to be a chasm of our differences,” said Whitaker’s son, Bill, a 60 Minutes correspondent for CBS.

Read more about Whitaker’s legacy and why the NAACP Media Branch is spotlighting her this Black History Month.

💡 Community News
- Cross-state rival convenience chain Sheetz is looking to enter the heart of Wawa country and has submitted a proposal to open a store just five miles from Wawa’s corporate campus. The Altoona-based competitor wants to put its first Delaware County location in the Village at Painters’ Crossing, with plans to build a 6,000-square-foot store at the site of the vacant Carrabba’s Italian Grill and Wells Fargo. Plans call for indoor and outdoor seating, two mobile-order pickup windows, and six gas pumps, but still require approvals.
- Swarthmore’s planning and zoning committee will discuss Swarthmore College’s Cunningham Fields proposal at tonight’s meeting. The college is looking to redevelop its aging facilities at College Avenue and North Chester Road.
- After dropping for four consecutive years, underage drinking offenses picked back up in Delaware County in 2024, according to the latest available data, which was released this month. The county had 192 offenses of individuals under 21 purchasing, consuming, possessing, or transporting alcohol in 2024, accounting for about 3% of the statewide total. It’s among the top 10 counties in the state with the highest percentage of offenses. Locally, Montgomery and Philadelphia Counties surpassed Delco at 4% each, and Chester County had the region’s highest total, accounting for 8% of cases statewide.
- Lingering snow from the storm a few weeks ago is melting, but there’s a chance for even more white stuff this weekend. Here’s what we know about a possible snowstorm on Sunday.
- Five couples who live at Upper Providence Township retirement community Rose Tree Place renewed their vows last week. Each of the couples have been married for at least 50 years and some for over 70 years. 6abc’s Alicia Vitarelli spoke to two of them. See the segment here.
- Swarthmore College has thrown its support behind Harvard University, which is suing the Trump administration for its efforts to block international students from enrolling at U.S. colleges and universities. Twenty-seven percent of Swarthmore’s latest incoming class consisted of international citizens, people with dual citizenship, or permanent residents. (WHYY)
🏫 Schools Briefing
- In Rose Tree Media, there’s a districtwide technology presentation from 6:30 to 8 p.m. tonight at Springton Lake Middle School. Tomorrow night is Penncrest High School’s choir cabaret, and Saturday is the high school’s sports fest and jazz night. See the district’s full calendar here.
- Wallingford-Swarthmore School District is hosting eighth grade orientation tonight from 7 to 8 p.m. It’s also the Strath Haven Middle School student-faculty basketball game. On Monday, there’s a board of education meeting at 7 p.m. See the district’s full calendar here.
- Yan Weng, an eighth grader at Mother of Providence Regional Catholic School in Wallingford, won first place in the National Society Sons of the American Revolution’s Sergeant Moses Adams Memorial Brochure Contest for her design of the Bill of Rights. The contest was open to middle school students, who designed brochures based on the United States’ foundational documents. (Daily Times)
🍽️ On our Plate
- A new fast-casual restaurant is coming to the Promenade at Granite Run later this year. Honeygrow, the Philadelphia-born eatery known for its made-to-order stir-fries and and salads, plans to open at 1127 West Baltimore Pike this summer, a company spokesperson said. Honeygrow is looking to expand its footprint this year as part of a push to become a more national brand.
- If this week’s great thaw has you hankering for summer, good news: Scooped Ice Cream & Gelato has reopened for the season, and it has more than just sweets on offer. The shop in the heart of Media has added an outpost of Backroom Records, which buys, sells, and trades vinyl records.
- Taste and Sea is hosting a four-course winter wine tasting dinner next Thursday at 6 p.m. The meal at the Glen Mills restaurant is $99 per person.
🎳 Things to Do

🗓️ Lunar New Year Celebration and Lion Dance: Celebrate the Lunar New Year by catching a lion dance that will loop through the borough of Media. ⏰ Saturday, Feb. 21, 2-4 p.m. 💵 Free 📍Downtown Media

🇨🇴 Colombian Festival: Learn more about Colombian culture through dancing, music, food, and crafts. ⏰ Saturday, Feb. 21, 5:30 p.m. 💵 Suggested donation of $5 per person or $25 per family 📍Park Avenue Community Center, Swarthmore

🎭 Rapunzel! Rapunzel!: See the classic fairy tale come to life on stage. ⏰ Sunday, Feb. 22, 11 a.m., and Saturday, Feb. 28-Sunday, March 1, 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. 💵 $13.50-$18.50 📍Players Club of Swarthmore

🌱 Winter Gardening: Vegetable Seed Starting: Learn how to get a jump-start on your vegetable gardening. Registration is required. ⏰ Sunday, Feb. 22, 1-2:30 p.m. 💵 $21.25-$25 📍Tyler Arboretum, Media

🗓️ A Celebration of Black History Month: Delaware County Council is celebrating the 100th anniversary of Black History Month with music, art, and a keynote address. Registration is required. ⏰ Thursday, Feb. 26, noon-2 p.m. 💵 Free 📍Towne House, Media

🏡 On the Market

A four-bedroom Media home with a covered porch

The home spans over 4,700 square feet and sits on more than an acre.

Built in 2006, this four-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bathroom Middletown Township home has had just one owner. It features hardwood across part of the first floor, including the foyer, a living room, and a dining room. It also has a family room with a gas fireplace, a home office, an eat-in kitchen with stainless steel appliances, and a wet bar area in a hallway. The bedrooms are upstairs, including the primary suite, which has a walk-in closet, a jetted tub, dual vanities, and a separate sitting room. The home also has a partially finished basement and a three-car garage.

See more photos of the home here.

Price: $800,000 | Size: 4,756 SF | Acreage: 1.02

🗞️ What other Greater Media residents are reading this week:
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February 19, 2026
In the 1940s, she was denied service at a Delco restaurant. She spent the rest of her life bridging racial divides in Media.

When the Media-area NAACP was selecting a few Black figures to spotlight throughout Black History Month, adding Marie Whitaker to the list was a no-brainer, said Cynthia Jetter, president of Media’s NAACP chapter.

Within the community, “I think most people know the story,” Jetter said.

The story, that is, of when Whitaker sat down for a meal at the Tower Restaurant at the corner of State and Olive Streets with her baby in her arms and her sister by her side in 1943.

No one waited on them.

This bothered Dorothy James, a white Quaker woman who was dining at the restaurant. So she approached a worker there who explained that the waitresses did not serve Black people, James recounted in a letter she wrote a few days after the incident.

Whitaker soon left the restaurant with her baby and sister and went elsewhere. Soon, James joined them, she wrote.

Whitaker and James became fast friends and cofounded Media Fellowship House the following year. The goal was to bring together Media residents of all races and religions for events and meals. It grew over the course of its first decade, and in 1953, they raised enough money from community members to buy a property on South Jackson Street, where the organization flourished.

Whitaker died in 2002, but the fellowship house lived on. In its 82 years, it has gone from hosting sewing circles and childcare events to helping Black people buy homes in restricted neighborhoods to now offering assistance to first-time homebuyers and helping those facing foreclosure.

For Amy Komarnicki, who now runs the Media Fellowship House, the values Whitaker championed — inclusion, resilience, and courage — are always guiding her.

“I think you have to move toward the injustice that you see and not ignore it,” Komarnicki said.

That is especially difficult to do when you’re on the receiving end of the injustice, she added.

“Being willing to accept an invitation to talk about it takes enormous bravery and trust,” Komarnicki said. “It’s good to be uncomfortable. It’s good to make people uncomfortable for the greater good. It opens up space for dialogue.”

Whitaker’s legacy stretches beyond the bounds of Media. Her daughter, Gail Whitaker, once the infant with her at the restaurant where she did not get served, became the first Black woman to practice law in Delaware County and served on the Media Borough Council. She died in 2024. Her son, Bill Whitaker, is a 60 Minutes correspondent for CBS.

Living in Media and going to Fellowship House growing up exposed him to people from all kinds of demographics and religions, Bill Whitaker said. And that was no accident; it was something his mother and Fellowship House helped lay the groundwork for.

“She was resolute and knew what she wanted, not just for her family, but for her community and for her world,” Whitaker said. “She had a vision of what Fellowship House stands for, bringing people together and having people speak across what seems now to be a chasm of our differences — she wanted people to speak across that, to reach across that and come together.”

As long as Fellowship House stands, that work, just as important now as then, will continue, Bill Whitaker said.

February 19, 2026
Chester County man pleads guilty to killing a 9-month-old baby

A Chester County man pleaded guilty to murder and related crimes earlier this month after he punched a 9-month-old infant and did not seek medical care for the child, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Enrique Lopez-Gomez, 32, of West Grove, pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and endangering the welfare of a child on Feb. 11, according to prosecutors.

He remains incarcerated in the Chester County Prison and awaits sentencing.

Announcing the charges, Chester County District Attorney Christopher de Barrena-Sarobe called the crime “unthinkable.”

Prosecutors say Lopez-Gomez was the child’s caregiver at the time of the 2024 incident, when he fell on the infant at a residence in Kennett Square. As the baby began to cry in pain, Lopez-Gomez punched the child in the abdomen, prosecutors said.

He did not seek help or tell anyone about the child’s injuries, according to prosecutors, nor did he offer medical care as the child’s condition worsened that evening.

First responders who were later called to the scene removed the baby from the home, and the child was pronounced dead at Nemours/A.I. DuPont Hospital for Children.

Medical examiners determined that the child had died from blunt force trauma, leading to an intestinal rupture and soft tissue bleeding, prosecutors said.

The baby had also suffered large bruises around the abdomen.

Prosecutors have yet to set a date for Lopez-Gomez’s sentencing. He is being held on $10 million bail.

February 18, 2026
Township should deny data center project proposed for Pennhurst, planning commissioners say

Calling a developer’s plan for a data center at the historic Pennhurst site “technically deficient” and not in compliance with the zoning ordinance, East Vincent’s planning commission voted Tuesday to recommend that the township’s board of supervisors deny the proposal.

The decision, which passed the commission unanimously and saw enthusiasm from residents who had been vehemently pushing back against the project for months, doesn’t hit the brakes completely. The township’s board of supervisors will still have a hearing for the project in March.

The developer declined to appear at the meeting Tuesday, instead sending a letter indicating they intended to revise the submitted plan and pressing the commission for a positive vote.

Their absence rankled the commission.

“I take exception to the fact that the applicant and the applicant’s lawyers have declined to present this evening, and they informed us by letter” that morning, said vice chairman Lawson Macartney. “This is especially germane, given the lamentably poor technical quality of detail presented in the plans.”

The commission’s vote is a win for the residents in the township — and surrounding municipalities — who have decried the plan that would bring five two-story data center buildings, a sixth building, an electrical substation, and a solar field, totaling more than 1.3 million square feet, according to sketch plans.

The data center would sit on the property of the former Pennhurst State School and Hospital — known as Pennhurst Asylum during the Halloween season. It’s situated near the Schuylkill and borders Spring City, and would be a close neighbor to the Southeastern Veterans’ Center.

“Based on the materials presently before the township, there is no factual or legal basis to conclude that the proposed development would create impacts greater than those ordinarily associated with a permitted conditional use,” Matthew McHugh, the developer’s attorney, wrote in the letter.

But the commission found the plans lacking in detail and explanation of what impact it’d have on water, trees, employment, and more, saying the materials were “significantly technically deficient and do not comply with our zoning ordinance in some major ways.”

The letter indicated the developer would submit a revised plan that would add private power generation consisting of natural gas and battery storage installation, and relocate the proposed substation. The overall square footage and building heights wouldn’t change, the letter said.

“I just think this is the biggest, most impactful development that’s been proposed in our community since I’ve been on the planning commission,” said the commission’s chairwoman, Rachael Griffith. “I’m just shocked at the minimal detail that has been provided and just doing the absolute bare minimum, especially when data centers are just such a hot topic these days…I’m just sort of dumbfounded as to why they thought we might be interested in recommending this in the first place.”

Residents praised the commission’s decision.

“This is the kind of stuff that keeps people up at night, especially those of us who are impacted,” resident Larry Shank told the board. “You really made my night. Thank you.”

State Sen. Katie Muth, who represents the township and is a resident, said commissioners protected the community.

“I think that you all made the right decision tonight on a multitude of fronts,” she told them.

In a statement, Kevin A. Feeley, a spokesperson who represents the developer, rejected the commission’s assertions, saying that they had “exchanged information about the development on a regular basis throughout this period.”

He added that the developer would submit revised plans to “address some of the review comments, particularly with respect to onsite power generation and water usage.”

East Vincent’s proposed data center comes as Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro has championed data center development, promoting a 10-year plan that includes cutting regulatory “red tape” to make it easier to approve them. The governor’s office also announced Amazon would spend $20 billion to develop data centers and other artificial-intelligence campuses across Pennsylvania.

Despite pushes at the federal and state level, 42% of Pennsylvanians say they would oppose the centers being built in their area, according to a recent survey.

With the state’s strong private property rights, it creates a bind for township officials, who are struggling with residents’ pushback and zoning allowances.

“Pennhurst LLC owns the land, so they can do what they want with it, as long as it aligns with our ordinances and what they’re allowed to do,” Griffith told attendees Tuesday. “They’re trying to do something that is not really allowed. It’s our role to uphold our zoning ordinance so that they stick to that.”

In December, the township’s board of supervisors declined to move forward with a draft ordinance it had been penning for months that would govern data center development in the township, allowing the application to come before the planning commission and continue on to the conditional use hearings.

The township’s solicitor said the scheduled March 16 conditional use hearing for the project would move forward. If the developer submits an updated plan, the proposal could come back before the planning commission.

February 18, 2026