RESURRECT DEAD ON PLANET JUPiTER

E-A-G-L-E-S D-A-Y

Last week was Eagles Day at the Heston School at 54th and Lancaster. I spent the day as the event photographer for the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program. Although I work for them every damn day, this was my first creative gig with the famed Philly arts organization. I took 400 photos. (which explains the weeklong lapse between the event and my writing about it)

All in all, it was great. I had never been to an Eagles Day before and didn’t have high hopes. I expected a couple of third stringers, the special teams coach and maybe David Akers to show up. Hence my surprise when at 12:45 the entire Philadelphia Eagles football organization from owner to punter pulled up to the Heston School.

O’yeah.. the point of Eagles Day is to with the help of the Eagles organization, the Mural Arts Program, the students, the school and of course the Eagles players themselves paint murals, build new playgrounds, plant, (uh) plants and generally beautify the school. Although planning is lengthy and intense, all this happens in one day. But anyway, the pictures do a better job of telling the story than I can right now… so here:

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Short story: The school goes from the top picture to the bottom one in a matter of a few hours:

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The murals are set up as a giant “paint by numbers.” This allows even a novice to match color with number and paint a mural.

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Kids also helped to put up the mosaics:

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Some of the murals were designed by the children themselves. This one is my favorite:

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These kids were so damn cute:

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They prepared for the Eagles’ arrival:

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Eagles staff was there all day, putting together 2 new playgrounds and doing some crazy looking shit to the kids:

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The Eagles mascot Swoop showed up first. He was a huge hit with the little ones:

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Andy Reid was the first off the bus:

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McNabb was swarmed by the media from start to finish. As promised, here is the photo of McNabb no newspaper would ever print. I love McNabb, but since I’m my own editor and that whole Superbowl thing:

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This one’s better:

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Jim Johnson decided to bring Brian Dawkins around from the side of the building and send an all out blitz at the wall.

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Jevon Kearse was nice as hell. And he came to work, helping to build this playground like he actually cared about it.

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By the end of the day, the school had been transformed.

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