Connect Chadds Ford is a civic-minded community newsletter, focused on Chadds Ford and the Brandywine Valley. Through values of transparency, accountability, connection, and delight, Connect Chadds Ford is about building the community we hope to share with our children and neighbors. Drop your email below to subscribe to the weekly newsletter!
🧹 Clean up, clean up, everybody, everywhere
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🎵 Clean up, clean up, everybody, everywhere. Clean up, clean up. Everybody do your share. 🎶 It’s time for the annual Chadds Ford Roadside Clean Up Event hosted by the Chadds Ford Township Residents Association around Earth Day. The cleanup takes place on Saturday, April 25, from 8 am -12:00 pm. This year, there are two parts with plenty of snacks! 🍩 ☕ 🥪 Volunteers can meet at the Chadds Ford Township Building (10 Ring Road) at 8 am for coffee, donuts, and supplies. To register for the roadside cleanup and indicate which roads you want to clean, sign up here. The Chadds Ford Township’s Open Space Committee will provide free lunch for volunteers from 12 - 1 pm at Brinton Run Preserve (6 Oakland Rd, Chadds Ford).
After lunch and until 4:00 pm, volunteers can do light clean-up around the Brinton Run Preserve and help maintain tree shelters and trails. To register for the Preserve clean up: sign up here. Many spaces remain open, so be sure to sign up. You can bring family and friends for extra excitement!
CSA season is springing to life!And I’m here for it! 🍎🍆🥒🌶️🫑 I promised I was working on gathering up a bunch of options to fill your fridge with local food options. Not only does it support our local growers and food artisans, but it also feels great to eat with the seasons. A few weeks ago, I stopped by Barnstar Farm to learn more about their CSA. They’re a hop, skip, and a jump from Chadds Ford and a fellow UCF family. Read the full article to learn more, check out their adorbs baby goats(!!), and sign up for their CSA. They still have a few more spots available before the harvest season starts, so don’t delay. Start your engines to time-travel to 1776In honor of America 250, the Brandywine Battlefield Park Association is hosting a road rally unlike anything you’ve done around here before, and it’s happening right in our backyard on May 16. Check out the article for more details! It should be a pretty neat way to see and experience some of the deep history rooted in the Brandywine Valley. Summer is Sizzlin’ between Calvary Chapel and the townshipAfter lodging my car in a made-up parking spot in the snow (don’t tell the parking ticket people 🤫) toward the back of the township parking lot, I squeezed into one of the last open seats at the packed Zoning Hearing Board Appeal meeting way back on Dec 16, 2025. Butt in chair and pen in hand, I sat back to observe the quasi-judicial proceeding regarding Calvary Chapel’s intentions to construct a large outdoor gathering and worship space on their campus. More than 3 hours later 🥱, the meeting adjourned well past most attendees' bedtimes and without a formal decision. The Zoning Board ultimately denied approval of the development project a couple of months after the meeting. Recently, however, the township approved a special events permit for outdoor concerts at Calvary Chapel that have been frustrating neighbors. All the latest on the matter is in a new article up this week. Although it’s about loud music at face value, it’s really about accountability and enforcement of the township code being applied equally. Check out the full story here.
Get to know Centreville Cafe + Elizabeth MoroLooking for a good spot to meet for coffee or brunch? Need a quiet spot for a business meeting or conversation with neighbors? Check out Centreville Cafe, and get a taste of how PA House of Representatives candidate Elizabeth Moro spends her days. All the details here. 📚 Indie Bookstore Day!Did you know this Saturday, April 25, is Independent Bookstore Day? We don’t have an indie bookshop in Chadds Ford (yet 🤞🏻), but we do have a fairly new indie bookshop in downtown Kennett. Forage Books has a great lineup on Saturday to celebrate indie bookshops and welcome you into the store.
⛰️ Did you know we have a new PA State Park??!Heads up. No, really, keep your head up so you don’t knock it on the cave ceiling. We just got a new state park. Woot woot! Laurel Caverns is very cool, literally. It’s the first and only underground state park in good ol’ Pennsylvania. Stop by the State Park website for all the details. It’s about 5 hours away in the southwest corner of the state. But there are some other really great state parks in that area, like Ohiopyle, so you could totally make a cool vacation or weekend trip out of it! Be sure to let me know if you check it out. 💭 Ponder ThisIn this section, I share book recommendations, articles, podcasts, and other links I think Chadds Ford neighbors might find interesting. Let me know what you think. 📜 Learning about how the Quakers were persecuted during the American Revolution. Did I miss this in history class, or do we just always skim over the parts where our heroes don’t look so great? 🎧 Finally listened to this super popular book after two Chadds Ford neighbors recommended it to me. Definitely agree it’s best as an audiobook because there are different narrators for each character. If you’ve read it, what did you think? 🧑🏻💻 “The social contract of ‘study hard, go to school, get a good job, live a decent life’ is about to be vaporized to smithereens... Capitalism plus AI will be no one’s idea of a good time.” On The End of the Office. … on a related note… ✨ A discussion (and a book) on discovering your life’s work and finding a job… in this AI economy 🧐… targeted toward recent college grads, but applies to anyone. 🪞 Ask yourself… “Who will you be when history calls?” - Trevor Noah, Joy in the Trenches Looking aheadHere are a few events you might want to add to your calendar. Several require registration in advance. Double-check dates and times in case they’ve changed since I shared. Weekend Plans
Mark Your CalendarsA few more exciting and important events to put on your calendar now so you don’t miss this!
Other events to add?In the comments, feel free to share any other events happening in and around Chadds Ford that you think our neighbors will enjoy! |
Jen Panaro | Connect Chadds Ford
Connect Chadds Ford is a civic-minded community newsletter, focused on Chadds Ford and the Brandywine Valley. Through values of transparency, accountability, connection, and delight, Connect Chadds Ford is about building the community we hope to share with our children and neighbors. Drop your email below to subscribe to the weekly newsletter!