When he was 13, Rich Negrin '88 saw his Cuban-activist father gunned down by anti-Castro terrorists. He held him as he died, kneeling in the street covered with his father's blood.
After he became a father himself, Negrin watched his 5-year-old daughter die in 2006 after a lifelong battle with an incurable neuromuscular disease that devastated her ability to breathe.
Every day, the memory of his father and his daughter inspires Philadelphia's powerful managing director to reach out to its least powerful residents, and try to help.
READ THE REST OF THE STORY, by Dan Geringer of the Philadelphia Daily News, on philly.com, or in the summer 2012 print issue of Wagner Magazine.
About PhillyRising
The PhillyRising Collaborative targets neighborhoods throughout Philadelphia that are plagued by chronic crime and quality of life concerns, and establishes partnerships with community members to address these issues.
Since his appointment as Philadelphia's managing director in 2010, Rich Negrin has led the PhillyRising program. It began in the North Philadelphia neighborhood of Hartranft, where its achievements include demolishing unsafe buildings, cleaning up vacant lots and graffiti-marred walls, opening a pool and a community computer lab, training community leaders, and bringing in volunteers and partner organizations. As a result, said Mayor Michael Nutter in a March 2011 speech, “from February to December 2010 crime in Hartranft dropped by 16 percent from the year before.”
PhillyRising now operates in nine neighborhoods and has seven staff members in the Managing Director's Office. Learn more about it and hear comments from Rich Negrin.
