Don Shump,<\/a>\u201d founder and owner of the Frankford-based Philadelphia Bee Company.<\/p>\nShump inspected the library\u2019s colony of wild bees when they were first discovered high up on the front of the building. \u201cThe mortar had come loose and bees had set up shop inside,\u201d he says. He removed the bees and sealed the hive, but a couple years later, wild bees chewed through the seal and moved back into the old hive. They\u2019ve been co-existing with the library ever since.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we learned about bees and honeybees just endeared us all to them. They\u2019re an altruistic society that\u2019s 98 percent female. If anything, that\u2019s more of what we need right now. We wanted to share that with others, and in particular children,\u201d says Thatcher. During a recent visit, a reporter overheard a man explaining to his small daughter that \u201cthe bees are very hard workers and they work together, like at a construction site.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou just have to explain what their lives are like, and that whole stinging aspect really just goes out the window,\u201d Thatcher adds. \u201cAt first, adults were like, That\u2019s crazy. And now they\u2019re the neighborhood pets.\u201d Sometimes, the library raises funds by selling tiny, hexagonal jars of library-bee honey.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmy\u2019s always looking out for new programming ideas. She\u2019s really cool. I want to be her when I grow up.\u201d \u2014\u00a0Port Richmond resident Angie Carrion<\/p>\n
There are more than 150 species of native bees in Philadelphia: blue orchard mason bees that use mud-like masonry to build their nests; squash bees that like to live near squash plants and collect their pollen; solitary carpenter bees that reuse old tunnels in wood; cuckoo bees that take over other bees\u2019 nests; mining bees that live underground; assorted bumble bees; and polyester bees \u2014 bees that create waterproof, biodegradable plastic \u201cpurses\u201d for their eggs.<\/p>\n
The Richmond Library\u2019s honeybees are \u201cmutts,\u201d says Shump. The Academy of Natural Sciences installed the observation hive in the library\u2019s north wall. What are they getting up to there? \u201cThey\u2019re making honey. They\u2019re taking care of baby bees,\u201d says Thatcher. \u201cThey\u2019re tending to the queen. They\u2019re cleaning. And they\u2019re even removing dead bees.\u201d (That\u2019s the job of \u201cmortician\u201d bees).<\/p>\n
Visitors can also glimpse them outside the library in the pollinator garden that Thatcher and Julie Behr from the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society planted in 2019, after learning the bees were flying all the way to Graffiti Park for pollen.<\/p>\n
All of these achievements: the observation hive, the garden, the honey for sale, come from Thatcher\u2019s ability to build connections and turn acquaintances into community partners.<\/p>\n
Behr told the story of the bees to other horticulturalists, and the Philadelphia Flower Show donated crates of plants to the pollinator garden (they often make plants available to groups after the show). Thatcher, Behr and other neighborhood volunteers planted them. The Philly Tree People donated a Kousa dogwood and a serviceberry tree. \u201cIt\u2019s like a spa for bees,\u201d said Thatcher. \u201cThey don\u2019t have to go to Graffiti anymore.\u201d The garden, tucked into a side yard across from brick row houses, sports a small metal sign stating that it has been certified by the National Wildlife Foundation.<\/p>\n
Near the garden, pages of a brightly colored picture book are fastened along an iron fence at the perfect height for a child\u2019s gaze. \u201cIf the library is closed, you can still read your child a picture book as you walk along. And we use the story walk as a way to promote new books or particular holidays, like Easter or one of the Jewish holidays or, you know, [Asian American and] Pacific Islander Heritage Month, African-American History Month \u2026 \u201c Thatcher says.<\/p>\n
With help from French pianist Sandrine Erdely-Sayo (Thatcher\u2019s son\u2019s former piano teacher), she acquired a baby grand piano on Craigslist for $200. Thatcher programmed a full season of concerts after the reopening, including the premiere of a piece by neighborhood composer Addison Rider and two concerts with young musicians from Temple\u2019s Boyer College of Music and Dance. Sing Slavic, a West Philly group that leans into the darker, goth folk music of the region, recently performed there too.<\/p>\n
Before the bees <\/p>\n
In some ways, Thatcher was destined to wind up here. She grew up at 2nd and Snyder, across the street from the Whitman Library, in a rowhouse her single mom Dolores filled with books. She attended Philadelphia\u2019s High School for Creative and Performing Arts because she loved to write stories as a child. She gravitated to library science (she earned her MLIS in 1997 from Queens College) after majoring in English at Temple, then worked as a server. Along the way, she believed \u201cbeing a librarian was something I could do.\u201d<\/p>\n
So did her sister Patricia, Dean of the Library at Stockton University. Today Thatcher and her husband Jason Malcolm live a few blocks from her work. \u201cMost of the patrons here are my neighbors and friends,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Becky Shaknovich, assistant chief of Neighborhood Library Services Division for the city\u2019s North Philadelphia Libraries, is Thatcher\u2019s boss.<\/p>\n
Periodically, you hear a young voice shout, \u201cBees!!!\u201d When the beehive recently required refurbishment, one girl offered the money in her piggybank to pay for it.<\/p>\n
Shaknovich says going into the Port Richmond Library gives her \u201ca feeling like no other library. It\u2019s this warm environment; you feel really welcome. When I come there as a patron \u2014 I have a three-year-old \u2014 I notice the little details. In the bathroom, Amy\u2019s thought of everything. There\u2019s a tiny toilet seat for potty training, a Diaper Genie, and a changing table with a song on a poster that you sing as you change the baby, which I sang to my child.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not just Thatcher\u2019s attention to detail, however. \u201cShe always has a creative solution; she always has creative ideas for programming \u2014 one time she did a program with bubble wrap. She made a bubble wrap suit for herself, and there was bubble wrap everywhere for the kids to pop. She brings what she loves and she makes other people love it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Port Richmond resident Angie Carrion agrees. \u201cThe library has always been one of my favorite places anywhere,\u201d she says. \u201cAs an adult, I appreciate it in a new way \u2014 I can join a community to be on a journey to, for instance, learn French. Amy\u2019s always looking out for new programming ideas. She\u2019s really cool. I want to be her when I grow up.\u201d<\/p>\n
If she did follow in Thatcher\u2019s footsteps, she\u2019d also have to become a published, Pushcart Prize-nominated, Wheeler Prize-winning poet. Thatcher\u2019s debut collection of published poems, \u201cWeird Girl,\u201d will come out from Ohio State University Press in February, 2027.<\/p>\n
Always community hub <\/p>\n
When Port Richmond Library opened in 1910, the building hosted as many as 700 children for a single afternoon storytime. In those years, Port Richmond was home to factory workers and dockhands. According to a letter from 1912 on display there, \u201cTo most of the children, the Library and the books in it are the most beautiful thing in their lives; they just won\u2019t stay away; to the young men and women who are trying to improve themselves, it is their only hope for better things and to the older working people, their greatest pride in Richmond.\u201d<\/p>\n
A century later, the neighborhood has remained mostly working class \u2014 although plumbers and construction workers now live alongside social workers, scientists, and art teachers \u2014 and the library remains a light for the neighborhood\u2019s children.<\/p>\n
The William Penn Foundation funded a renovation of the children\u2019s section, with an indoor play area that boasts toys, a tiny slide for toddlers, a play kitchen, and a hopscotch mat. Young visitors can check out little backpacks filled with books and materials about birdwatching, reading, or oceans. There are still storytimes for babies and older children, but now there are dance parties, too.<\/p>\n
Periodically, you hear a young voice shout, \u201cBees!!!\u201d When the beehive recently required refurbishment, one girl offered the money in her piggybank to pay for it.<\/p>\n
Thatcher is rightly proud of what she\u2019s fostered. \u201cPeople naturally come in here, but then the folks that come in form communities amongst themselves,\u201d she says. \u201cA lot of the parents that come in with young children are not native to Philadelphia; their uncles or sisters or brothers don\u2019t live in the area. There\u2019s a connection formed with those parents, so that, if there\u2019s an emergency, one parent will watch another parent\u2019s child. It\u2019s amazing. And it\u2019s the patrons that do that themselves, really.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople naturally come in here, but then the folks that come in form communities amongst themselves.\u201d \u2014\u00a0Librarian Amy Thatcher<\/p>\n
On a larger scale, what would benefit the Philadelphia libraries?<\/p>\n
\u201cAbsolutely, funding \u2026 The City should provide more money particularly for the maintenance of buildings, instead of just having an emergency happen and the branch closes,\u201d Thatcher says. \u201dThese buildings are old. And we need money for that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The nearby Fishtown Library closed in the early frigid weeks of 2026 because of HVAC problems; it re-opened in February. When the Cecil B. Moore branch closed for almost two months in 2025 because of a broken HVAC system, Philadelphia City Councilmember Jeffery Young Jr. proposed demolishing it and replacing it with a multi-purpose library complex. Hundreds of neighbors, many who had visited the library as children, crowded into community meetings and successfully opposed the move, seeking to preserve and renovate the historic building. That library now has temporary heaters.<\/p>\n
So, while Thatcher might stand out for her solutions and creativity and energy, Port Richmond is not the only Philly neighborhood that deeply loves its library.<\/p>\n
The City received the message: Mayor Parker proposed \u2014 and has just signed into law \u2014 a 2027 fiscal budget with $33 million to replace old heating and air conditioning systems in libraries. The Cecil B. Moore branch is at the top of the list.<\/p>\n
Most librarians don\u2019t come to their careers to deal with HVAC issues. Still, says Thatcher, it\u2019s a dream job that\u2019s \u201cmuch more glamorous than it seems. We get to do cool things. What you learn in library school isn\u2019t exactly what you apply; what you learn on the job is more important, and that you can be creative. And it\u2019s a good way to change. Change your community, make a community happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
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MORE CITIZENS OF THE WEEK<\/p>\n
Left to right: Play area at the Richmond Library from the library’s Facebook page; Richmond librarian Amy Thatcher, photo by Michaela Althouse; bees in the library’s pollinator garden from the library’s Facebook page. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Amy Thatcher, a smiling woman with bright pink lipstick and a sweep of long, white hair, sits at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221280,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[29145,5017,69,71,70,26503],"class_list":["post-221279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-citizen-of-the-week","tag-free-library-of-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-port-richmond"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}