Philly pols host official kickoff for yearlong ‘Ring It On’ celebration

Under a broiling sun in record heat, surrounded by vendors setting up tables of tubers and campaign stalls handing out flyers, Philadelphia’s political elite and members of the Point Breeze Business Association gathered at that neighborhood’s farmers market to kick off “Ring It On! One Philly: A United Celebration,” the city’s contribution to America’s 250th birthday celebration.

For months, city tourism boosters have been promoting Philadelphia as an international destination for 2026 – not only as the birthplace of American democracy, but also as a host of the World Cup and other high-profile sporting events.

But as Mayor Cherelle Parker emphasized to the crowd, “Ring It On! One Philly: A United Celebration” – which riffs on her administration’s slogan, “One Philly, A United City” – is all about the locals, with citywide initiatives throughout 2026 and a focus on 20 neighborhood corridors, including South Philadelphia’s Point Breeze.

“What we get to do is … ensure that we touch every neighborhood and as many people as we possibly can,” the mayor told the crowd, as City Council President Kenyatta Johnson, who represents Point Breeze, looked on. “Because this democracy, created here, established here, gets reaffirmed here – and we have to demonstrate it for the nation.”

Key to the initiative is street-level beautification – installing shiny blue benches, etched with “250,” on sidewalks around the city, along with planters and bike racks – as well as neighborhood festivals, such as the kickoff’s open-air party, where marketgoers danced alongside the Phillie Phanatic.

“This celebration will pour into every neighborhood, onto every block,” promised Kathryn Ott Lovell, who leads both the Philadelphia Visitor Center Corporation and its Philadelphia250 semiquincentennial planning initiative.

As evidence, she and others pointed to the small army of community volunteers from Aramark, the Philadelphia-based food-service giant, who had busily transformed the Point Breeze site – a former vacant lot – into the city’s newest farmers market.

Also on hand at the event: candidates in the hotly contested Democratic primary race to represent the 3rd Congressional District, which includes Point Breeze, who took the opportunity to press the flesh, including state Sen. Sharif Street, the front-runner, and his rival, surgeon and health activist Dr. Ala Stanford.

While the mood was mostly festive, state Rep. Jordan Harris of Philadelphia, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, underlined the stakes for American democracy in Philadelphia.

“Before we celebrate … it befits that here in the birthplace of this nation, we renew our commitment to what democracy means, because there are some who would like to erase the democracy that we have. There are some that would like to erase the history that we have,” Harris said, referring to the federal administration’s efforts to remove exhibitions about slavery from Independence Mall ­­– and, obliquely, to some of President Donald Trump’s more illiberal gestures.  

“But we are standing here in Philadelphia, where it all started, proclaiming that this year, we are recommitting and reaffirming our dedication to the democracy that we have in this country.”

Street, who affectionately teased Harris as “Chairman Moneybags,” picked up the theme, telling the crowd that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “said that the founding documents were a promissory note – because when the founders may have written the language that all people were created equal … there were so many folks that weren’t included.”

Centuries of progress later, Street went on, Philadelphia has the opportunity to model the kind of inclusivity and diversity that today “is our strength,” he said, with free events and business opportunities throughout the city’s neighborhoods. 

“While 250 years ago, this might have been a relatively exclusive party for just a few folks,” he went on, “in the celebration that we’re having in 2026, we are going to be as inclusive as we can, and we’re going to celebrate the true diversity of this city. Philadelphia will stand as a shining example of what really does make this country great.”