Wingo-WHAT?: The Art of Community Connection with Glen Abrams,  Head of Public Affairs at the Philadelphia Water Department

[00:00:00] Piers Clark: Welcome to the Exec Exchange, 15 minute podcast, in which a leader from the water sector shares a story to inspire, inform, and educate other water sector leaders from around the globe.
[00:00:10] Piers Clark: My name is Piers Clark and my guest today is Glen Abrams, Head of Public Affairs at the Philadelphia Water Department, and we are gonna be talking about an astonishing initiative called "Wingo-WHAT?" which is groundbreaking. It is going to stir you to think, "oh my God, why didn't we think of that?"
[00:00:29] Piers Clark: Now, hold that thought. Glen, brilliant to have you with us today.
[00:00:33] Glen Abrams: It's wonderful to be here. Thank you.
[00:00:35] Piers Clark: Now, we always start by getting to know a little bit more about our speaker. So before we get into what is  "Wingo-WHAT?", I want to find out a bit more about Glen Abrams.
[00:00:45] Piers Clark: So, tell me what did you do before you moved to Philadelphia Water Department and what is it you do at Philadelphia Water Department?
[00:00:52] Glen Abrams: Well, I've been with Philly Water for 18 years. However, there was a six-year period in between where I worked with the Pennsylvania Water Cultural Society, which is a local nonprofit. And I led their sustainable communities work: tree planting, green stormwater infrastructure and a lot of education around sustainable practices.
[00:01:12] Glen Abrams: Today, I serve as Deputy Commissioner of Communications and Engagement. I lead our public affairs division responsible for much of the communications provided by the Philadelphia Water Department. So that would entail managing our relationships with our social media program.
[00:01:31] Glen Abrams: We have a robust education program. Community engagement that we're discussing today is a very important component of our work and we manage the customer contact center as well. So, many of the interactions between our customers and the department happen through the public affairs division.
[00:01:50] Piers Clark: Okay. So you are a communications man, but you've spent almost 25 years in the water space. It's brilliant.
[00:01:57] Piers Clark: Now, I love that you call it Philly Water. I was calling it Philadelphia Water Department. Now you've called it Philly Water, I'm calling it Philly Water.
[00:02:04] Piers Clark: So, for our audience, can you explain what sorts of things does Philly Water do? How many people does it serve? Does it do drinking water and wastewater and storm water?
[00:02:14] Glen Abrams: We are, the integrated drinking water wastewater and stormwater utility for the city of Philadelphia. The population of Philadelphia is just under 1.6 million. We also serve wholesale customers outside of the city through wholesale contracts.
[00:02:29] Glen Abrams: We are one of the city's operating departments that reports up to the city's managing director and mayor. So, we're not a separate business or utility in that sense.
[00:02:41] Piers Clark: Excellent. Alright, let's talk about "Wingo-WHAT?".
[00:02:44] Piers Clark: Infrastructure, in particular water and wastewater infrastructure, is usually quite boring. It's very difficult to get people to engage on it, yet you have found a way to make it inspiring. So, tell me in your own words, what is the  "Wingo-WHAT?" initiative?
[00:03:01] Glen Abrams: Wingo-WHAT? was a way for us to creatively engage with a community that continues to experience infrastructure base flooding, flash flooding, inland flooding in one of our neighborhoods in Philadelphia, in Germantown.
[00:03:17] Glen Abrams: And what we see now with increased rain intensities and development over the years is that in certain storms, there's just not enough capacity in the sewer system. And we get backups and we get floods, and in some cases it can be several feet of flooding on a roadway in a low lying area.
[00:03:36] Piers Clark: It's a big issue and we all struggle with how to engage with our communities and we often send out quite dry literature to try and engage with people that is quite engineering heavy, to get people to do things differently, but, oh no, not Philly Water. That's not your approach.
[00:03:52] Piers Clark: So what did you do in Philly Water to get public engaged on this issue?
[00:03:57] Glen Abrams: I need to mention the US Water Alliance because they were the organization that put out an opportunity through their Arts Accelerator grant. They were looking for utilities to utilize the arts in creative ways for public engagement around some issues and one of the topic areas was climate change. And so, we saw that opportunity and we thought, oh, Germantown would be perfect, and how could we engage the arts in Germantown?
[00:04:25] Glen Abrams: We were fortunate enough to receive the grant from the US Water Alliance. We put out a call for artists and we were really broad. We didn't quite know what we wanted but we did want folks that were really engaged in the neighborhood.
[00:04:41] Glen Abrams: And who we found was the former poet laureate of Philadelphia, Trapeta Mayson. And she suggested using poetry as a way to engage people, as a way for folks to tell their stories about flooding and about water and what those issues really meant to them.
[00:05:00] Piers Clark: It's just stunningly innovative as a thought. When you go on your website, you can see that actually the words that you use is to "create a healing space and raise awareness about infrastructure related flooding using art and poetry." It's so inspiring.
[00:05:15] Piers Clark: So I've gotta ask Glen, when did you start this? How long has it been running, and what sort of success have you had?
[00:05:22] Glen Abrams: We started this program in early 2020, and we all know what happened in 2020. So, we had to pivot very hard when the COVID-19 pandemic hit to a lot of outdoor events so that people would feel comfortable participating.
[00:05:40] Glen Abrams: Throughout the program, we collected a lot of poetry from a lot of the participants. We also created stencils that we could use water phobic paint that had elements, the little bits of the poetry, and installed the stencils across the neighborhood so that when it did rain these little bits of poetry would appear.
[00:06:01] Glen Abrams: So it was really fun. The program ran for about a year and we had a culminating event that resulted in a long form poem from Trapeta Mayson. We had some local musicians at the culminating event. And it was an opportunity for us to talk about what the water department is doing.
[00:06:22] Glen Abrams: We are exploring massive infrastructure improvements to mitigate the flooding in Germantown and also reduce combined sewer overflows into one of our creeks. But that is something that's going to take years of study and design and construction before we see results from that.
[00:06:40] Glen Abrams: So in the interim, we were thinking of ways to keep people engaged and informed, and this was one of those activities.
[00:06:47] Piers Clark: Absolutely brilliant Now, why is it called  Wingo-WHAT?
[00:06:51] Glen Abrams: That's a great question. So I talked about the creek that was encapsulated and became part of the sewer system. That creek system was called the Wingohocking, derived from the Native American language of the Lenape people. We wanted to connect back to that history so that people understand part of the reason why there's flooding in Germantown is because of the history of the land.
[00:07:14] Glen Abrams: And then the "WHAT?" is "Water, History, Arts Activation, and Transformation". So that's what we hope to achieve through this program.
[00:07:26] Piers Clark: And that's because it's not just about poetry, it is about people telling personal stories. It's about people engaging at a social level.
[00:07:33] Piers Clark: The phrasing on your website is to "create a space of healing". And that's so important 'cause if you've been impacted by flooding, you've lost everything. You've lost your memories, you've lost your favorite piece of furniture. All sorts of things come through that impact people's lives. And it's just so inspiring to see a utility stepping up with this sort of public engagement.
[00:07:55] Glen Abrams: Thank you. Yeah, we agree, I mean the trauma that is part of flooding, and as you say it is when people lose personal items like photos, they're irreplaceable and that creates real pain and trauma. And especially when these kinds of events repeat, it also creates anxiety. And so it was a space for people to talk really openly and honestly about the trauma, the anxiety that they're experiencing.
[00:08:23] Piers Clark: Now, what evidence have you had that it's worked, that it's had a positive impact?
[00:08:28] Glen Abrams: Well, it was really just a vehicle to start engagement and as I alluded, our recognizing that our planning horizon to work toward a solution to reduce flooding is quite long. So, this was just the start.
[00:08:42] Glen Abrams: Currently, for the last couple years, we have been working with the Mural Arts Philadelphia. A different organization to engage in the arts and community engagement. Our latest initiative is the Waterways Arts Initiative. And that's in a partnership with both Mural Arts Philadelphia and the Academy of Natural Sciences.
[00:09:04] Glen Abrams: And this program has brought in local artists in some cases, photographers videographers, you know, we've been working with a lot of different people and engaging people in the neighborhood. Part of that initiative also has created a storefront. So there's this space called the Watershed, where a lot of programming is starting to develop and run through that space.
[00:09:28] Piers Clark: You know, listening to you talk, I've got it. I've worked out why this has worked for Philly Water. It's because you are not a hardened engineer, like the hardened engineers that pretty much every water utility employs. So, you are approaching it in the way that the public you serve want to see their utilities. It's brilliant!
[00:09:47] Piers Clark: Now, if there's a utility listening to this and they're going, God, this sounds brilliant, I'd like to copy this. So, one of the questions they're gonna ask themselves is, how much was it? And you mentioned that you've been given a grant.
[00:09:58] Piers Clark: Now I don't need to know the precise number of the grant, but was it a million dollars or a hundred thousand dollars or $10,000? Which of those is nearest to the mark?
[00:10:08] Glen Abrams: In terms of Wingo-WHAT?, around $10,000 would be near to the mark there. Our working with Mural Arts is closer to a hundred thousand dollars through programming throughout a year. In the totality of what we spend at a utility, it's a drop in the bucket.
[00:10:25] Piers Clark: Brilliant. Now, we are coming to the end of our time, but we can't talk about an initiative like Wingo-WHAT? and how you've used poetry to engage with the citizens you serve without me inviting you, begging you to read one of those poems that has been produced. Could you do that for me?
[00:10:43] Glen Abrams: Oh, I'd be happy to!
[00:10:44] Glen Abrams: "Water is cleansing and it mostly makes life better,
[00:10:48] Glen Abrams: but it can be badder when it's wetter.
[00:10:51] Glen Abrams: So you better get urgency prepared in a way,
[00:10:54] Glen Abrams: By using some of that info that is shared here today."
[00:10:59] Glen Abrams: And that was Karim Kabir.
[00:11:01] Piers Clark: That's so good. I love how that poem itself already encapsulates the initiative. You can see people reading it and thinking, oh, I've gotta find out more about this. Absolutely brilliant.
[00:11:11] Piers Clark: Glen, I'd love to talk to you more about this program, but we're running out of time. We always finish with the question of if you could go back in time, what advice would you give your younger self?
[00:11:22] Piers Clark: And I think it's particularly pertinent for you because you weren't a water engineer, you weren't a water scientist, yet you chose to be in this field. If you could go back and do that time again, would you make the same choice?
[00:11:35] Glen Abrams: Yes, I would. And I think the advice is trust the journey. You know, there can be a lot of twists and turns along the way in one's career. But when you're doing something that really inspires you, the journey takes you where you belong. So, I would say trust the journey.
[00:11:53] Piers Clark: You have been listening to the Exec Exchange with me, Piers Clark, and my guest today has been Glen Abrams, Head of Public Affairs at Philly Water, and we have been talking about how you can create a healing space and raise awareness about infrastructure related flooding, but not with hard engineering pamphlets, but with actually art, with something that inspires and touches people's hearts.
[00:12:15] Piers Clark: I hope you can join us next time. Thank you.