Dianna Coleman is the neighbor everyone wants.
Every Thanksgiving, she works with Mount Calvary Family Worship Center to donate meals to local families in need. She takes care of stray cats, providing them food and shelter, so that they don’t tip over neighborhood trash cans scavenging. This fall, she organized a voter registration event that registered over 500 people in Southwest Philly.
But Coleman’s proudest accomplishments are with the young people in her neighborhood. As the block captain for South Paxon Street, over the past few years she’s recruited the children in her neighborhood to help clean the streets and invest in their community.
Together, they built a community garden on a vacant lot in the neighborhood this past year. The garden, named for Verna Williams, a long-time resident of South Paxon Street, is a resource to teach the kids about healthy eating and taking care of the environment. They grow okra, eggplants, Swiss chard, spicy and bell peppers, squash and many other vegetables for community members in need.
Since Coleman moved to the block about three years ago, her efforts have helped make the neighborhood not only cleaner, but safer, too. Neighbors report hearing less gunfire and Coleman now has a reputation as “the woman who transformed South Paxon Street.” These efforts — and so much more — are why we’re proud to name Dianna C. Coleman Block Captain of the Year.
Coleman will be honored alongside her fellow Citizens of the Year at a dinner celebration on Tuesday, February 25, at Fitler Club Ballroom. (You can read about all of this year’s winners here, and find out about tickets and sponsorships for the star-studded event here.)
A family history of activism
Coleman’s penchant for civic engagement comes from her family. Her grandparents were deeply engaged in the Civil Rights Movement. Her grandfather, George Sawyer, was active with the NAACP, traveling the country along with her grandmother to advocate for the rights of Black people. President Lyndon B. Johnson sent Sawyer a letter thanking him for his work advocating for civil rights, and there’s a plaque at Mother Bethel AME, right here in Philly, honoring them.
“My grandfather said, ‘Everything we’ve worked for is not set in stone. We can’t be complacent,’” Coleman says. “I’ll always remember that. There’s always going to be people or forces that try to interfere with progress, and we can’t allow that to happen. We can’t allow fear to kick in.”
Coleman moved to Philly from North Carolina as part of her work as a researcher on Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, then stayed here. For years, she lived in East Falls and Germantown, working at a residential treatment facility and later at a nonprofit that focused on providing human service programs.
About three years ago, she moved to Southwest Philly and noticed that the neighborhood was different. In particular, there was a higher level of unemployment and more crime.
“There’s always going to be people or forces that try to interfere with progress, and we can’t allow that to happen. We can’t allow fear to kick in.” — Dianna C. Coleman
“One of the things I noticed immediately was that there weren’t many places for the kids to be outside and feel safe,” Coleman says.
Coleman considers herself a “big kid” and loves working with children. She raised her niece and her nephew since they were in elementary school — they’re 19 and 17 today — and coached basketball at George Washington Carver Engineering and Science High School. She ran the Philly Teen Vaxx Ambassadors program during Covid and is currently pursuing a PhD in education at St. Joseph’s University. (She already has two master’s degrees, one in global public health from Penn, and one in sociology from the University of North Carolina Charlotte.)
So she decided to create places in the neighborhood for kids to play. She loaned them bikes and skateboards and let them help her walk her dog. Eventually, she began taking them to rec centers and neighborhood festivals. She fundraised so she could donate a bike to all eight kids on the block.
Becoming block captain
Coleman did all of this work informally for her neighbors, who would come to her for advice or with ideas to get involved, but she didn’t have a formal role — like block captain.
That changed in 2022 when a pothole opened up on the block. For months, no one from the City came to fix it, despite constant calls to 311. (It takes an average of 52 days for the City to fill potholes). It didn’t help that the neighborhood got months of rain. Coleman’s neighbors were worried about kids playing outside as the pothole kept growing. At one point, garbage trucks couldn’t drive down the street because it had gotten so massive.
By now, Coleman had developed a reputation for being a problem solver. She was already fundraising so she could take kids on free field trips to the Zoo and the water park Clementon Park. Her neighbors asked if she could help fix the pothole. So Coleman became a block captain and organized a petition to Councilmember Jamie Gauthier and State Representative Krajewski to get the pothole filled. It was fixed within weeks.
“She was just a constant force to get it done. It wasn’t like one call / one email, I’ll let it go. She was constantly, perpetually, letting them know that this is a problem and it needs to be fixed,” says Karen James, community liaison for the neighborhood’s Mount Calvary Family Worship Center.
With the pothole fixed — and armed with the new title of block captain — Coleman set her sights on tidying a vacant lot on the street. The lot had become a dumping ground where people left trash and dead animals. Coleman wanted to turn it into a garden.
She contacted Councilmember Gauthier, Bartram’s Garden, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society and the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge. Now, there are fruiting trees, planter boxes filled with plants that are good for pollinators and others filled with eggplants, greens and other foods for the neighborhood.
“Now people come on this block and they’re like, It’s such a quiet block. It’s such a peaceful block,” Coleman says.
Investing in every generation
The garden opened in October 2023. This September, Coleman held a block party, which she called a Peace Fest, to celebrate back-to-school and the community garden. There were horseback rides, a cotton candy machine and a community meal. “It’s really become a safe space for fellowship and appreciating the space that we’re in,” Coleman says.
They dedicated the garden to Williams, who passed away a year and a half after Coleman moved to the block. Williams had lived across the street from Coleman, and the two transplants had bonded over their shared experiences growing up in the South. Williams, who was over 90 when she passed, had lived on the block for more than 50 years. Coleman is honoring her legacy, while teaching the next generation how to care for their block.
“What’s really special about Dianna is that she’s really, really great at being able to organize people, being able to go get resources,” says Ty Holmberg, co-director of Sankofa Community Farm at Bartram’s Garden, who visited the community garden over the summer. “They had such a good growing year. I was so impressed. They had the most beautiful plants.”
Since becoming block captain, Coleman has formalized a lot of the work she was already doing with children in the neighborhood. The eight kids who live on the block are now her junior block captains. On the third Saturday of the month, they help her pick up trash on the street. The youngest kid in the program is four; the oldest is 14. They’re working together to invest in their neighborhood.
“It has been lovely to watch their transformation,” Coleman says. “They have taken so much ownership.”
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