- Here's what's coming up.

- Next on "You Oughta Know," a trip to the dog track sparks outrage, and leads to a mission to save greyhounds.

- [Shirley] Looking for ways to save money at the pump, AAA is here to tell us how.

- [Regina] Plus we explore the location where Ben Franklin once called home.

- [Shirley] And we'll show you where to turn if you're looking to reduce waste through composting.

(upbeat music) Hi everyone, I'm Shirley Min, welcome to the show.

- And I'm Regina Mitchell.

Thanks for joining us.

We begin today with a story I stumbled on, Shirley, are your kids like begging for a pet?

- Did they ask you?

(Shirley laughing) - No, not yet, but I'm sure every child does.

- Yeah.

So both my kids have been begging for a cat, but I'm allergic, so that's not happening.

So now they're begging me for a dog, but we're not ready yet.

- Well, see if you ever change your mind, I know the perfect pet for your family.

So being from New York, I have seen plenty of greyhounds but most of them are on the buses, but in Philadelphia I learned these canines are common pets and it's all thanks to a man on a mission to save them.

If you ever go downtown, they're hard to miss, greyhound dogs, almost everywhere, bred for racing, now a common household pet for families, mostly in part because David Wolf has spent over three decades making it so.

- Our organization began quite humbly when I went to a race track in Hollywood, Florida, and sat next to someone that raced greyhounds.

And we asked the question, what happens to the greyhounds when they finish racing?

And there really wasn't a good answer.

Most of the greyhounds would be destroyed and very few were being adopted at that time.

- [Regina] Upset by this discovery Wolf purchased some of the greyhounds and flew them with him from Florida to Philadelphia.

- They would stay in my home, and we would adopt the grounds that we brought in and then we actually started to build a kennel.

- Over the years Wolf made many more trips with greyhounds in tow, eventually establishing the National Greyhound Adoption Program.

The kennel has grown to house 100 dogs and has a clinic to help those that come in with injuries.

But Wolf's plan had a bigger picture than just getting each greyhound off the track.

- Our main purpose was to try and shut down greyhound racing.

And of course everyone from my family said, but that'll never happen and when I started, there were over 60 tracks, currently, there are four, two of them are scheduled to close this year.

And the other two there's currently legislation in US Congress to shut them down as well.

- [Regina] Although these dogs are bred for speed, Wolf says they actually make great household pets, they like to lay around and are great with kids and other animals.

However, fewer and fewer are coming in for adoption.

Soon, you may not see them here at all.

- The industry has banned us from getting greyhounds because we've been strong advocates all along and the only reason we get them is because there were so many.

- [Regina] Now the kennel takes all kinds of dogs, but Wolf says he's not done saving the racing dogs, taking his fight international.

- Marcel China had the worst dog track in the world.

And in 2018, after many years of trying to close it, it closed.

There were 532 dogs there, but 110 of the 532 came to the National Greyhound Adoption Program.

This painting that I have on the wall shows this horrible place and then the dog's flying over the ocean to a new home and it's kind of inspirational every time I walk past it, just to look at it, it makes me feel good.

- We tried to contact the Florida Greyhound Association for their side of the story, but have yet to get a response.

Hearings for the remaining tracks in the US are set for later this year.

- In Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, we are paying over $4 for a gallon of regular gas with prices closer to five for premium.

Jana Tidwell with AAA joins me now to talk about ways to stretch that tank of gas, Jana, thanks so much for being here.

- And thanks for having me.

- So let's talk about stretching that tank of gas, 'Cause I just paid $72 to fill up and that was painful.

So I'm looking for any suggestions to improve that gas mileage.

- That sticker shock is enough to have anyone say, what can I do?

How can I maximize this?

- [Shirley] Yeah.

- First and foremost, AAA will tell every motorist to perform routine maintenance on your vehicle.

Make that service appointment, make sure the oil, the filters are changed regularly, your tires are properly inflated.

Believe it or not, those things help maximize fuel economy.

So don't put that off, especially now, it's not the time to put that off and the extra benefit of that is it can oftentimes prevent higher repair bills down the road if you perform that routine vehicle maintenance.

- Gotcha, stitching time.

Okay, what else have we got?

- You wanna make sure it's spring cleaning time, let's get the junk out of the trunk.

It sounds funny, but the heavier the vehicle is the more gas it takes to move it.

- Okay.

- So I'm as guilty as the person for storing your kids' sporting equipment, these baseball bags that are so heavy, people store golf bags down there, get all of the heavy stuff out of the trunk, get that winter emergency kit out now with your rock salt kitty litter, now's the time to do that.

- Okay.

So one of the other things I had heard was, and this is kind of blowing my mind that when it starts getting warmer, that we should be keeping the AC on and not pulling the windows down to save on gas mileage.

- That is true.

If you have the roof back, the windows down, it creates that drag where the window is pulling the vehicle and it takes more gas to move your vehicle, 'Cause it's that push pull against the wind.

So keeping the windows up, keeping the AC or the heat on depending on the time of year is actually going to use less gas than keeping the windows down.

- Do you know how many days in high school I sweated in my car 'Cause I was trying to save gas and I was doing the complete opposite.

Coasting is also something that may kind of stretch that tank a little, like slowly coming to the stop instead of slamming on the brakes.

- Sure.

What we call a jack-rabbit start and stop where you're accelerating quickly, you're breaking quickly that burns fuel unnecessarily.

So paying attention, you see the yellow light, you wanna gradually come to a stop, gradually come to those stop signs and then also gradually accelerate when it's your turn to move.

- Okay.

So AAA recently did a survey showing that these painful prices at the pump really are affecting driving habits, in what way?

And what did the survey find?

- The recent survey that AAA fielded resulted in a number, 59% of motorists say that once they see that $4 per gallon threshold, they're going to think twice about changing they're driving behaviors and that could be carpooling, consolidating trips, restructuring where it is that you wanna go.

Maybe not the longer trip, the shorter trip for the weekend kind of thing, when we reach a round number like that, that $4 threshold people's eyes are open and they realize, wow, $72 to fill up, where am I gonna get that money?

Where am I gonna take it from to make up for that difference?

- Wow, I love all of these tips and so where can people, 'Cause we kind of scratch the surface of ways to improve gas mileage, where can viewers check out more ways to save?

- We invite everybody to come to AAA.com and you can find tips for automotive maintenance, driving tips, those kinds of things because we don't know what the rest of the summer's going to look like.

So it makes sense to be prepared now, have your vehicle checked, take advantage of some of those fuel saving tips and hopefully enjoy the summer as best we can now.

- Yeah.

And when you do do all of them, they really do add up to a lot of savings.

- Every penny counts right now.

So there's no silver bullet out there, but they will add up over time.

- All right, Jana, thank you so much for your time and the advice.

- My pleasure.

- Now to a story from our Delaware reporter, Chris Barrish that has left many in the first state heartbroken.

- Thanks Regina, Wilmington's Education Community is in mourning over the death of Terrence Newton.

He was the beloved principal at Warner Elementary School.

Newton earned local and national acclaim for converting a Warner classroom into a barber shop.

In 2020, he told me the impact that one act, cutting a kid's hair had on a student at a previous school.

- I had one student who felt like other students were picking on him 'Cause he didn't have a haircut and kids don't feel good or don't look good, they started acting certain ways.

So when I was able to cut this kid's hair years ago, I was able to build a relationship with him.

His attitude changed, grades even got better and you just seen a different kid.

- Students, parents, and fellow educators applauded Newton for a success at improving morale and grades.

But Newton made clear that Warner's progress was a product of teamwork.

- These teachers are, it's only one word I can use, are amazing.

We're very diverse, they go above and beyond for students, they're willing to do whatever that they can do to meet the need of that student.

- Word of Newton's death at a motorcycle accident led students to make this moving tribute.

- His name Newton.

I knew him one time, but his name is Newton.

- The Delaware State University grad was 47 years old.

(upbeat music) When we met two years ago, I witnessed firsthand how Newton connected with students.

He stressed that every day he told the kids, he loved them.

- Words I'm pretty sure they'll always remember.

Thanks Chris.

(upbeat music) - Composting is when you convert your food waste into nutrient rich soil and it's good for the environment, but it's more than just dumping what's on your dinner plate into a bucket.

There's a process to it and if you're in the Philly area, there's a private subscription service that takes out all the guesswork and makes composting easy and accessible.

I'm joined by founder, Tim Bennett.

Tim, thanks so much for having us here.

- Oh, thanks for coming out here, we're happy to host.

- Tell us about what you do here at Bennett Compost.

- So what we do is that we collect organic food scraps and we collect that, we bring it back here and we make it into compost and compost similar to a fertilizer and make it so you can grow more delicious food that you can eat, eat and get compost again.

- Full circle.

(Shirley laughing) - Exactly.

- In addition to replenishing lost nutrients in the soil, composting also diverts food scraps from landfills.

- When food scraps and other organic material breaks down there, they generate methane and that's a harmful gas that contributes to climate change.

And so composting is a way to avoid that.

(upbeat music) - Tim started Bennett Compost in 2009, when he was living in a south Philly apartment, he wanted to compost, didn't have a good way to do it and couldn't find anywhere to take it.

- Maybe there's something here.

Maybe there are other people who are kind of like weirdos like me.

And so I put a hundred bucks in a bank account and I thought maybe I'll try to start a business.

- Turns out there are lots of others looking to do right by mother nature.

Bennett Compost currently picks up food waste from 5700 homes and 80 businesses a week throughout the city of Philadelphia rain or shine.

(upbeat music) - We actually do about 40% of our pickups.

Each week are done via electric bicycles that go out into neighborhoods and do the collections towing trailers behind them.

That is a much lower emission operation that we do.

(upbeat music) Food scrap is then blended with wood chuffs and leaves and those are then put on pipes of low air into them.

So we are just kind of creating the right environment for millions of tiny microbes and other microscopic creatures to break down the way it would in nature.

We're kind of just managing and accelerating that natural process.

- When the materials, the organics are composting, does that not produce methane?

- Exactly.

So because you're aerating it, what comes to off of that is carbon dioxide, which is less harmful than the methane given the amount that's being produced.

- On the back end, Tim and his team screen the finished compost to make sure it's as fine as possible.

(upbeat music) - This is what it looks like when it's gone through a screen and you can see it's just small pieces of it and this used to be apple cores and banana peels and celery stocks and now it's compost to grow some more of all that stuff.

- Beautiful.

- Thank you.

- I never thought I'd say dirt looked beautiful, but it does.

(Shirley laughing) - You get the wrong kind of dirt.

(Shirley and Tim laughing) - And then it gets bagged.

The city of Philadelphia will also get a big portion of the finished compost as part of its recent partnership with Bennett Compost in exchange for being allowed to compost on site in this city owned building rent free Bennett Compost will collect food scraps from recreation centers throughout Philly.

- And rec centers are actually the second largest city provider of food after the school district.

And they've had some estimates that each rec center might produce a ton of food waste over the course of a year and there are 156 rec centers throughout the city and playgrounds, that's 156 tons of material.

(upbeat music) - Why is a service like this needed?

Because composting is something thing that anyone can do.

- It's not as simple as just putting it a bull and putting a top on you do have to have the right mix to make sure it's getting air, but you're right, anyone could do it.

Had I known about this 13 years ago, probably none of this would've happened and I just would've tried this, which is something called vermicomposting, which is getting a special kind of worm that actually will do the composting in a self kind of self-contained container.

We make it easy if they don't want to, or they don't feel like they can do it themselves, we're a solution there.

- It is a bit of a commitment.

- It's a little bit of a commitment and it has the potential if you don't do it right to get kind of stinky.

- Do you really want worms in the house?

I don't.

(Shirley and Tim laughing) Hard to imagine Tim started with just nine customers, but he says, as people learn more about climate change, composting was empowering.

Like they couldn't solve climate change, but they could actually do something to help with one five gallon bucket.

- A lot of people do a little bit.

Then you see, you start to see bigger changes starting to happen.

(upbeat music) - The service is $18 a month.

The catches you have to live in Philly, Tim estimates whole process on average about 500 tons of food waste every year.

I wish they had the service available in Delaware.

- I'm gonna take advantage of it.

I hope you do.

- What kind of things can you compost?

- So many things.

Potato peels, carrot peelings, coffee grounds, all of these things are compostable and he has a whole list of all the things you can compost on his website.

- Now, if you're not a member, can you still get the compost?

- You can.

Well, so subscribers are gonna get two bags as part of their service, but non-customers can buy it too, it's 10 bucks a bag and you can grab that and learn more at bennettcompost.com.

- From smart watches to autonomous vehicles, technology is part of everyday life.

A local woman is now making sure black and Latinx people are part of this growing industry, her Diversitech Summit held right here in Philly recently gave job seekers an opportunity to sharpen their skills and connect with mentors in this field.

Joining me now is Shannon Morales, founder of Tribaja, welcome Shannon.

- Thank you so much Regina.

- Now, before we get to the summit, I wanna start at the very beginning, how did you come up with the idea for Tribaja, like do you have a background in tech?

by the way?

By the way, I just wanna mention Tribaja means to work in Spanish.

- Yes, absolutely.

So I don't have a background in tech.

I'm actually considered a non-technical tech professional, but I got the idea in 2017 after experiencing unconscious bias in the workplace, I was working in finance, a very male dominated industry and it was a toxic work environment for me.

And so I figured like there had to be a better way to find more fulfillment in my career, being a mom, a single mom of three daughters, I didn't have the work life balance that I wish I had and so I tried to create a support system around work and that ended up being Tribaja, which is now over 6,000 members and we help connect job seekers from under supported communities to tech and startup careers.

- I'd also mean people who tried to pivot, particularly during the pandemic and found it really difficult.

Was it hard for you to make that transition from working in finance to now going into tech?

- Absolutely.

I think it's always difficult, especially when there's not a lot of representation and being a first gen college graduate, there was really no one for me to talk to, to kind of get that support and ask those questions, like how do I transition into technology?

And I think still, my mom has absolutely no idea what I do today and a lot of professionals like myself have similar situations and so it is hard to transition when you don't have that support system to kind of like help and guide you through.

So mentorship is important, support systems are important and just being able to find resources and make it less overwhelming for professionals that are making that transition.

- And that's what I love, like you took this thing that you saw as a problem them for you and you said, I'm gonna make it my business to help other people and it's not that blacks and Latinx are not in technical jobs.

- Right.

- But you wanna make sure they're getting more access, why are they being overlooked for these positions?

- Absolutely.

I think it's because right now we're undergoing a major revolution before we were not included in this technology because of the fact that we were included in more administrative roles and right now the job market needs us.

They need professionals all over to really fill in these gaps, these technological gaps and upskill professionals in these high demands functions and so right now it's our time to really take control of these new opportunities and make sure that we have a space and a seat at the table in tech.

- And I'm just so happy that you're giving people these opportunities.

So how did Diversitech, how did the summit go?

- It was amazing.

We had a completely sold out event, 2000 attendees and a 91% turnout rate and our closing reception was right here in Philadelphia, we had it at the debut in Philly and we were just so excited to see everyone in person.

It was actually the first time I got to see some of my clients that I've been working with for the past year and a half actually live.

- It just goes to show that you're on the right track.

Thank you so much Shannon Morales for joining us and giving us all this information.

Thank you.

(upbeat music) - Benjamin Franklin is known for his numerous contributions to America.

- That's right.

His life is so fascinating that it's the inspiration behind Ken Burn's newest film.

- And it also got us thinking about where someone as accomplished as Franklin lived, take a look.

(upbeat music) - Everybody knows Ben Franklin, Franklin is such a popular figure, both in America and around the world and he arrives in Philadelphia in 1726 with just a few coins in his pocket and nothing else.

And he ascends over the course of his long life to the most famous person in the Western world.

Franklin's name and his face are everywhere in Philadelphia, businesses, hotels, the Franklin Parkway, all of them are named for Philadelphia's most famous son.

(upbeat music) Franklin had made a lot of money off of his business and he'd also made a lot off his political career and decided that he needed a grand house.

He chose this location because he wanted a place that was both private and immediately accessible.

So Franklin Court is actually right off Philadelphia's busiest street, Market Street.

When Franklin bought the properties, it was actually closed by a wall on three sides and open at one end.

He also built a printing office for his grandson, Benjamin Franklin Bache.

Franklin also owned the properties on Market Street, which he rented to various tenants.

And so by the time he actually settles in this house, he's in his 80s and it's from 1785 till the end of his life in 1790 that he lived here.

Now the house no longer survives.

It was demolished early in the 19th century by Franklin's daughter and son-in-law who had other reasons for selling the land and making money from it that way.

So we don't know what Franklin's house looked like.

Today, when you come to Franklin Court, you can see two steel frame sculptures, the larger one is Franklin's house, the smaller one is the printing shop that was used by his grandson.

(upbeat music) When the National Park Service began, the restorations here in the 1950s, they had to demolish a lot of newer buildings.

The most historic part is the carriage way that leads from Market Street into Franklin Court.

That's actually a spot that Franklin would've walked through to come to his house.

When the park service was doing the study and excavation and restoration here, they removed a lot of dirt from the modern period, and they were able to get down to the very foundations of Franklin's house.

So when you come to Franklin court, you'll see that we have these small concrete structures, which are viewing portals and they have glass, you can look down into them and see the foundations of Franklin's house.

The rest of Franklin Court is either reconstructed or is representational.

(upbeat music) You can see lots of other aspects of Franklin's life that we provided.

We have a museum about Franklin's family, about his early career, his later career, his scientific inventions and his role as a statesman.

Franklin has this reputation in American history as being someone who others really identified with and Philadelphia embraced him in the 18th century and continues to consider him to be kind of our chief ambassador, he's the person who we see as Philadelphia.

(upbeat music) - Franklin Court is open daily to the public.

- For more information about Franklin's life, writings and innovations, head over to our website.

- And if you can't get to Philadelphia, no worries, turn to Ken Burns' documentary, "Ben Franklin" right here on WHYY-TV 12 on April 4th and 5th at 8:00 PM.

- Speaking of filmmakers, I'd like to share with you an upcoming event I'm hosting for a local director.

It's been almost two years since George Floyd was killed by police.

On April 7th, filmmaker, Terrance Tykeem debuts "When George Got Murdered" a movie that takes a look at the unique effects Floyd's death had on our country, the screening will be held at the Bryn Mawr Film Institute and is free to the public.

Following the movie, there'll be a panel discussion moderated by yours truly the event supporters, the Systemic Reformative Change Organization.

- The event sounds incredible.

You are gonna do great, I wish you luck.

- Thank you.

- That is it for tonight's show though.

- See you all next week for all new stories.

Goodnight.

- Bye.

(upbeat music)