Partnership

Thanks to her school lunches, Patience Vaughan discovered she likes grape leaves. Joey Olivo found out he's a fan of smoked salmon. Tiara Carter fell in love with lobster ravioli. That's standard lunch fare at the Sustainability Workshop, an alternative senior-year program of the Philadelphia School District in which 29 students learn not in traditional classrooms, but by tackling real-world problems. The meals - plus lots of fresh fruits and vegetables for snacking - come via FreshDirect, the New York-based online grocer now expanding into the Philadelphia market.

Coal trains stopped trundling over Darby Creek into Exelon Corp.'s Eddystone generating station some time ago, after the utility announced plans to retire its coal-fired power generation units. By this time next year, a train could begin rolling in daily to Eddystone carrying Bakken crude oil from North Dakota for use at Philadelphia-area refineries. On Monday, Enbridge Inc. , of Calgary, Alberta, said it has agreed with a Philadelphia-area partner to form the Eddystone Rail Co. and convert the train facility at the generating station from one capable of handling coal hoppers to tank cars.

REMEMBER THAT exposure monstrosity that was going to separate Texas from those other top-feeders on the food chain? Well, upon further review, maybe not so much. Or at least not the way some envisioned when the Longhorns entered into a 20-year, $300 million partnership with - who else? - ESPN. Coach Mack Brown spends 6 hours a week taping six televison shows. And the first 30 minutes of practice also makes it on the air. Recruits see it. So do other teams. "I'm a solider," Brown said recently, when asked about the partnership.

Hurricane Sandy was bad for business, and will be good for business, writes Beata Caranci , economist at Canadian-owned TD Bank , whose U.S. base is in Marlton. Big, ugly storms typically bring a drop in retail spending, home buying, big-business productivity, and small-business sales. But as repairs proceed, utility and Shore improvements will boost depressed Northeast construction employment, and "reconstruction may create an opportunity to usher in new and updated technologies," Caranci concludes.

Prostate cancer is especially tough on African Americans. They are about 50 percent more likely than white men to get the disease and twice as likely to die of it. The Prostate Cancer Foundation wants to help research institutions in Philadelphia take the lead in figuring out why, the foundation's founder and co-chair, Michael Milken, said Tuesday evening during the group's 10th annual fund-raiser in Philadelphia. Milken said he wonders, "What can we learn from this that would not only help them but will help all men on the planet?"

The University of Pennsylvania's partnership with the national network of KIPP charter schools is getting a big financial boost. Penn President Amy Gutmann and KIPP cofounder Mike Feinberg are scheduled to announce Tuesday that Martha and Bruce Karsh, former Penn parents and philanthropists from Los Angeles, are donating $2.5 million over several years to create an endowment to aid some KIPP grads who attend Penn. "This is set up to try to provide for their full financial needs," said Martha Karsh, who will attend an afternoon ceremony at Penn that will cement a partnership with KIPP that aims to increase the number of the network's graduates on campus.

The leadership of the nonprofit Philadelphia School Partnership announced Thursday that it was more than halfway to its goal of raising $100 million to pump into expanding strong schools, whether they're charter, public, or private. That the group has shaken loose $51.9 million in just under two years in a tough economy is a symbol of the considerable and rising influence of the partnership (PSP) in the city's education sector. An energized Mayor Nutter, speaking at a news conference with deep-pocketed donors and city school officials to announce PSP's fund-raising prowess, made it clear he was on board with the organization's goals.

The U.S. Justice Department's surge of 50 agents, who have been working with Philadelphia police and the District Attorney's Office, is having a welcome payoff. Since early June, they've made 300 arrests on assault, drug, weapons, and other charges, and seized 80 guns.   The Violent Crime Reduction Partnership represents an unprecedented level of cooperation, according to Deputy Mayor Everett Gillison. The theory behind the project is that a small number of Philadelphians commit a large number of crimes.

The Cooper Foundation and TEAM Schools, a branch of the national network of the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) charter schools, will announce a partnership today to develop five new schools in Camden's Lanning Square neighborhood. Proposals for a new type of public school in Camden called "Renaissance Schools" are due at 2 p.m. today. Cooper and KIPP officials will hold a news conference at 1:30 this afternoon to announce details of their partnership and the plan to house more than 2,800 students at the KIPP Cooper Norcross Academy.