Remember those Pop-Up Newsrooms? They’re baaaack!

Five years ago, I stuffed a borrowed Inquirer table banner and a bunch of @NotesFromHel-branded chocolates and pens into my backpack and headed to Southwark School in South Philadelphia.

There was no assignment, no deadline; I just wanted to meet students and their families — many of them immigrants and refugees — and hear their stories on their turf and on their terms. Maybe, I thought, I might even turn a student or two onto newspaper reporting.

I’ve long believed that the best journalism is rooted in community, and a 2018 trip to a Journalism and Women Symposium conference only reinforced my aim to build even stronger relationships by just “popping up” when there was no agenda, no strings, no pressing story. In the news business, showing up when calamity strikes is often the only way too many of my fellow journalists find ourselves in neighborhoods we might not otherwise take the time to visit.

Walking up and down the block, chatting up residents, and bearing witness to everyday life in the city is what reporters are supposed to do, and what many of us strive to do. But with shrinking newsrooms and the unending demands of deadlines in the digital age, it’s something that we don’t get to do nearly as often as we’d like. Clicks over connections come at a cost.

Until the pandemic hit, I popped up at all kinds of spots — city schools and pools, a clothing bank at a North Philly church, an expungement clinic at a busy barbershop. The effort even got a little national attention.

I met lots of people I might not have encountered otherwise if my travels were only tied to a story — and the relationships I built led to even more relationships that regularly inform how I approach the city I’m always rooting for, and the people who have always deserved so much more.

That was exactly what I hoped, for myself and for The Inquirer. I wanted Philadelphians to know that behind every story, every byline, there weren’t just a bunch of reporters, but fellow residents and neighbors who cared about the same things they cared about, and who wanted to do better and be better by adequately and accurately covering the city’s neighborhoods.

From the start, I hoped to make it a broader initiative. (I hope the same for the Fill The Steps Against Gun Violence rallies at the Art Museum steps that I started in 2016.) And now, five years after I walked into Southwark, that hope is finally becoming a reality thanks to The Inquirer’s Communities and Engagement desk.

I couldn’t think of a better home for the effort than a desk full of reporters dedicated to uplifting and empowering — and respecting — communities, their stories, and their voices.

“The pop-ups aren’t meant to be transactional in any way,” Sabrina Iglesias, an editor on the desk, explained when I asked how they envisioned the continuation of the newsrooms. Before coming to The Inquirer last year, Iglesias worked at The Trace, a nonprofit news organization focused on gun violence, where she helped create “Up the Block” — an effort to connect the people of Philadelphia with resources for coping with the trauma surrounding shootings.

“The idea is to show up and have conversations with folks that are interested in talking with people from The Inquirer,” Iglesias said. “We can talk about anything including concerns and wins in their communities, questions about what it’s like to be a journalist, and what they’ve had on their mind lately. Everything we talk about is totally off the record, meaning it won’t go into a story.”

Iglesias told me they’d like to hold a couple of pop-ups every month. To suggest a spot for them to set up shop, contact her at siglesias@inquirer.com.

The first community pop-up is scheduled for Friday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Campaign for Working Families headquarters at 1415 N. Broad St.

There will be a table, some Inquirer swag, and some free newspapers. And while I’m not leading the effort anymore, I plan to pop into as many as I can.

I might even bring some now-vintage @NotesFromHel pens and sunglasses — just in time for summer.

See you out there.