Impact
The Walk is Impactful
Walk Around Philadelphia invites people to experience the city from its margins rather than its center — and that shift changes how people relate to the land, to one another, and to themselves.
Since 2016, the Walk has grown from a small artist-led experiment into a shared walking practice that now includes seasonal walk cycles, self-guided participation, and year-round community programming.
Along the way, participants consistently describe the experience as eye-opening, grounding, and transformative in subtle and enduring ways.
Three dimensions of impact
Connection to place
Participants learn the city in a new way — not as a map or statistic, but as a lived and layered environment.
Many return to visit parks, trails, riverfronts, and cultural sites they first discovered on the Walk.
Connection to community
Small-group walking creates space for listening, curiosity, and care.
Participants often describe a renewed sense of belonging — both to the city and to one another.
Connection to self
Participants speak of greater awareness of their own limits and resilience, a deeper appreciation for the land and water that hold the city, and a grounding counterbalance to the hectic pace of everyday life.
The Walk becomes both a civic and personal practice.
Equity & Access
A core commitment of Walk Around Philadelphia is to make this experience accessible to a broad range of participants.
This includes:
- sliding-scale & free registrations
- stipends for walkers facing financial hardship
- language access initiatives
- community partnerships
- shorter walk options & non-walking events
- ongoing work toward physical, cultural, and financial accessibility
We are actively working toward a future where participation reflects the full diversity of the city.
-> Accessibility
Learning & civic awareness
Walking the edges opens conversations about:
- land & water stewardship
- infrastructure & industry
- environmental justice
- incarceration & re-entry
- housing & displacement
- public space & mobility
The Walk creates space for shared learning — not through lectures, but through lived experience, conversation, and reflection.
Organic growth – one walker at a time
Walk Around Philadelphia has grown not through advertising campaigns, but through word of mouth, shared stories, and small moments of noticing. Several of our Circumnavigators began their journey after spotting a sticker or brief mention — and eventually completed the full 100-mile circuit. This slow, human-scaled growth reflects the heart of the project: an invitation that spreads through curiosity and connection.
-> Circumnavigators
Measurable outcomes
Since the first Walk in 2016, Walk Around Philadelphia has grown steadily and organically. While the project is still evolving, some early indicators of impact include:
- 2,000+ participants across our programs
- 85+ regional zip codes in the area represented in our participant pool
- 50+ walkers who have completed the entire 100 mile circumnavigation
- 2 Trail Angel intercepts in 2025 where members of the walk community showed up with surprise snacks & treats for our walkers
- $11,400 in stipends distributed in 2025 to walkers facing financial hardship ($200/walker/day)
- Several walk cycles waitlisted, with demand for our programs outpacing current capacity
As the Walk grows into its next phase, we are developing clearer tools to track participation, access, and impact — including demographics, stipend distribution, and geographic engagement.
Our intention is to measure not only how many people walk, but who is included, who feels welcome, and what changes as a result.
Along with hard data, we’re also working to collect more qualitative stories from our participants of the things that they’ve learned, connections that they’ve made, and other ways in which the Walk has shaped their relationship to Philadelphia.
-> Circumnavigators
-> Stories
why your support matters
Financial contributions and volunteer energy help:
- expand outreach to under-represented neighborhoods
- maintain stipend access for walkers facing financial hardship
- train facilitators to meet increasing demand
- grow language-accessible programming
- support safe, thoughtful logistics
