Home Care In Norwood, PA

NORWOOD — When the calendar turned over to 2023, Luciana “Luci” Villar and her husband Ryan Nugent were dreaming of getting out of the city and moving to a smaller suburban town that had a large sense of community, where they could raise their three children.

The family lived in the Mayfair section of Philadelphia and they immediately were attracted to the towns in Delaware County, particularly in the Ridley-Interboro area.

They connected with Realtor Elma Guardiani of Coldwell Banker and set off searching for their dream home.

After about two months of searching, Guardiani attended a workshop and found out HGTV’s “House Hunters” was looking for real-life house hunters, on a current search for a new home.

She immediately thought Villar and Nugent matched the show’s criteria and would be a good fit. She asked them if they’d be interested in applying.

The following months of their house hunting made history.

On Tuesday, Aug. 1, the episode of “House Hunters” featuring the Villar-Nugent family, will air at 10 p.m. on HGTV. The same episode will air again at 1 a.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 2.

The promo for this episode reads, “A couple searches for a larger home for their growing family in Philadelphia. He’s dreaming of a single-family house, but she’s trying to persuade him into a row home where they can get more for their money.”

Villar, who is a supervisor in the animal research lab at Drexel University, and Nugent, who is a manager at Sunbound Technology in the Lehigh Valley, appear on the show with their three children: Jovin Mills, 12; Luka Mills, 8; and Kara Nugent, 1.

Villar’s mother, Nancy Villar, also appears on the show, as she and the children often went on the house hunting trips.

Luci Villar said that she had once lived in Ridley and really found the area appealing. She narrowed the search to the Ridley-Glenolden-Norwood area because the couple found a strong sense of community in those towns and felt they are in good school districts.

“When we drove around this area, we got to see what a small-town feel they had and you just don’t find that in too many places anymore,” Villar said. “That, combined with the sense of a strong community, was the biggest appeal here.”

The family found their dream home on Delaware Avenue in Norwood in March and made settlement. They moved in in April.

“We fell in love with Norwood,” Villar said. “We like the vibe of the people here: down to earth, friendly, humble and genuine. The area is close to the airport, restaurants and lots to do. For the kids, there’s a nearby park to play at and they can walk to their school.”

Villar said the three-bedroom duplex with “a beautiful deck” needs some upgrades, but was move-in ready, although they did have to replace the electrical system.

The couple hopes to renovate the basement in the near future and do a few face-lifts, eventually, but they couldn’t be more happy so far with their choice.

“The price of the home was affordable and we absolutely fell in love with the neighborhood,” Villar gushed.

The Villar-Nugent family plans to have a small viewing party when the show airs, and maybe have a backyard screening of a rerun, with others in attendance, later this summer.

Villar said her neighbors will all be watching the show, too, and so will Rosemary Acker, the previous homeowner who sold them the house and had resided there since 1970.

“I’m a little nervous now that the time has come to see ourselves on TV,” Villar chuckled. “But the whole experience was wonderful. It seemed surreal. It definitely was a lot of fun and very exciting!”

To watch the episode, called “No Shared Walls in Philly,” about the Villar-Nugent family’s house hunting adventure, tune in to HGTV’s “House Hunters” at 10 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 1 or three hours later. After that, look for it in reruns.

NORWOOD, Pennsylvania (WPVI) -- Norwood, Pennsylvania residents in the area along E. Winona Avenue want to know if the place where they built their homes is contaminated with materials that are making them sick. On Thursday night, researchers with the Environmental Protection Agency told residents they have nothing to be concerned about, but many are not buying it.

"I hope they clear it up and find out exactly where it is and what it is. And get it out of here," said Norwood resident Linda Smith who lives along E. Winona Avenue.

For the past two years, the EPA has been testing soil in the area to determine if it contains dangerous chemicals. Residents in the area say there have been dozens of cases of cancer and multiple sclerosis, some of them fatal. They wonder if contaminated land is to blame. The residents prompted the EPA research by issuing complaints.

"After receiving concerns from the community, EPA initiated a site assessment to determine if there is a risk posed to human health and the environment by actual or potential releases of hazardous substances at or near the former Norwood Landfill and if there is a need for additional action," said a statement issued to Action News by EPA spokesperson Terri White.

In addition to the old Norwood Landfill, Action News has learned that there were other businesses that engaged in activity involving chemicals in that area. They include a company that made vaccines and a company that made coal tar products.

Weston Solutions prepared a study for the EPA on that area in February 2018. That study found substances including PCBs, arsenic, and benzopyrene (BaP) in soil samples.

Action News researched information on the substances and found that PCBs can cause both cancer and nervous system damage. Benzopyrene can both cause cancer and nervous system damage.

The EPA says while the investigation is ongoing to determine if this should be declared a superfund site that needs to de decontaminated,.

"We've not found any contamination that would warrant the site being placed on the national priorities list that was the premise of this investigation," EPA Site Assessment Manager Joe Ditello.

"The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry and the Pennsylvania Department of Health will also provide a public health consultation report in 2020 that will include community concerns related to cancer and multiple sclerosis," said White in the statement.

"EPA will continue to work alongside community members to inform them of future next steps until and after the final site assessment is completed."

They expect to have the final conclusions by the end of the year.

You would have thought it was good news when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Centers for Disease Control told the people of Norwood last Thursday that based on their preliminary investigation, “current data indicates … no posed threat” to human health from the defunct Norwood Landfill.

But you would be wrong. Residents immediately leapt to the conclusion that the government is covering up what they perceive to be a large cancer cluster near the old Norwood dump.

“What if it was your family?” one of the attendees shouted.

Based on 26 years of covering environmental litigation, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say if it was their families, they would be doing exactly the same thing they are doing now.

You were dreaming if you thought the EPA would come to the Norwood Fire Co. last Thursday after a two-year preliminary study and announce, “Oh yes, you have a cancer cluster here and it was definitely caused by chemicals dumped in the Norwood Landfill from 1950 to 1960 by XYZ Inc. and Such & Such Co. We’ll be out there to clean it up in the morning.”

It doesn’t happen like that. The EPA officials you were shouting at are the “deep state” in the most positive sense of the term. They are the ones who continue to do their jobs year after year and administration after administration.

They have no reason to cover up a pollution incident because their jobs as scientists and lawyers depend on their enforcing and administering the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, commonly known as the Superfund Act.

But they have to carry out that mandate in accordance with rigorous scientific discipline. They cannot just validate your beliefs because you want them to and they cannot provide instant answers.

Do you want the EPA to go away? Do you want the government to leave you out there on your own with the corporate wolves who had no qualms 50 years ago about poisoning you and your neighbors?

If not, let them do their work. Everything they do will become public.

Maybe the EPA will not declare the Norwood Landfill a Superfund site. A lot rides on its assessment of the totality of the air, soil and water pollution they find or don’t find at the site.

If it is declared a Superfund site, processing it will take a very, very long time – often decades – to find the pollution, to map out the geographical extent of the pollution, to negotiate with owners and previous owners to pay for cleaning the site up, to plan and oversee the cleanup, and to wage years-long court battles with those owners.

Case in point – the Folcroft and Clearview landfills, which have been on the Superfund or National Priorities List for 17 years now and still have not been completely cleaned up.

The 46-acre Folcroft Landfill, which is just a mile or so east and one town over from Norwood, and the Clearview Landfill, largely in Philadelphia, were added to the Superfund list together in 2001 after several years of preliminary study.

The Clearview Landfill sits on tidal wetlands inside the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge. Groundwater flows from west to east through the landfill, through filtering wetlands and out into the Delaware River, thus minimizing the potential risks to the human population immediately to the west.

The EPA found some nasty chemicals lurking beneath its thinnish ground cover, but after years of rigorous study from 2006 to 2017, it found virtually no increased human risk of cancer over a lifetime.

In 2006, it finalized an agreement with 14 previous owners of the landfills to pay for or perform remediation. That work has yet to begin.

The EPA removed 4,000 tons of PCB-contaminated waste from Clearview in 2011-2012, and the cleanup of residential yards adjacent to the landfill began in 2017.

All of which is to say, if the Folcroft and Clearview landfills are anything to go by (and they are), the residents of Norwood are at the beginning of a very, very long road.

And they should be aware at the outset that cleaning up pollution sites and proving cancer clusters are two entirely different animals. The one is regulatory and the other is legal.

Proving a cancer cluster exists and the cause of that cluster are notoriously difficult.

They may have to go the Erin Brockavich route, hire a law firm that has both the resources and the willingness to invest up front in years of investigation and court battles against deep-pocket companies.

The Hinkley, Calif., case that Brockovich made her bones on was kind of easy compared to Norwood.

It involved an isolated desert town of 1,900 people whose only industry, Pacific Gas and Electric Co., spewed a yellowish chemical compound, hexavalent chromium, into the groundwater and air for 40 years, visibly coating every surface in town. It was the only suspect when people began to notice high rates of cancer deaths.

Norwood is an old and densely populated town along Darby Creek and the Delaware River corridor. Darby Creek was home to dozens of mills that dumped their toxic waste into the water for generations, and the river bank has been heavily industrialized for more than 200 years with all kinds of past and present sources of cancer-causing pollutants embedded in the soil, seeping into the groundwater and polluting the air.

It won’t be easy to either isolate a cancer cluster or nail down one cause in an area with such a rich industrial history.

But enough of the gloom and doom. I see we’re all excited about the possibility that Exxon Mobile may build an ethane cracking plant in Marcus Hook.

If it does, 40 years from now will our children and their children be assailing the EPA for not immediately proving that plant is causing their cancers? Probably.

Jodine Mayberry is a retired editor, longtime journalist and Delaware County resident. Her column appears every Friday. You can reach her at [email protected].

NORWOOD, Pa. (CBS) -- Being a parent is not an easy job and parents of foster children face unique challenges. One Delaware County nonprofit is helping lighten the load by providing free essentials to families in need.

The foster closet is full of T-shirts, pajamas and shoes. There are also winter coats, hats and gloves.

A place where foster parents can shop free of charge.

"It is something that we know will go a long way within a family and in a child's life," Tristan Gansky said.

Gansky is the founder of Fostering Hope Delco, the nonprofit that runs, what she calls, 'the closet' in the basement of Saint Stephen's Episcopal Church in Norwood.

She knows from experience foster families don't always have the support they need. She and her husband were raising three biological children when they took in a trio of foster siblings.

"That weekend, we had to go buy a new vehicle and we had to buy a new dining room table, and we had to buy two more beds and then we had to buy them clothing," Gansky said. "In a weekend, I think we dropped about 10 grand."

Gansky created the nonprofit and opened the closet to provide the support that she wished she had when she was a foster mom.

"It was a lot all at once and had we had a place like Fostering Hope to come to, it would have made me feel like a world of weight was taken off of me," she said.

The closet is an open shop twice a month where foster parents registered with the nonprofit can drop in and take what they need.

It's helped parents like, Blaire Jamison, who volunteers as co-coordinator. She and her husband share two biological children, and together they've fostered 14 kids.

"It's been a really cool experience and watching this community come together and support each other like I'm in awe every day and just really, really grateful," Jamison said.

Gansky expects the nonprofit to serve about 300 children this year.

It's a valuable resource for families caring for vulnerable children.

Madeleine Wright

Madeleine Wright is a bilingual general assignment reporter for CBS News Philadelphia. She joined the team in January 2022.

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Christiana Ruiz is on a mission.

One year after the sudden passing of her beloved older brother Manny, the high-energy mother of three has opened Manny Vibez to remember him and feed that love to the community.

Ruiz, 33, has had a lifelong dream to be a chef and open a restaurant, and when she had the chance to work together with Manny, he joined her in that dream. The two worked at the popular Buena Onda Tacos on Spring Garden Street in Philadelphia: she in the back of the house, and Manny, with his giving personality in the front.

“He taught me how to treat people like family,” Ruiz said as she took a moment following a lunch rush this week to tell her story and her brother’s story. Unfortunately he’s not with us, but I’m here and keeping it going.”

Ruiz has packed a lot into life since growing up in South Philly of mixed Italian-Colombian heritage. There was a stint in college and service in the Army’s 82nd Airborne before her childhood dream could become a reality.

While in the Army she had a son, and with that decided the military life is not the best for families.

“But it taught me to pursue my dreams,” Ruiz said.

She went back to school at the Art Institute of Philadelphia’s culinary school.

From there her career bloomed, including working for Catering by Design as a prep chef, doing weddings, running a food truck for a local health care facility in Philadelphia, work at Aramark, her time at Buena Onda and finally as a general manager at an airport restaurant.

While working at the airport, Ruiz moved to Norwood, then the pandemic struck.

She and her husband, Mario Penaloza, took that time to have Joseph, now 2, and 1-year-old Joshua, and both join 13-year-old Jacob.

In Norwood, Ruiz didn’t give up on her dream. She took her savings and found a suitable location on Winona Avenue that allows her to run the restaurant in the day and at 4 p.m. join the family at home.

Manny Vibez was born earlier this month. In the two weeks since they’ve opened, things are going well.

“It’s been long nights but it’s been well worth it. We’re getting a lot of love from the neighborhood,” Ruiz said. “I’m just here to put my love on a plate and treat people like family.”

Ruiz, with help from her sister Monica, cooks for breakfast and lunch. She hopes to extend the hours, in time.

Asked what style food she serves Ruiz said a mixture.

“I like to cook food from my heart which has all kinds (of influences): Asian cuisine, Latin influenced,” she said. “What I try to do is put in a little bit of everything, a breakfast fried rice, a taco and empanada but also an American grand slam breakfast: Potato, eggs, pancakes.”

The Breakfast Quesadilla includes a flour tortilla stuffed with cheese, fire roasted corn, Yum Yum sauce and add you protein for $12. There are breakfast sandwiches for $7 and for the kids Jakes Cakes, mini pancakes, bacon maple syrup cream and berries for $7.

Some lunch options include a $9 Cucumber Feta Fiesta of cucumber, red onion, tomato, broccoli, black beans, roasted corn, cilantro and feta; the Classic Caesar salad; or a Chori-Burger, which is made from Angus beef with Italian sweet & spicy sausage, grilled red onion, American cheese, lettuce, garlic oil aioli on a brioche bun and fries for $15.

Proud of her Italian and Colombian heritage Manny’s has Colombian coffee and bakery treats with an island vibe.

“There’s nothing better to start your morning then a fresh piece of Colombian sweet bread with a hot cup of coffee,” Ruiz said.

So many good vibes.

“It’s been rewarding,” Ruiz said. “I put it all in God and I know my brother is with me. He’s continually surrounding me.”