World’s Happiest Raccoon Finds World’s Biggest Philly Pretzel in Port Richmond

This week, the world’s happiest raccoon found the world’s biggest Philly pretzel in Port Richmond, and I’m living for it… This is thanks to a new mural at Thompson and Sergeant streets by V.U.R.T., with fundraising help by Natalie Shaak!

The latest mural in their Local Critter Project mural series, V.U.R.T. wrote the following about this cheerful addition on Instagram: “The raccoon is a medium-sized mammal native to North America. The raccoon is the largest of the procyonid family, Its grayish coat mostly consists of dense underfur which insulates it against cold weather. Two of the raccoon’s most distinctive features are its extremely dexterous front paws and its facial mask, which are themes in the mythologies of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. These animals co-exist with us everyday in philly and are often overlooked.”

The funds for this new mural were raised by Natalie Shaak, a resident of Port Richmond who created a Go Fund Me page to support not only the creation of V.U.R.T.’s mural but also to raise money for the playground that the mural sits in: “Once we raise the initial funds, all additional money will go into the park for repainting benches, adding secure trash recepticles and signage and eventually replacing the broken equipment with items that kids will want to play on.”

That means that while the mural is now complete and fully funded, Natalie is still seeking to raise a bit more money for the rest of the repairs to the playground. If you’d like to support, please click here to learn more!

See pervious work from V.U.R.T. around Philly here!