Buoyed by Hope

Barbara Snyder, 62, a homemaker from North Plainfield N.J., was so excited to receive last-minute word that she had a ticket for Thursday's acceptance speech by Hillary Clinton, it took her just three hours - door to door - to get from her house to the Wells Fargo Center.

"To be here tonight to see Hillary accept the nomination is the culmination of a lot of hope," she said.

Snyder said she was still hearing echoes of Clinton's 1969 Wellesley College commencement speech - five years after Clinton had left Wellesley, and Snyder started there as a freshman. Even then, she said, there was talk of Clinton as a young woman who would do great things.

Snyder had watched her for decades and couldn't be more thrilled by what her presidential nomination signals to women everywhere. "It means that my daughters can do anything," Snyder said.

- Maria Panaritis

Dallas artist Willie Baronet bought two signs from homeless people Thursday, adding to his week's collection from Philadelphia - a city he said offers an abundance of people who need housing and hope.

He pays $10 or $20 for a handwritten sign, feeding an ongoing project, "We are all homeless," that provokes on-the-spot conversations and, later, classroom and art-show discussions about homelessness and humanity.

"I believe there's a piece of each of us that is homeless. We are all asking for help at times," Baronet said as he broke down his installation, which he mounted as part of the big pop-up art show, Truth to Power, by the voter-registration group Rock the Vote. Dozens of signs made up the installation.

"Please help," said one.

"Visions of a pizza," said another.

"Ex-wife had a better lawyer," said a third.

The 57-year-old Southern Methodist University advertising teacher doesn't judge.

Even when it comes to the young men who line Market Street, and seem capable of working a shovel or a mop, but instead sit glassy-eyed beside a cardboard plea for money?

Said Baronet: That man might be a veteran suffering from PTSD. Or someone who was abused as a child.

As he prepared to leave Philadelphia, he bought a sign from a guy named Charles.

"You're in the Bible, man," Charles told him, quoting the proverb "The silver-haired head is a crown of glory."

- Jeff Gammage

When Depelsha McGruder, 43, of Brooklyn, started a Facebook group called "M.O.B.B. - Mothers of Black Boys" - this month, she didn't expect that by the end of July it would grow to include almost 117,000 moms, all concerned about their sons during encounters with police.

Thursday afternoon, McGruder, who has two sons, ages 7 and 4, gathered with about a dozen women outside City Hall. She carried a bag of T-shirts that read: "I Can't Keep Calm, I Have a Black Son."

McGruder said her goal for the group, which changed its name to "Moms of Black Boys United," is to create a sustained effort to end police brutality and change society's perceptions of black men and boys. "We don't want our sons to be a hashtag," she said.

McGruder said members of the group decided to convene in Philadelphia for the DNC to put their concerns in the media spotlight, and to spur action.

M.O.B.B. member Crystal Baldwin, 43, of North Carolina, said: "It's not just a protest, it's not just certain racist states. [Countering brutality] has to be a national effort."

"We're just moms trying to secure our boys' lives," said Baldwin, who has three sons, ages 7, 8, and 11. "The same moms that go to PTA meetings, drive our sons to basketball games. My sons are still kids, they don't have a voice, so we're here to give them a voice."

- Janaki Chadha

Contrary to political convention lore, strip clubs close to the Democratic National Convention said business has been normal this week or even slow, perhaps as a result of traffic jams.

But one place where business is booming: Tinder. The proximity-based dating (or, if you prefer, hookup) site crunched the numbers at our request and reports that Tinder use is up 54 percent in Philadelphia over last week.

That's not as much as in Cleveland, where usage increased 82 percent during the Republican convention.

In Philadelphia options include: "I need someone to show me the best, and maybe second and third best" cheesesteaks, from a Canadian cinematographer; a conventioneer looking for "the best old fashioned in town"; and a photographer interested in "hot dates, you running your fingers through my hair, city fun, showers, wifi, electrical outlets, convention credentials, air conditioning." What an offer.

- Samantha Melamed

T-shirts on sale at the corner of 13th and Arch Streets on Thursday came with a snappy slogan: "Bill for First Lady." The group hawking them - a Hillary Clinton political action committee called FirstLadyBill.com - attracted a small crowd.

The PAC, according to its website, calls traditional gender rules "a drag" and asks: "What better way to highlight the 'herstoric' importance of putting a woman in the White House than having fun with her husband in drag as First Lady?"

Which brings us to PAC member Santiago Durazzo, 23, in red dress, heels, and a Bill Clinton mask, who posed as onlookers took photos.

Said PAC member Luke Montgomery, 42. "We're putting the party back in Democratic Party." - Janaki Chadha

Sisters Mary Gill, 68, and Fran Treston, 65, of Abington, have been coming into Philadelphia frequently for the DNC's "Donkeys Around Town" scavenger hunt. Hunters check in via GPS or take photos at each donkey location to accumulate points and win prizes.

On Wednesday, their donkey hunt brought them to South Philly, where they took a break from the search and sampled cheesesteaks from both Pat's King of Steaks and the adjacent Geno's Steaks. Both sandwiches were good, they said, but their preference was Geno's.

- Janaki Chadha