Front and Schiller Park
In Reading, Pennsylvania, a community leader pairs fun community activities with cleanup efforts to reactive an underutilized pocket park and engage residents in reclaiming their neighborhood.
Read MoreLeap Year Lights Festival
Riverfront Park is located on the Nashua River in downtown Fitchburg. Throughout the 1900s, paper manufacturers dumped dyes and other industrial byproducts into the river, and the river was named one of the 10 most polluted in the nation in 1960.[1] Residents fought for new and improved water treatment plants and today the river is…
Read MoreSouth of Penn Community Lot
On a Friday in September 2021, a 110-pound turtle was walking along a patch of grass while children learned about reptiles and insects. The reptile show was part of a series of programs such as movie nights, cleanups, porch concerts, and art workshops that have been taking place at the South of Penn Community Lot.…
Read MoreAlleyway Concerts
The Alleyway Concerts were born out of the desire to activate underappreciated spaces while also gathering community members through music. Concert locations have ranged from abandoned lots to bodega fronts to inside a laundromat. Using simple portable speakers and microphones the program engages local artists and businesses to see the beauty of their community through…
Read MoreUnion Station Revival
As a city that has lost more than half its population in the last 50 years, Gary, Indiana, faces significant challenges with vacancy and abandonment, including that of its historic Union Station. The Beaux-Arts building was built in 1910, but sat forgotten and left to the elements for nearly half a century. In 2016, a…
Read MoreThe Exchange House and Backyard
The Exchange House is located in North Akron, an international neighborhood home to people from Nepal, Bhutan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Congo, and more. Beyond providing a gathering space and lodging, the Exchange House is also working to build a coalition of multicultural leaders in North Akron. The organization that initiated the effort was Better Block Foundation,…
Read MoreSteps at Main
From the library’s perspective, staff were seeking a way to make the library more relevant for the low-income Latino community who live nearby. As part of this work, the library established an outreach coordinator position to develop non-traditional programming, starting with baseline surveys to identify obstacles that prevent folks from using the library. Respondents expressed…
Read MoreSalsa on the Riverfront
The program was made possible through leadership development training led by NewVue Communities, a regional nonprofit dedicated to resident leadership. NewVue Communities hosts a Leadership Cohort through their community organizing department. Cohort participants receive technical assistance and develop skills needed to write and receive grants along with seed funding to support their own programs. Through…
Read MoreProphets, Poets, and Parks
City resident Lourdes Monzon organizes these gatherings, called Prophets, Poets, and Parks. She intentionally rotates the events around the city, picking abandoned and underutilized areas of parks. Her purpose is to create safe spaces that highlight the importance of words, narratives, and poetry. The first event in the series focused on reading poems by Audrey…
Read MoreHomeWorks: Bronzeville
The project focuses on a housing cluster where each property will include both living and work space for artists to support entrepreneurship culture and youth development in Bronzeville. HomeWorks: Bronzeville works primarily with local artists who have family and other strong ties to the community and who identify as creative small business owners. Since their…
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