Leap 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…

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The 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,…

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Salsa 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…

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HomeWorks: 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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Design Dash

West Oakland has long been a center of systemic exclusion. Once a thriving African American community, it is now a struggling area due to historic redlining, an intrusive highway system, pollution from the Port of Oakland, and dilapidated infrastructure. Just north of downtown, the area finds itself sandwiched between gentrification hotspots as a result of…

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Activate Mill Street

In 2019, through an open call process, Activate Mill Street organizers selected ten local artists who installed vibrant art in the alley off of a main commercial corridor. The alley also was reused to allow for on-site events such as from yoga classes, breakdance competitions, and a concert series. It’s not uncommon to walk by…

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Tired-A-Lot Studio

In 2017, Bridge of Grace Compassionate Ministries Center (BGCMC) launched Tired-a-Lot Studios to address neighbors’ desires for beautification and social offerings, creative outlets for a growing student population, and remediation of a large number of overgrown green vacant parcels. Tired-a-Lot Studies was a series of summer and spring break camps that convened 16 campers and…

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