Another way to make the neighborhood beautiful

We’ve been doing a lot of beautification events this summer and we’ve talked about nearly all of them here on the blog. But neighborhood beautification can mean a lot more than patrolling the streets picking up trash or planting flowers. It can also involve art.

A few months ago, we were contacted by Tracey Obenour who, along with her husband, paints murals on buildings. She wanted to do a mural on the building over on East 5^th Street building that would capture the spirit of the urban farm there and of urban farming in general. Of course, we were more than happy to agree.

The project was started in April, and the first week of August, we got an email from Tracey saying that the mural was about 90% finished and she wanted to know what we thought. We rushed right over and, as we drove into the lot, we had to smile.

Tracey’s mural certainly does capture the spirit and the essence of urban farming, and is beautiful to boot. It gives a whole, new, fresh look to a building that was serviceable but plain and, frankly, industrial. Now, it is cheerful and bright, and it will bring a touch of spring and summer even during the harshest of winter months.

While we were there, we took a look at the progress of the crops planted by volunteers this spring. Wow! Were we pleased! Tomato plants shoulder high, teeming with cheery and regular-sized fruit; beans that had grown, had been harvested by Ken and his volunteers; chives that were spreading over the ground, ready to reseed themselves; and even a couple of melons, tempting us in the summer heat.

Gardening has its pleasures, not the least of which is the witnessing of the growing and maturing process. To see a plant grow from a seedling to a mature, productive adult has the feel of a small, natural miracle and never fails to bring a smile.

Together with the great mural Tracey and her husband created, that small part of East 5^th Street is a whole lot better than it was at the beginning of the year.

And we’re very thankful to Tracey, Ken, and of course, all the volunteers who made that possible.

DXC hosts dedicated young interns from INROADS Intern Process who work in heat and humidity to make a better place for our students.

Neighborhoods don’t become littered and run down overnight. It takes a while. A discarded bottle here; a forgotten park there, houses abandoned one by one; it’s hardly noticeable until, “urban blight” has taken over.

Likewise, it takes more than a day or a weekend to restore a neighborhood to a state where the residents can feel proud they live there. It’s one lot at a time, one trash pile cleaned up, one less bottle in the gutter, and there are no short cuts. It takes people actually getting out into the neighborhood, bending over, picking up, cutting grass, weeds, even renegade trees, until, one empty lot, one block at a time.

That’s what’s been going on at Dayton Christian Center (DXC) over the summer. Over a period of four months, a number of deeply committed volunteers groups have dedicated they days to helping restore a neglected park, clean up trash, cut down high weeds, plant flowers, and spread mulch in the area of West Riverview and Ferguson Avenues to do their part to make a better world.

The chapter in this effort happened this past Saturday, July 23 when 19 young people came to DXC as part of the INROADS Intern Process and took part in three different projects.

One project was to clean up an illegal trash dump on one of the abandoned properties DXC has registered to care for. Another was recovering our playground with new safety mulch – we’re required by law to do that once a year – and the third project was redecorating the Teddy Bear Room.

Ignoring extreme temperatures – over 90 degrees – and equally high humidity, the young college students did the hard work of community beautification that others have started.

By the end of the day, every project was finished, and even though they were hot and tired, there was a smile on the face of each one of them. As they gathered for a group photo, they laughed about some of the day’s events, and spoke of how much they had enjoyed themselves. They even thanked us for letting them work so hard.

“We always cherish our volunteers,” Associate Executive Director Sarah Williams said afterwards, “but when you see young people like this spending the hottest part of the day mostly outdoors doing physical labor, and they are happy about it, it gives you a wonderful sense of hope. Of course we always thank our volunteers, and we really mean it – we’re always very grateful for whatever someone cares to give us. But sometimes, in cases like this, ‘thanks’ doesn’t seem like quite enough.”

This was DXC’s first partnership with the INROADS program, but very likely not the last.

“I really hope we can make this an annual event,” Williams said. “I know we’re extremely happy to have met everyone who came to help us out, and I hope it was an enjoyable day for them as well, so I hope we can keep on doing projects together.”

The INROADS Internship Process was created in 1970 by Frank C. Carr. Inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have A Dream” speech. Carr, a corporate executive, left his well-paid, prestigious position to dedicate himself to quick and decisive action to increase diversity in the corporate management. Currently, the program has more than 270 Corporate Sponsors and nearly 2,000 college students taking part. It has more than 24,000 graduates and 36 offices in the US, Mexico and Canada.

In addition to offering young people a chance to develop the skills they need to advance in the corporate world, it also emphasizes the need to be involved in giving back to the community.

Weekends like this just don't come around very often!

As weeks go, last week was exceptional.

First, it was Global Youth Service Day (GYSD) on Friday and we had 18 very dedicated and enthusiastic students from Spring Valley Academy choose to spend their morning with us cleaning up the neighborhood and interacting with the residents, showing that today’s youth is interested in more than texting, tweeting and video games.

These young people we’re afraid to get their hands dirty. While part of them worked their way the full length of Ferguson Ave – about half a mile in length – picking up trash and even carrying large items from one end of the street to the other so they could be picked up by the city, another group helped out here at DXC, cleaning up the grounds so that we could look our best, too. Then, the full group traveled down Riverview Ave, where we’re located, ranging at least as far as they had on Ferguson. At one point, a resident came out onto his porch and stood applauding the students as they passed by his house, gathering trash. They exchanged greetings and the man thanked them for doing such a good job and everyone parted feeling a little better about what they were doing. By the time they were finished, not a single scrap of paper, not a discarded bottle or can, not a forgotten toy was left. They even found some – shall we say – very personal items which they carefully picked up and deposited in the proper receptacles.

That’s dedication!

There was a great moment at the beginning of the day when Global Youth Service Day Committee Member Cathy Guerrant, from nearby Catholic Social Services, and Dayton City Commissioner Nan Whaley stopped by for a visit. Both Ms. Guerrant and Commissioner Whaley have been great advocates of youth volunteer programs and have done a lot to encourage and support both programs and the local organizations, such as DXC, who host them.

Along with DXC Associate Executive Director Sarah Williams, Commissioner Whaley and Ms. Guerrant welcomed the students and thanked them for their work. This meant a lot to the young people, and meant even more when all three adults accompanied them outside to give them even more encouragement.

All this, by the way, was captured by local news media WDTN, Channel 2, who sent reporter Jordan Burgess out to get it on film and interview some of the students.

Students volunteer for Global Youth Service Day: wdtn.com

It was really special to see not only that young people would spend their morning doing work that many older, supposedly more responsible people tend to ignore. Maybe it’s the youth of our country that can set the example for us!

We really want to thank them, Spring Valley Academy, Ms. Guerrant and Commissioner Whaley, and WDTN for their support on GYSD. Because of it, our neighborhood is a better, cleaner and more prideful area.

But the good things didn’t stop there.
On Saturday, Sarah and Phil Greene, our AmeriCorps Program Manager were partnered with the Dayton/Montgomery County Public Health department at the Levin Health Fair, “Celebrating Health and Life.” This annual event, put on by the Levin Family Foundation, is one of the biggest, most important health-oriented events anywhere in this part of Ohio. It draws literally thousands of people and hundreds of health-related vendors from all over the Dayton area.

Sarah and Phil had the DXC display set up along with Public Health in a very high-traffic area. In fact, neither of them had much chance to catch their breath over the five hours of the event as people stopped by to pick up information and listen to Sarah and Phil talk about the 5-2-1-NA program.

That’s part of the GetUP Montgomery County program run by the Health Department – the reason we were partnered for the event.

That program seeks to address the epidemic of childhood obesity but changing our lifestyles and those of our kids. It advocates a daily regime of five servings of fruits and vegetables, having less than two hours “screen time” (video games, computers, television or cell phone), getting at least one hour of physical activity and having no or almost no sugary drinks, especially carbonated sugary drinks.

Here at DXC, though, we’ve taken it a bit farther. We’re also involved in teaching people how to take more control over their diet by growing their own food in backyard gardens or even containers. To that end, we’ve formed some pretty interesting partnership that we’ll be talking about later.

While at the Health Fair, Sarah and Phil also promoted DXC’s “In God’s Hands” child care facility and, was there ever a lot of interest!

“In God’s Hands” is a Title 20 child care program and, especially with the economic climate in Dayton right now, it is sorely needed. Sarah and Phil handed out so many pamphlets and brochures that they ran out, so we’re expecting to grow quite a bit over the next few weeks. We’ll keep you posted there too.

Finally, to close out the big week with a bit of fun, we hosted a community Easter Egg Hunt. AmeriCorps Member Cardella Scroggins put this event together as a way to give a bit to the community and let some kids discover the joy of the Easter season. From what we hear, nearly 100 people showed up and there was fun, laughter, and the thrill of discovered goodies had by all.

This is the first hunt we’ve had here at DXC but it more than likely won’t be the last.

Dayton Christian Center cleans up

Once again this year, we’ll team up with the United Way’s Volunteer Connection Center to host a group of young volunteers on Global Youth Service Day (GYSD). This year’s project will be on Friday, April 15 and will be the fifth year we’ve done it. We’ve never been prouder or happier to be part of it.

This year’s project will be the same as last years, since it was a big success. We’ll be walking through the neighborhood picking up trash and small pieces of junk and generally cleaning up. We’re proud to be here in West Dayton and we’d like to show that pride while giving our young people the opportunity to how important and how satisfying community service really is.

Since our mission statement is “Enriching and Empowering Lives, One Choice at a Time,” we feel it’s important to take pride in the neighborhood. After all, civic pride is the foundation of a more livable, safer, and happier community life, and we want to do our part to create that environment.

But just as importantly, the young people who come to spend their day with us on GYSD not only learn about service and volunteering, they also give us the motivation and inspiration to step up our efforts. We’ve worked quite a lot with young people this year and we have yet to be disappointed by the amount of work and effort they bring with them. And the best part is they have fun doing it – and that’s fun for us.

Global Youth Service Day came about in 1988 as a program created by Youth Service America and the Campus Outreach Opportunity League. From a single day on a single campus, the program has grown to include more than 1,500 projects all over the country. In 2000, the program was renamed the Global youth Service Day to reflect the fact that it now spans national borders and embraces youth volunteerism in many other countries as well.

The young volunteers will cover as much of the neighborhood as possible, and, if time permits, will be taken by DXC’s van to points farther away. If the weather is bad, though, they’ll be paired with our own teaching staff to take part in crafts and lessons with our students.

We’ll be posting an update on how the project goes and how much we were able to get done. We’ll take plenty of pictures to share, too.