On Thursday, April 17, 2014, the Belmont Ave
business corridor buzzed with renewed energy and excitement. Over 100 volunteers
came to lend a hand at the launch of the Brownsville Community Justice Center's
latest initiative through the "Brownsville: Stronger Together" campaign:
the
Belmont Revitalization Project. The largest demographic of volunteers to
lend a hand were Brownsville youth under 24 years old! Leave a comment to show
your support of their hard work! Read more below!
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| The completed mural that a group
of young people worked on alongside artists from Xmental during the Belmont
Service Day! You can find this mural on the side of C-Town on Belmont Ave and
Thatford Ave! |
The launch of the
Belmont Revitalization Project was a large service day that included
street cleaning, graffiti removal, a church clean-up, greening of a vacant lot
and the removal of dumping from side streets. The Justice Center and our
volunteers were hosted by Pastor Derrick Harvey at the Total Recovery Worship
Center!
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| Over 100 volunteers were signed
in and assigned to a clean-up project! |
The service day
was a huge success that would not have been possible without great partners,
which included:
the New York City Housing Authority's greening crew, the
Department of Transportation's Plaza Program, the Belmont C-Town Supermarket,
Community Board 16, Mark Morris Dance Group, Sound Vaderz Entertainment, the
Pitkin Ave BID, the NYC Dept. of Sanitation, the 73rd Precinct Community
Affairs, the Brownsville Partnership, Made in Brownsville, the Ocean
Hill-Brownsville Neighborhood Improvement Association, Xmental, Inc., and the
Langston Hughes Senior Center.
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| GRAAFICs youth crew helped out
with the Belmont service day along with Monique Minter, a BAVP campaign advisory
board member! |
We were extremely happy to see youth
take the lead on taking back their community. Of the 100 volunteers, more than
half were youth and young adults under the age of 24 years old. We want to thank
several volunteer groups that lent their staff and/or Brownsville youth to the
service day. Shout out to:
the CUNY Corps, John Jay College Office of
Community Outreach, GRAAFICS, A Rose is Still A Rose, The "Do You" youth group,
the NYPD Explorers, and the New York Restoration Project.
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| The NYCHA greening crew came to
help out! They did an amazing job in a vacant lot on Thatford Ave and Belmont
Ave! |
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| Officer Cruz brought out her
Brownsville young women's youth group "A Rose is Still a Rose" to join us in
service! |
With out a doubt, youth enrolled in all of
our Justice Center programs showed up and showed out by taking the lead on
several of the clean-up projects.What a job well done! Youth also worked closely
with the Justice Center's long time teaching artists
Patty and Ralph of
Xmental, Inc to complete another amazing community mural the day of the
event!
We are also in great gratitude to
the all of our sister projects at the Center for Court Innovation. Service
crews came all the way from Midtown, Red Hook, Newark and the Bronx to
supervise service activities and got down and dirty with the rest of us! Team
work makes the dream work!
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| Our sister projects from the Center
for Court Innovation came by to show us some love and lend a
hand! |
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| Cleaning crews filled the
Belmont Ave business corridor! |
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| A few of the crew worked on
green tree pits with Rebecca, a volunteer from the New York Restoration
Project! |
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Youth set-up and began cleaning
the "One Day Plaza" for music and fun activities at the Belmont Service
Day!
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John Jay College service corps came
to lend a hand!
BEFORE: the lot on
the corner of Thatford was an overgrown dumping ground.
AFTER: it
transformed to a beautiful garden to finally due justice to the Langston Hughes
monument it houses!
BEFORE: the side of the building and grate
were marred with graffiti
AFTER: brightened with a fresh coat of paint, all
we left behind was a mountain of trash bags for Sanitation! Evidence of a hard
days work! |
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