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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