Treez Weekend

In the midst of another Beauty & the Beast weekend at Powers, greenery will be happening. TreezPlease is in force Saturday morning starting at 10am, just three blocks east of Wick Park, at Broadway and Kensington (between Wick and Bryson). Here are the details:

Bring Tools, Gloves and a smile!

* Spread the load of soil to create an "experimental" (of limited area) meadow for flowers
* Obtain and plant mums in the front corner
* Saw and move dead trees
* Dig holes for the rest of the trees
* Lay down weed barrier and cover with wood chips (from house on Elm St) to create the walkway diagonally across the lot from the Southern edge on Kensington to the driveway at the Eastern edge of Broadway--- maybe another walkway from the corner of Kensington and Broadway to the center of the lot.
* Continue edging the rest of the sidewalk and driveways, then sweep clean; clean the street next to our curbs
* Dig out pieces of concrete and bricks that are only partly submerged in the soil
* Take off dead parts of the big tree

The Greening of Youngstown

The Rust Belt has not traditionally been a region devoted to living green. Ironically, now that we are experiencing depopulation, we can reverse deforestation. Our rivers have been turned radioactive from cooling our steel, and now we can pursue biotechnologies that hold promise of their renewal. Demolished houses can be replaced with parks and trees. Abandoned roads are returned to nature, and less heat is trapped in our cities.

Last Saturday, eighteen volunteers from the Youngstown area joined with Campbell residents to clean up the historic Youngstown Sheet & Tube Workers' Housing. Built around 1918, this was the first pre-fabricated concrete real estate in the world. Since the Campbell Works shuttered thirty years ago this month, the houses have slowly been abandoned and grown over.

Sincere thanks to Paul, Alicia, Phil, Heather, Brooke, John, JR, Jessica, Julie, Rochelle, Deb, Maggie, Janis, Mike, Jaci, Boston and Ridley for your time, energy, physical strength and complete immunity to all kinds of revolting things encountered in dark staircases!

Recently, I shared news about GreenEnergyTV. Here's a video about collecting rainwater and the many effects it can have, including saving on your water bill and even conserving tax dollars. Tim Sokoloff and Iron Soup, Inc. are taking this approach to conservation in the Campbell Works' Housing.

Come to the Wick Park Pavilion on Saturday, September 15 at 9am for "Tree Planting for Everybody". This is a community reforestation project by Treez Please, a group I'm very excited about. Check out the sod furniture they'll be planting in pocket parks around the city.

Treez Please acquires empty lots in the city that we landscape with trees and other palntings to create pocket parks in previously marginal spaces. In addition, the organization works with homeowners to help them to select, plan, and care for street trees.

Trees Please seeks tax-deductible contributions of lien-free city land, maintenance equipment, and selected kinds of plant material. For more information, please contact debraweaver2000 (at) hotmail (dot) com.

I love their motto, too, "Let's grow Youngstown!" Indeed!

Defend East Youngstown

I appreciate Angie Schmitt's efforts in covering stories about Youngstown's revitalization. Thursday, I read Man gives back to Campbell by fixing Company Houses:

"Taking it back from rats and groundhogs — for three months, they've been slashing through shoulder-high grass, unburying sewer grates and edging sidewalks. Taking it back from absentee landowners — they plan to make a presentation on the issue before county commissioners. Taking it back from vandals and thieves — they've organized a block watch."

After reading this, I thought, here's a guy who's putting it on the line for his community. We should be out there helping him. I sent an e-mail to a group of friends and quickly found they were as excited about helping as I.

I contacted Tim Sokol, and he was extremely excited to hear about the response and the promise of help. We'll be going out Saturday, August 25th, from 8am to 2pm. You can join us by RSVPing to the evite. A list of needed items is here.

After our recent efforts to put a stop to the deconstruction of West Federal Street, Jim Cossler of the YBI said it was all well and good to stop something, but what were we going to start. I had been unable to get the question out of my head until seeing the enthusiastic response to my query about the Campbell Workers' Housing project. Here was an urgent need with real benefit. Through the eagerness of my friends, I was able to connect that need to people power that could get it done. If we could recreate that connection for other projects, we could begin a process of providing human resources to worthy causes and accelerate change.

This weekend, I set up the Center for Altruism. Its mission is to identify and partner with community-focused efforts, augmenting planning, publicity and people. If the next few months are anywhere near as exciting as the past few months have been, Youngstown is going to wake up soon to a palpable new spirit of energy and generosity that has been percolating just below the surface. It started with 2010 and has spilled over into the grass-roots. Now it's being formalized and codified to add legitimacy and facilitate partnerships.

Naysayers beware: the new Youngstown is here, and it's for real.