Friday, January 11, 2008

Cleaning up the Neighborhood




Do you ever notice how graffiti changes the look of a neighborhood? It brings the whole perception of the neighborhood down. This is why the South Wedge Planning Committee teamed up with the City of Rochester to clean up their neighborhood this week. It was the first time that the two have joined forces- the City provided all the supplies and SWPC provided the volunteers.
This was a bigger project then just removing the graffiti from more than 75 buildings. The City came in to inspect to see if any of the graffiti was gang related, good thing, it wasn’t. The City has played a huge part in trying to cut down destructive behavior. They have enforced IMPACT and have instated the County wide curfew. They are hopeful that it will get people off the streets after hours and cut down on gang related activity. SWPC has also been researching graffiti and its effects. A common theme was that if the neighborhood cleaned up the graffiti and kept on top of it, the people who were tagging buildings would get annoyed and move on. That is exactly what SWPC wanted for their culturally diverse neighborhood. It is very common in these neighborhoods that the residents and business owners team up to beautify the neighborhood- it benefits everyone.
Witnessing a neighborhood come together like they did this week really shows how they are trying to stabilize neighborhoods. The South Wedge takes pride in their neighborhood and they wanted to show whoever was damaging the building that they weren’t going to put up with- they were taking back the neighborhood.
The team made up of volunteers were planning on going to several neighborhoods to clean up the city. If you are interested in helping, check out OneCity Connection which list all different volunteer projects. Make it your New Years Resolution, volunteer today!

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