Hispanic Outreach Committee - need someone bilingual, preferably that also knows French.
Neighbors that need support of some kind (especially if they need to shelter in place)
Professional neighbors doing good work - tradesmen, artists like Mia.
Track down blocks with insufficient or defective power transformers to get them replaced.
Get neighbors to get their water pressure checked and get on dpw about low water pressure, leaks, etc.
We need to prioritize the 200 block of Vincent and surrounding properties - Trish wants to propose a concept for the whole street. Going to work to get residents out to her presentation.
Mount Clare Snow Corps for future blizzards signups - people that need shoveled and neighbors that can shovel. Someone with a pickup we can get a plow?
Trumps Admin is adding hostile verification requirements to SNAP that will put a lot of people off the program, and they need support to get signed back up and access to local food banks in the meantime.
Neighborhood associations are empowered for self help nuisance abatement, particularly derelict abandoned neighbor properties. Community law center provides free legal council for this work, so we need to outreach neighbors interested in getting abatement help.
Trees - we need pit remediation, new tree planting, tree maintenance, new tree pits, and a perimeter of canopy trees at the garden. Chesapeke Bay Trust wants a signed maintenance plan, which I will sign with the gardening committee. We need a way to port and water trees which will need dozens of gallons a month - portable water tank in a hatchback trunk and someone with an outside tap we can use? We can use my Chevy Bolt. Can also use a wagon? We want to get water on the community garden this year. There is a maintenance small grant for $500 from Chesapeke Bay Trust that can help support upkeep of planted trees.
Community 311 walk days when the weather is nice, probably with pizza or something at the end at Traci Atkins.
Find residents being negatively impacted by vacant property and coordinate with hcd to get those vacants prioritized for rehab or demo.
Get a stencil big enough to spray a QR on some of our murals with a bitly link to either the website, facebook, or possibly video about the neighborhood ~Jose & Kintira
Organizational Outreach
Corner Stores & Bar (Family Food Market, Hanna Grocery Store, Bar 1513)
Add requirement to attend a quarter of meetings held in a year rounded down (so 3 if we have 12, or 2 if we have less than that).
Event Planning
2 Spring dumpsters - I’ll do one in March with Clean Corps before they wind down on a weekday, taking day requests. I can take off work to watch the dumpster. Second dumpster in May on a weekend.
Mia is planning Spring kickoffs in early April on the 4th and 11th. Need a grill if anyone has one. Doing outreach to anchor orgs for support and participation (Clay Pots, B&O, Carlyle, Mennonite Church, Wheelabrator, SWP)
Planning a summer event at the Carroll Park Rec Center in May?
National Night Out is August 4th
October meeting do Halloween theme community cookout at faith center with spooky decor and candy giveaway?
Coordinate Woodyear St as a halloween event street?
Community Requests
2025 Retrospective
Of the 28 projects tracked in 2025, 9 got completely finished, and 11 / 19 remaining had significant progress made! Projects completed:
Planters and cleanup at the Cole St Garden - Nancy McCormick
Professional planting in Carey St and Wilkins planters - Kintira Barbour
The Cole St shed got broken into and tools stolen, needs new battery mower and trimmer - Nancy McCormick
Sidewalk repairs, generally - Melanie Scheirer
ADA compliant curb ramp installations, which can also be part of concrete curb extension installations - Melanie Scheirer
Install 5 permanent benches at the five bus stops that currently don’t have one - there are 3 76 stops on Wilkens, one on Gilmor, and the Purple stop at Mount and Pratt. *the last stop is Mount & Wilkens where Mel’s working to get a bus shelter put in
Our alleys are targets of illegal dumping and criminal activity and its a proven effective tactic to gate them to stop that. So we have ongoing outreach to gate anyones alley that is interested. funded in brni for 2026 thanks to SWP!
There are a lot of grants for string or solar lighting that improves visibility and nighttime safety. swp safety grant in 2025!
There are a lot of grants for cameras - either doorbell or fixed - and the citiwatch program subsidizes cameras as well. Cameras are proven to deter crime and are extremely useful to have for eg package theft or in case anything happens so you have video evidence. swp safety grant in 2025!
Also, Nancy and Mia got block captain boost grants from Clean Corps we are still excited to see finished!
Diagonal parking road diets on Elizabeth Bowers blocks of McHenry and Jeff Campbells blocks of Mount St
Get new shirts! we have 2 dozen people signed up that want them. If we printed 4 dozen it would probably cost about $1000. Mia suggests Cotton Heritage and that Abell Street Fair did great shirts.
Sign for the Community Garden library
Start ramping up a neighborhood camera network to try to get recording of all public row, plenty of grants to support this.
Funded Projects for 2026
Alley Gates funded!! through BRNI, thank you Southwest Partnership
Jeffs block
Both Make Space blocks
Morrisons end of block
Joses alley
Nancys alley
Placemaking bump outs at McHenry, Mount, & Gilmor intersections
Have a DOT letter of support for bollards, getting revised to doing it in hardscaping curb extension concrete with tree pits.
2026 Grants
Already applied to BRNI for Pratt St placemaking in support of DOT Towards Zero work (met with mddot at their grants roadshow, so we’ll do a matching Transporatation Alternatives and Bikeways grant match next year for this funding if awarded, will likely fund bus islands).
Already applying for Chesapeke Bay Trust urban trees grant, they want a maintenance plan - example (39.3 KB). Where do you want new street trees? (incl empty pits by your house, places you want a tree pit put, etc)
Going to apply for Chesapeke Bay Trust grants to fund planned DPW bioswale installations for flood mitigation and management and also put in a BRNI request for the same.
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