Dancing and chanting, “Pick It Up,” a pioneering crew of future members of the venerable African-American Omega Psi Phi fraternity helped launch the biggest community clean-up of the Dwight neighborhood in a generation.
The Hillhouse High School Ymegas — a high school service club of hopefully future members of the college fraternity — ignited the energy of about 50 volunteers who gathered on Edgewood Avenue Saturday morning at the headquarters of the Greater Dwight Development Corporation (GDDC)
Allan Appel Photo
Volunteers with GDDC Prez Townsend-Maier and board member Ann Demchak in the first row.
The GDDC and the Dwight Central Management Team staff, under longtime GDDC Executive Director Linda Townsend-Maier, corralled at least three high schools — Amistad, Hillhouse, and Common Ground — the city Department of Parks and Rec, not-for-profit neighbors like The Connection, and local businesses wanting to learn more about their community, including the Courtyard Marriott Hotel.
They contributed rakes, potting soil, buckets for new plants, Toro lawmowers, gloves, garbage bags, Kentucky Blue grass seed, but most of all five hours of time on a beautiful Saturday to spiff up and beautify the Dwight neighborhood’s parks, streets, and sidewalks.
“This is the biggest in 20 years,” said Townsend-Maier.
Ymegas Timothy Peters, Jahni Moore (behind), Sam Bowens, and Kevin Bell.
“Bigger [number of volunteers] and more young people,” added Dwight activist and GDDC board member Olivia Martson.
Four members of the Hillhouse crew, the Ymegas Timothy Peters, Jahni Moore, Sam Bowens, and Kevin Bell, were so committed to community service, arriving at the GDDC was the second shift of the early day for them. They had gotten up close to first light so they could arrive at nearby Immanuel Baptist Church.
These buckets with witches’ broom plants newly line Orchard Street.
There they worked beginning at about 7 a.m. for two hours hauling boxes of canned goods, cereal, and heavy bottles of water from storage up to where the food will be deployed in the church’s food pantry.
Bowens said he loves giving back to the community. Kevin Bell said what motivates him is when “I see smiles on people’s faces.”
Advisor Olafemi Hunter, an Omega Psi Phi member, who is a counselor at Hillhouse and helped establish the club for young Ymegas, said the kids’ passion to do this kind of service work keeps him hopping.
The coordinator of the Hillhouse volunteers, Verna Norman, said the Ymegas had been commissioned to create the chant by the city’s Department of Public Works and its longtime staffer Honda Smith. The boys prepared to perform the chant at Sunday’s Freddy Fixer parade. It is also going to be used in public service announcements on behalf of the city, she added.
The three gardening musketeers from Amistad High — Will Davis, Tariq Sullivan and Jordan Manning — were on their way to Kensington Street Park.
Saturday was the first time that these three high schools had sent crews to participate in Dwight’s clean up, which annually precedes the neighborhood festival coming up on June 5.
Maier said the idea this year was not only to get a lot of clean up done but also to bring together different “stakeholders” so various parts of the community might work together smoothly in venues beyond the clean-up.
“The Marriott asked to participate,” Townseend-Maier added.
The hotel’s new owners last year ran into community friction when they attempted to revive plans to add an extension for long-term guests behind the existing hotel structure.
The Marriott’s Wittke and Malloy: “We are part of the community.”
Saturday was all kumbaya as a half dozen members of the hotel’s staff, including Valerie Malloy and Susie Wittke of the sales department, were pitching in tossing littered trash from Howe Street into big bags.
Other hotel staffers, some of whom have recently joined GDDC’s community council, were out removing graffiti and doing other clean-up chores in the neighborhood.
Hogan and Ferrino had to prepare many bare spots at the park for new seed.
Meanwhile, over at small but stately Kensington Street Park, Kirsten Hogan, a senior at Hillhouse and Brianna Ferrino, a junior from Common Ground High School, were busy using rakes to aerate the soil of the heavily used park grounds.
Parks and rec staffer Keith Galberth and the department’s chief, Rebecca Bombero, were on hand to distribute tools, give instructions to the high school kids in how to loosen up the soil before tossing on some more grass seed.
Hogan said she had never done this kind of gardening work before and was enjoying it. “I love doing this kind of thing,” added Common Grounder Ferrino, a junior who, like many of the high-schoolers, was fulfilling community service requirements.
Amistad volunteers Bordeaux and Rivera, who said he found the amount of litter upsetting but likes cleaning up.
Bombero pronounced the work of the clean-up crews “absolutely helpful.”
“We rely on our friends and support groups. We have 2,200 acres [of green spaces] and 23 caretakers,” she said.
Student volunteers like Hogan and Ferrino and Amistad highschoolers Alexander Rivera and Auubriya Bordeaux cleaned up some items, like cigarette butts, that the city crews can’t always get to, Bombero said.
David Kyle, with his crew of seven from The Connection, hoped the Toros could conquer the high grass on Edgewood.
Involvement of young people serves another important purpose, Bombero added: “It helps teach the importance of stewardship. It’s important that kids understand stewardship, and if they take pride in their neighborhood, others will.”
Bordeaux, a junior at Amistad, said she was grateful for the opportunity to clean up. She doesn’t restrict her work to weekend clean-ups.
She already to have taken Bombero’s words to heart. “If I’m walking with my friends, and they litter, I say, ‘Whoa,’” she said. “And if they say it’s none of my business, I just go back and pick it up myself.”