Markeshia Ricks Photo
With the help of family and friends, Jeanette Thomas has tended to the Ivy Narrows Bird Sanctuary for about 15 years. But at 82, she confesses that it’s harder to be as active as she used to be.
She recently got a little help from the younger helping hands of the Newhallville youth “ambassadors.”
Working with the Livable City Initiative (LCI), the Newhallville teens have been busy in the hot summer sun walking the neighborhood, now in their signature bright orange T‑shirts, cleaning up.
The teens used their young muscles to round up dead leaves, trash and weeds that were hiding in the underbrush at the bird sanctuary. Earlier in the day they tackled the trash and debris that completely covered the sidewalk outside the site of the former home of Sealtest Dairy’s milk-distribution operation.
Ghammam Mansoor tackles the underbrush.
The city granted each of New Haven’s community management teams $10,000 to develop a project to better their neighborhoods, and Newhallville’s team decided to work with LCI to create a summer youth “ambassador” program, modeled after downtown’s “ambassador” program. (Click here to read about how one Hill team used the money for community gardening. And here to read about how Dixwell’s team created a similar youth “ambassador” program.)
“I hope we will be able to continue this year-round,” Newhallville Alder Delphine Clyburn said. The funds were used to support seven ambassadors and two volunteers.
LCI Neighborhood Specialist Linda Davis-Canon, who formerly worked in the East Shore neighborhood, said that she would like to see the program extended into the winter.
Thomas said she was grateful for the help. “This is a big spot and it takes a lot to keep it up, and keep it going,” she said “Any help I get, I appreciate.”