When our neighbor Dr. Pat Blochowiak told us to stop by her garden and pick some raspberries, blackberries and snow peas, I didn't realize the depths of her bounty... or how great blackberries may be. As my kids picked through nature, they chomped down probably $50 worth of the best food in town, when you may find food so good. As I looked at the bowls of berries collected in short time, I felt blessed by my community and nature. Over a fresh berries and whipped organic cream desert, our family celebrated Summer and life in the best way. All that is the certain promise of East Cleveland, with community farming. Help plan that reality with Maurice Small and others as we meet again, today, for what has become an every-other-Tuesday City Fresh I GRO EC [1] brainstorming session, in East Cleveland. This week, we'll meet at the Hough/Star Bakeries complex, and also visit Brown's Market [2], which we plan to convert into a pilot City Fresh Market.
Over the past six weeks of this open collaborative brainstorming process, a clear, shared plan has developed to greatly enhance the sustainability, value and impact of the Star/Hough Bakeries complex [3], and surrounding Star Neighborhood [4]. The Star Complex will be completely renovated and expanded as an intergenerational community learning and living campus, to feature the East Cleveland Neighborhood Center [5], Marcus Garvey Academy [6], and the innovative PACE vocational school for "third strike" students, ages 16-22, to help them complete their high school degrees and learn vocations, with concentrations in urban renovation/renewal and urban farming/agriculture, being developed in collaboration with City Fresh and other experts in these fields.
The very hot Studio Techne [7]'s Marc Ciccarelli is now providing architectural support, and Kent State University Urban Design Collaborative's David Reed has long, long been providing planning support.
All the schools in the complex are sponsored by Ashe Culture Center [8], lead by Nana Kwa Kra Kwamina, II, Tufobene of Atokwna, who is David Whitaker, Esquire, Pd.D., of Cleveland, who is also a tribal chief of Atokwna, Ghana, now a "sister village" to the Star Village.
PACE is developed through leadership from the NAACP.
Star Neighborhood Development catalyzed these alignments with the Williams family, of Hot Sauce Williams BBQ, with the support of George Forbes, Scott Schooler, and Forbes, Fields and Associates, and we all plan to remain active in further development of the Star Neighborhood.
What is especially unique about this community redevelopment model is that PACE students will have traditional classroom and computer learning at the Star School, completing whatever credits they may lack to graduate with high school degrees, and up to 200 students will be educated in the community to be urban farmers, and receive farming certifications, and up to 200 students will be educated in the community in renovation trades, and receive related certifications, and be capable of earning good livings farming and renovating and in a wide range of related careers.
In both cases, the vocational programs will be nearly entirely hands-on and in the field, literally. The first building the students will renovate will be their own school - the historic, 100,000 sq.. ft under roof, multi-acre Hough Bakeries Complex, redeveloping that antiquated office, baking and distribution facility into a state-of-the-art learning and social community anchor. Renovation students will carve and build into the complex spaces for their neighborhood center, and their pre-school, and their charter school, and their computer lab,
Throughout the school year, farming students will farm their own 0.1 acre portion of a 20 acre virtual campus of urban farmland in the immediate vicinity of the Star Complex, to be reclaimed from the Cleveland and East Cleveland landbanks... all properties that are far from desirable for any traditional redevelopments. There are more than enough such properties already cleared of structures, weed-covered and a burden and blight to those communities.
For the school, students and community, those 20 acres will produce more than $2,000,000 per year in fresh, high quality, locally grown food, which will be managed and commercialized by City Fresh, generating wealth for that organization. The wealth creation will provide tax benefits for the cities of East Cleveland and Cleveland, and much of it will remain in the community. From the school, $ millions worth of healthy, locally grown food will be added to the local marketplace, and people in the communities where the food is grown will have free access to much of that, and so should eat much better... be healthier... and spend less on food.
This school's 20 acres of farmland will significantly transform the landscape and economies of the surrounding neighborhoods, for the better.
In some cases, there may be entire blocks of farms surrounded by perimeters of quality existing housing, like with the Roxford and Van Buren Farms shown in a recent REALNEO header... just one block from East Cleveland City Hall, and in the East Cleveland Landbank.
The renovation trades students will renovate blighted buildings in these same neighborhoods, in concert with the urban farming. We are already inventorying all landbank properties and planning where the farming and renovation properties should be located - that process will be thoroughly documented, public, and reported here.
As always, we welcome you to join us in next steps - next chance is today!
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