Our Story

After George Floyd (2020), our neighborhood’s sidewalks were piled up with trash; rats were roaming the sidewalks.

A collective of neighbors gathered together to clean the trash. In the process, we noticed how this inspired neighbors, gave us deeper connection to our community members, and motivated us to see local change. This process also connected us with other community activists and organizations. Since then, we have turned this initiative into a way of giving teens stipended work, lowering their attraction to the drug trade (or, providing alternatives for getting out of it) while providing inspiration to their neighbors about the possibility of taking pride in the cleanliness and beauty of their own neighborhood and about contributing to positive change locally. Besides cleaning a broader area of sidewalks, we have cleaned up and are now maintaining several large parcels of land as community gardens at;

  • G and Madison

  • G and Willard

  • F and Hilton

  • F and Shelbourne

  • F and Madison

All while building partnerships and projects with local organizations for collaboration in urban agriculture and community organizing

In this video from 2022 (that our day 1 volunteer and now intern, Emerald Martez made) showcases our efforts in cleaning up a block that was repeatedly targeted for illegal dumping. Today, this blocks remains pretty junk free :-)

Contact us

Interested in working together? As a teen, volunteer, or as a speaker? Fill out some info and we will be in touch shortly. We can’t wait to hear from you!