Volunteer for Case Cares about Cleveland This Saturday

Last month, OB Blogs posted about Old Brooklyn resident Maria Dimengo's committed efforts to spruce up some of the storefronts in Downtown Old Brooklyn and along some of the community's commercial corridors. Her event, called Case Cares about Cleveland, will occur this Saturday, March 28, 2009.

Please consider joining to support the cause, help beautify the community, and meet other neighborhood residents and stakeholders. To participate, please email Maria at maria1526@earthlink.net or visit her blog here.

From Maria Dimengo:

Hi everyone:

Thank you for graciously agreeing to help me on March 28. I updated my blog to tell you what we'll be doing, so I hope we can get some sun and fun in for a few hours on that day: http://blog.case.edu/cleveland/

If it snows, we still have stuff we can do indoors :)

I'm doing my best to get organized, so here's what I know so far:

Some of us will be meeting at the Gavin Lee Party Center, 3315 Broadview Road, around 9:30 a.m. That's just so people can sift through the art and determine what goes where. I told people the event is happening from 10-4 only so people could show up when they want to. Let me know a ballpark time when you think you might be arriving.

The owner, Jack Amburghy, is graciously donating the space for us to hang out, use the bathroom, clean up, and have lunch.

If we have enough people, here's what I would like to accomplish (ambitious I know):

- Hang artwork inside the windows of Jack's properties (the party center, his wholesale furniture center next door, and Name Brand Paints just around the corner on Pearl Road).

- Hang artwork in Tom Pavlica's properties. Tom owns a couple of the storefronts next to Ameriflag and around the corner where Andre Holt's airbrush shop is located.

- Hang artwork in the Krather Building storefront

- Hang artwork in the storefront next to Name Brand Paints if the owner does not sign a lease agreement in the next few days. I will be contacting her this weekend. She owns the vacant storefront that has been covered in newspaper for several months.

- Hang artwork in the storefront owned by Jim O'Donnell. His space is located at the corner of Oak Park and Broadview, so I'm hoping a few people can just drive to that location after we meet up at the party center.

- Paint the outside of a small business at 4327 State Road. The owner, Helene Sroka, is an elderly woman who has been struggling with punks and graffiti. I think it could be done fairly quickly, since it's the side part of her building and it's small. I have warned her that I may not get there if I don't get a great turnout on that day.

- Clean the graffiti off the side of Broadview Tailors and Cleaners, 2023 Broadview Road. I dropped off a 5-gallon bucket of graffiti cleaner at her shop, so it's sitting there ready for us if we can get to it.

Here are some things I need, if any of you could bring them or allow one of us to pick them up and borrow them for the day. Please confirm whether you can deliver these, or else I will have to figure out a Plan B for getting them to the main location:

- ladders
- brooms (in case we get young kids who want to help)
- trash bags
- buckets/rags
- drills
- pliers
- hammers
- coolers - I could use 2 or 3 more
- fishing line or clothes line (to hang stuff)

I have money in my budget to buy stuff - just trying to consolidate/save where I can.

I'll order some food and have drinks on hand, once I see who turned out for the day. Jacob, I mentioned to you that someone planned on inviting a cub scout troop to help, but that has not been confirmed. I don't want them to hurt themselves, so I will let you know if a cleanup at Harmody Park would be a good alternative for them.

I know this is a lot to absorb, but since I am flying solo on all this, I really need your help! Please let me know if you still plan to make it ... I always have this fear that I will be standing alone with all this beautiful art and no one around to help!

P.S. - I am still uncertain how many Case students are going to make it. With the rapid and bus schedule clearly an obstacle, it will be hard to get an estimate until the day before/day of the event. I will be mailing them separately next week and trying to pick up some more stragglers.

Thanks a bunch!