McClure’s newest effort to show love for her neighbors popped up in Glass Farm this month near the corner of Glass Street and Crutchfield next to the new Save-A-Lot location. As that store is under construction this winter, McClure said she wanted to make sure that anyone in her community who was struggling and hungry could find food within reach.

McClure, 39, grew up in Chattanooga and believes in the mission of the local organization, Helping Hands, “to provide a place for people to obtain basic food items anonymously while building a sense of community amongst neighbors and changing the perception around hunger.” As a volunteer, NeTasha has helped fill the Helping Hands pantries located in the 37404 neighborhoods; but she noticed that there weren’t any pantries in 37406.

She also believes our human purpose is to help each other. So she decided to build a food pantry for her East Chattanooga neighbors.

Like most community work, it began with a spark and before she knew it, NeTasha had gathered the tools and talent to help her pull it off. She borrowed free tools from the Chattanooga Public Library’s Tool Lending Program, and, using donated wood pallets, got to work “making a mess” in her front yard.

“The library also recommended Rondell Crier, from Studio Everything, and that’s where the magic happened. Rondell and his apprentices taught me how to use the equipment, even donating the supplies,” McClure said.

Now that the Glass Street food pantry has been installed and filled with food, McClure said she will be making plans to create even more in other locations.

But that’s not all she’s creating. NeTasha has provided another kind of deeper nourishment with a homegrown project that not only inspires us, but lets everyone know that their needs are seen and supported.

Hear more from NeTasha McClure on WDEF-TV.

(photo credit: screenshot WDEF-TV interview)

But it doesn’t end there.

Nearly 75 Glass Farm residents have installed Historic Glass Farm Neighborhood Pride house banners or yard signs in front of or on their homes all around the neighborhood.  Along with our partners at Habitat For Humanity, volunteers spent several weekends this spring visiting, delivering and installing community-designed signs to let everyone know that we love where we live!

Our proud history and bright future together is now on display for all to see.

None of this would have been possible without the vision of Glass Farm residents who care deeply about their neighborhood and the place we call home. Thank you to Glass Farm Block leaders, Janette Richie and others, who worked with artists and members of the community to create the banners. These leaders spent time looking outward and forward for more ways for neighbors to connect to one another and remind one another that, collectively, we can work to lift each other up.

As a result, now it seems like no matter where you turn in the neighborhood, there is pride everywhere you look. These things don’t just happen. It took a lot of work and collaboration but sometimes something as simple as a sign is all you need to tell the world that we are proud to stand together as residents of Glass Farm.

Thanks to the Lilian Colby Foundation for sponsoring this project and making it a reality.

Get in on this! If you don’t have a house banner or yard sign yet and would like one for your home or rental, please stop by the Glass House Collective office for a free sign or email info@glasshousecollective.org or call 423-402-0565!

Gail Mitchell said she attended 5 meetings in 5 days for a variety of topics from Area 3, to CBA, Good Neighbor Network, and all on her own time as a volunteer. And there are so many others who also make it a priority to continue to show up for their community even when it feels relentless and real change takes so long.

So to get her mind off of those things for a minute, Gail decided to ask her neighbors to help organize around something fun. They came up with throwing a MayFest as a way to celebrate working together and the small successes along the way.

Gail knows its important for everyone to stay connected when laughing and enjoying life together.

“It’s just one more way of showing up for your community and keeping the energy going and that’s so important,” Gail said, “Plus, how often do we ever see each other laughing and cutting up and just having fun with one another. We usually just see each other at meetings!”

We agree! We are also so excited that we will be attending MayFest as guests. We loved driving by and seeing a new and unexpected sign go up and were so proud to learn about this completely resident lead pop up.

The neighbors found a funder and decided together how to spend the budget. They decided to have live music and some good food. There will be a community walk to kick things off and a free and healthy salad bar with fresh fruit and veggies. Gail said there will also be lots of flowers and streamers and the little block at 2523 Glass Street will be all dolled up for MayFest.  Homemade fliers are being handed out now around the Boyce Station and Glass Farms homes. Healthier Glass Farms, Glass Farm Block Leaders and Building A Better Boyce Station are all partnering with the residents to make it all happen.

Relationships are what it’s all about. Glass House Collective is so proud of our relationship with these rising community leaders who take on their own projects, decide what’s important and get it done again and again. MayFest is another supreme example and we can’t wait to see everyone out there on May 4!

Check out MayFest write-up on chattanoogan.com !
Good Neighbor Network has more event info on their Facebook page here. 

MAYFEST
Saturday, May 4
12 noon- Community Walk
1pm-4pm  MayFest
2523 glass street

We received community input on how, where, and what should be designed at the corner of North Chamberlain and Glass Street.  ADA-compliant, handicap accessible sidewalks, streetlights, curb bump-outs, and traffic calming trees were all installed based on a design the using neighbors’ input. This was a big win for our community. The City of Chattanooga investment $350,000 into this intersection and since then we’ve seen 1.8 million dollars of public investment go into purchasing and renovating buildings along Glass Street.

In 2016 at the Next Big Thing Urbanism workshop, GHC was advised to “book end” Glass Street with similar improvements at the intersection of Dodson Avenue and Glass Street, and our neighbors were very excited to participate in generating design concepts. So, we made that a priority and raised funding to both solicit feedback and begin the project.

In 2017, residents imagined a landscaped Glass Street at the intersection of Dodson Avenue and Glass Street. They participated in an interactive activity at Glass Street LIVE that invited color-coded post-it style feedback to indicate preferences for green space, desired or undesired land use, and a color for new ideas.

Under the leadership of Nicole Lewis, our Community Relations Manager, the 80 responses received at GSL were collated, and GHC further engaged residents in what they would like to see take shape at the intersection of Dodson Avenue and Glass Street. During February and March 2018, Nicole initiated twelve community input design sessions engaging 200 neighbors in the East Chattanooga area. Building on the input gained during 2017 Glass Street LIVE, the process focused on partnering with community leaders, neighborhood associations, local elementary schools, and neighbors.

The artistic process for gathering feedback was created and facilitated by 800 Collective’s Josiah Golson and Mary Ann Twitty. The Chattanooga Design Studio was involved in the initial meeting with 800 Collective about the information needed to be useful for planning. Shawana Kendrick, who was an assistant facilitator in the 2014 community input sessions centered around the North Chamberlain and Glass St. intersection, was hired to help with facilitation of the larger meetings.

With funding from the Lyndhurst Foundation, Glass House Collective had the opportunity to invest dollars in neighbors to host the streetscaping dinners, instigating a flow of welcome and pride through sharing hospitality with friends new and old. Residents invited their neighbors into their homes for small group discussions about improvements needed at the intersection. Over 50 neighbors participated in the dinners. Many of these neighbors had never previously engaged in traditional meetings and had no interest in doing so, but were grateful to be engaged in a non-traditional manner. A Larger meeting was hosted by Councilwoman Coonrod and another one with Darien Scott from the Chamber at the Orchard Knob Elementary Community School PTA meeting. Habitat for Humanity and local neighbors were involved in the Recreation Centers meetings.

Since this streetscape project was so inclusive and creative, our application about the project was chosen as a panel presentation at the Intersections 2018, Smart Growth America’s placemaking and complete streets conference held nearby in Nashville, TN. Session overview can be found here. Speakers included:

·       Bert Kuyrkendall, P.E., Senior Transportation Engineer ()

·       Blythe Bailey, AIA, Administrator (Chattanooga Department of Transportation)

·       Nicole Lewis, Manager of Community Relations (Glass House Collective)

·       Josiah Golson, Artist (Glass House Collective)

·       Greg Heath, DHSc, MPH, Guerry Professor of Exercise Science, Health and Human Performance (University of Tennessee at Chattanooga)

During the neighborhood dinner sessions, common themes of safety, landscaping improvements, new uses for existing buildings, and new uses for a vibrant public space were included in the recommendations and analysis given to architect, David Barlew. The report and analysis can be found here. David created technical drawings from the analysis. He also estimated all costs for the project based on unit costs provided by CDOT.

At Glass Street Live 2018 on Saturday, November 3rd, David and a team of volunteers and neighbors installed a “tour” of the proposed permanent changes by along a 40-foot stretch between 2200-2300 Glass Street to take some of the ideas off the drawing board and temporarily illustrate them on a human scale. This provided for another chance to voice opinions. This short block was chosen as the “life-sized street sketch” for a few reasons, including the desire for wider sidewalks and a more pedestrian-friendly area. This stretch includes existing 9-foot sidewalks already, making it a great starting point to expand on that pedestrian-friendly idea.

Glass Farm resident Johnny Patmon volunteered to help kick things off in the morning and said he appreciates how the block party became a place for productive conversations directly with the community who are impacted and advocating for change on Glass Street. “That’s who you should ask in the first place, is the community who wants to see change and improvement in their community. So we asked people if they lived in the neighborhood and for how long because that’s important,” he said.

Feedback on the streetscaping proposal and signatures of support were gathered in different ways throughout the day at Glass Street LIVE. Gail McKeel, who has lived near Glass Street for years, prepared several signs expressing different opinions of the mock-up and streetscaping plans. Visitors to the installation were asked to pose for pictures with signs of their choosing that expressed their opinion of the proposed scheme. In all, Gail collected more than fifty photos of individuals, friends, couples, neighbors, and families sharing their thoughts about the mock-up. All 60+ photos of residents participating in this activity can be found here.

Our common public space comes alive only to the extent that we view it as a shared resource in which as many neighbors as possible participate and understand the difference design makes for everybody. We look forward to activating the area between now and when the permanent changes are underway.

]]> http://www.glasshousecollective.org/activating-intersections/feed/ 0 http://www.glasshousecollective.org/calmer-wilder/ http://www.glasshousecollective.org/calmer-wilder/#respond Fri, 28 Dec 2018 02:54:51 +0000 http://www.glasshousecollective.org/?p=5553 For Gail McKeel and her friends in Glass Farm,
the line they sometimes told one another during long conversations dreaming up ideas for their neighborhood while looking up at the Rivoli from the alley they worked to keep clean, was, “Hey, we’re already livin’ it!”

So when Gail moved into her new home on Wilder Street in 2017, right around the corner from her mother’s home, it wasn’t too long before she started to notice what was just outside her front door and began to see its future differently.

At the end of her driveway, Gail sees a lot of traffic, car after car passing through coming down off Campbell Street heading north straight toward the Tennessee River; or racing up Wilder climbing up to Campbell Street and heading east. All getting somewhere in a hurry.

Wilder is a long stretch that begins at Campbell Street in Glass Farm, near the bottom edges of Sherman’s Reservation, and continues north intersecting with Wheeler, Taylor, Dodson, Curtis, Roanoke, North Hawthorne and all the way to Riverside Drive.

It’s not uncommon for a heavy stream of traffic to come through with drivers driving easily 15 miles above the speed limit in either direction, she said. It’s also not uncommon for these drivers to just see Wilder Street as their own twice-daily cut-through commuter route instead of seeing a place, a neighborhood of homes and of families.

Adding to the anonymity, there are no sidewalks nor crosswalks to signal that human beings live here, walk here, visit here, play here, and are also trying to use the road just to leave their driveways, walk their children to their grandmother’s, or simply cross the street.

City officials had already told residents that installing speed humps was not an option primarily due to Wilder Street being a major route for emergency vehicles. Traffic calming humps are a burden to firetrucks and ambulances needing to get quickly across town. But, in her short time living on Wilder, Gail says she has already seen her share of near emergencies. Without designated crosswalks at any of the intersecting roads across Wilder, pedestrians, including many children, have no sure place to cross the street and are forced to negotiate with fast moving traffic.

This summer, Gail decided to take the issue to the next meeting of the Chattanooga Urbanists (CURB), a community organization that “seeks to connect emerging professionals who are interested in how design and planning affect how the city looks and feels.”  During a CURB meeting that was taking place in the Glass House Collective office, CURB’s founding member and co-director Sally Morrow, an Urban Designer with the Chattanooga Design Studio, teamed up with Aaron Cole and Lauren Dunn, both with the Chattanooga AIA Extended Studio, and together took on Gail’s vision of slower traffic on her street.

For the next few months, Gail and the Extended Studio team stress tested some of the city’s new processes for handling requests involving citizen-lead temporary solutions for their streets. Other partners like Range Projects came on board to help create a reusable and large template that the team could use for their first installation.  Even the brewers at Velo Coffee Roasters provided hot coffee for volunteers.

The end result is a series of multi-colored painted dots down the middle of Wilder Street located at every intersection as a visual device to try to slow down drivers. On installation day 20 volunteers came out on a weekend before Christmas to help paint the large circles up and down the street. The coming weeks and months will tell how effective the tactical art project has been and what else can be done.

But so much more happened as a result of this experiment. For one thing, after going door to door to let everyone know that the road would be closed for the installation day, Gail was able to introduce herself to more of her neighbors than she ever knew before. And, when the street closed for a few hours, even the Wilder Street kids came out of their homes and met one another in the street as a safe and temporary playground, if just for a few hours, to play with their remote control cars.

Wilder Street residents now know that in teaming up with the AIA Extended Studio they have an actively engaged and informed crew of advocates who can help them navigate and develop new ideas to improve their streets.

“Getting the right people to talk to each other can sometimes have barriers. But this kind of process can help reduce those barriers, especially a project that is easily executed, temporary in nature, but impactful,” said Laura Dunn, with AIA Chattanooga.

Dunn also said she understands there can be frustration inside the neighborhood with how to work and communicate effectively with the city, often leaving many feeling left out or unheard. “Hopefully, this process will create more positive thinking, encourage more ideas, and knowledge that some one is listening,” she said.

The chance to work with the Wilder Street residents was also an opportunity to have that larger conversation about how our streets are used and who has a say.

“We want to highlight that city streets are the most abundant public space we have and they should be made more friendly for pedestrians,” Cole said.  Highlighting Wilder, a street widely used by commuters, brings up the other side of the conversation. “These are places where people live, so how do we respect, prioritize and give those people a little more say in how their streets are being used,” he said.

Whats more, now City officials know that there are many people who care, are watching, are willing to do the work, and want a say in the changes needed to make their streets safer.

“When it actually works it gives you a boost!,” Gail said

Thank you, Gail, for showing us how it’s done!

Check out photos from the day here .
Media coverage in the Times Free Press.

photo credit: AIA Chattanooga, AIA Extended Studio

Callie Burkhalter, Habitat’s AIP coordinator, told us the idea was born right here in Glass Farm where their home repair work has been focused this year. “We kept hearing from homeowners who were a part of our home repair program that they wanted to volunteer at the next project in the neighborhood,” she said. The Habitat staff decided to do something with all the enthusiasm they kept receiving so a volunteer group was formed and Neighbor Labor was born.

The idea is simple enough. Residents who have received help on their own home repairs can choose to volunteer once a month to help with other home repair projects that Habitat is leading in Glass Farm. That way, homeowners who gained new skills and friendships while working on their own home, can continue to use those skills and foster those friendships while working toward a common goal of improving their neighborhood. “It also gives residents a chance to get to know more people from another part of the neighborhood who they might not meet otherwise,” Burkhalter said, “So it’s a very cool social thing going on while we’re getting our work done. Friendships are forming by working together each month.”

Since launching in February, an average of 6-12 Neighbor Labor volunteers from Glass Farm have helped on 5 different home repair projects through out the neighborhood. These hardworking volunteers are doing anything from scraping and painting to repairing siding and even helping with finishing touches on new construction projects in the neighborhood. So far this year, homes on Davenport Street, North Chamberlain Avenue and Taylor Street have received the helping hands of Neighbor Labor. The next Neighbor Labor project is scheduled for the 2nd week of October, and the rest of the year will be weather permitting.

Habitat for Humanity brings people together to build homes, communities and hope. Callie said she is inspired to see how the work and mission of Habitat for Humanity to connect neighbors to one another and to local resources is taking on a new life through Neighbor Labor. “It is so great to see neighbors who want to continue investing in a program that they have personally experienced having an impact, and turn that into an opportunity to help others.”

And while elbow grease and sweat equity go a long way to improve our streets, Neighbor Labor gives Glass Farm residents a chance to provide something extra and perhaps more valuable: the act of showing up for each other and being a good neighbor.

For more information about Neighbor Labor please contact Callie at cburkhalter@habichatt.org

ICYMI: Check out this Video from Habitat for Humanity of Greater Chattanooga Area’s 4th Neighbor Labor in July where they facilitate needed repairs on homes with neighborhood residents. Neighbors helping neighbors out here in Glass Farm!

Now in its 5th year, Glass Street LIVE couldn’t happen without our partners, sponsors and extraordinary neighbors. If you are interested in becoming an event sponsor just click here and complete this simple form.  We can help your business or organization stand out by becoming an official sponsor of Glass Street LIVE 2018!  For more information on our sponsorship program please contact Tara Poole:  tara@glasshousecollective.org | 423-402-0565

Sign up to be a GSL Volunteer and Vendor:

Planning to attend? Follow the event page on Facebook and let us know!

This year Joel Tippens of Grow Hope Urban Farm successfully advocated for his East Chattanooga community garden to be a 2018 Clean and Green special project site. He partnered with the Glass Street neighborhood and volunteers from Cigna to plant hearty herbs like sage that won’t require massive maintenance or water to sustain growth. Joel grew the starts over at Grow Hope Urban farm and donated his plants and time because of his commitment to connect neighbors to healthy sustainable food sources.

After taking advantage of the beautiful bright day to generously donate their time with the Glass Street planter box project the volunteers finished the day by weeding and planting with Joel in his garden. We are so grateful to the organizers of Clean and Green 2018 as well as Joel Tippens and volunteers from Cigna who all made this project possible. See you all again next year!

We’re setting up a live music stage set up in front of the former Sunnytown grocery store, where entertainment will be emceed by C-Grimey, featuring performances by Kay B Brown, Differentdiva, Nerd Squad, 2 Deep Within, YKC Nation, Bindy B, Image and Skream, and DJ D-Whit, and featuring guest emcee, District 8 City Councilman, Anthony Byrd. Visitors will also enjoy a classic car, truck, and bike show presented by DJ LV, and can purchase delicious local food vendors, non-profit activity booths, and merchant vendors.

We’re incredibly excited to celebrate the debut of two new community resource features: a local fresh food farm stand by Grow Hope Urban Farm, presented by Hope for the Inner City, and the dedication of Boyce Station Neighborhood Association’s new sign.

We will unveil temporary crosswalk installations that are colorful, safe, and can be as effective in attracting permanent design improvements as these same tactics were implemented 4 years ago at the Chamberlain Ave. and Glass Street intersection. Design selection and painting will be coordinated through a neighboring arts organization, Mark Making, employing local youth to install the beautiful and functional work of public art.

The community can also share feedback and ideas with Glass House Collective, interacting with models they would like to see as practical improvements for the expanse of concrete currently covering the Dodson/Glass intersection. Later, they’re invited to relax and mingle on the Hip-Hop Lounge bus with Mary Helen Montgomery and Eddie Yancey inviting “Friend Up,” opportunities for the art of meaningful mingling.  And no one will want to miss the pop-up art gallery featuring Art Trap Collective and the pop-up skate park presented by Kim Krause, Westin Dawson, and the Black Rebel skaters at the former Alabama Furniture building, (2200 Glass St.).

Glass House Collective is collaborating with Boyce Station Neighborhood Association, recent winners of the Songbirds Museum Block and Roll grant, and Shannon Burke of Bike Walk Tennessee to host the final neighborhood block party of City Celebration, a city-wide festival focused on alternative transportation methods like biking, skating, and walking.

We’re winding up our registration process for official event volunteers and participants! If you’d like to sign up, fill out our online form here. Thanks!

Thank you to our amazing event sponsors: Pinnacle Bank, Memorial Hospital, EPB Fiber Optics, Coca Cola United, Tennessee Arts Commission, and the Tenesha Irvin Show!