More photos here

Several new faces this week with a total of 12 people working together in the neighborhood. I worked alongside Mariah, long time west Norwood resident with lots of great ideas for the neighborhood and stories from the neighborhood. Other participants this week included Kenny, Josh, David, Vivian and Bill, Russell and Leslie, Eric, Brennen, and Kevin with a brief but stunning appearance of Josie Havens…

As the weather warms up we are anticipating even more neighborhood involvement and a much more festive event complete with food, music, and (if Brennan is willing) face painting for the young and young at heart. We would love for this to morph into an ongoing neighborhood party.

We’re also gearing up for April 24 when there will be a city wide effort to clean up Norwood. More to come on that as we get closer to the event and details become available.

Some ideas for future weeks:
1. Bring brooms and paper bags for glass clean up
2. Bring rakes for wet leaves
3. Seperate trash into waste and recycleables
4. Have t-shirts or vests to raise awareness and visibility while working (any interested donors?)
5. Have teams take out extra bags and gloves and invite people along the way to help out.

This is a weekly event… please feel free to join us.
Saturday’s 10am @ the Speckled Bird…

As always, remember to beautify the neighborhood and connect with your neighbors.

Connecting and beautifying in west Norwood, OH

Welcome to the Beautify Norwood blog. My name is Kevin and I’ll be your host for this first post. Today ten residents of Norwood gathered to get to know one another, pick up trash in the area and survey the assets and needs in the Mills/Carter corridor of west Norwood, OH. This area is home to the Norwood Community Center, Speckled Bird cafe, and old St. Elizabeth’s church among other things. Mills is also bookended by Victory Park at one end and Upper Millcrest park at the other. It’s also what many of us like to call ‘home.’ It’s an important place for us to start this work of beautifying the neighborhood. We are (hopefully) going to try to by summertime to get one hundred people to pick up trash and get a community garden started in the area. This is an ongoing event happening every Saturday at 10am. We meet at the Speckled Bird Cafe (corner of Carter and Mills), get a plan and then hit the streets for a fun, doable project. Please join us if you’re interested. Our plan is that as warmer weather hits this event will take on a more festival attitude and atmosphere with a cookout afterward, games and music. It’s simply about connecting neighbors and beautifying our neighborhood… and you’re invited.