Building Vibrant Communities

This is a story about 5 friends who came together to make a difference in their community.

In March, as the impact of COVID-19 was disrupting life in Detroit, Melanie D’Evelyn, Godwin Ihentuge, Jeremy Lewis, Shelley Danner, and Sarah Craft jumped on a Zoom call to brainstorm ideas on how to support black and brown-owned businesses and how to help those most vulnerable in the city.

Within days, they founded "Pay It Forward: Power a Business & Feed the Homeless," a crowdfunding campaign with Patronicity to support Detroit restaurants owned and run by people of color by paying them to cater meals to homeless shelters in the city.

With an original goal to raise $10,000, news of the group’s intentions and the impact on both small businesses and people in need spread and they exceeded that goal in a matter of days.  The group increased their goal as more donations came in and were able to raise more than $52,000 from an astounding 546 donors.  This provided more than 7 weeks of daily meals to 4 homeless shelters, and helped keep more than 10 restaurants in business.

These are the restaurants and owners that were part of the program. If you are in Detroit, make sure you seek them out.

Deborah shares her insights on how the connectivity of our communities to and with the systems that serve us play a vital role in development. We also explore how ownership is critical to achieving equity and that circulating dollars locally is essential to wealth building.

This episode’s guest is Sarah Williams Goldhagen, the author of “Welcome to Your World: How the Built

Environment Shapes Our Lives." She is an author and architect critic who has taught at Wellesley,

Harvard and is currently a visiting scholar at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art.

Sarah shares what "exactly situated cognition" is and why understanding that concept can lead to

powerful understandings about how we operate in our buildings, our communities, and our spaces. We

talk about “sticky moments” and how designers and placemakers can reconsider our values to improve

our environments and our lives.

For Bridget's review of Goldhagen's book, head over to our blog: Placemakers.

How can cities connect and cultivate a local creative community? We ask this question and more to Sean Starowitz who is not only an artist whose work is focused on social justice and community engagement but who is also a leader who currently serves as the Assistant Director for the Arts for the City of Bloomington, Indiana. Sean shares his thoughts about using the term "placemaker" and how having artists at the table is critical. His thoughts about representation and access are timely and describe the need to evolve.

Jaime J. Izurieta is an architect and urban designer based in Montclair, New Jersey. He has been identifying patterns in the design of beautiful storefronts since 2003. He works as an urban designer and zoning code analyst and recently published The Ten No-B.S. Rules For Successful Storefront Design, a guidebook to help small businesses design memorable storefronts. You can connect with him on Instagram at @storefrontmastery.

Bridget and Ebrahim chat with Ted Howard, President of The Democracy Collaborative, an action-oriented progressive think tank. Ted is the co-author of “The Making of a Democratic Economy: Building Prosperity for the Many, Not Just the Few". 

Join us as we dive deep to discuss how grassroots movements prosper and how we can build a community structure that facilitates community voice. This conversation is a timely reminder that we "are all in this together".

How can you make art, hold events and unite communities during a pandemic AND get funding for it? You just do it.

Hannah Berry, creative director and owner of Lions & Rabbits and the force behind Creston. After Dark, chats with us about public art, economic development, placemaking and how to engage neighbors to create better communities. Forced to reconfigure their goals for 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, she shares her philosophy that "creative placemaking equals creative problem solving," and to move forward, "you make a plan and you figure it out."  She'll talk about murals, parties and how the creative community can spark a hyper-local renaissance.

Involved in Grand Rapids, Michigan's downtown development, Hannah has been a pivotal player in the vision and execution of the Rad Women project, a public art and walking tour, in addition to spearheading the After Dark series of neighborhood improvement projects and events slated to launch later this year. 

How can you make art, hold events and unite communities during a pandemic? You just do it.  Hannah Berry, creative director and community activist, chats with us about creative placemaking and how to engage neighbors to create better communities.  She shares her journey from owning an art gallery to working on city-wide public art projects and events.  Forced to reconfigure their goals for 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, her philosophy is that "creative placemaking equals creative problem solving," and to move forward, "you make a plan and figure it out."

Involved in Grand Rapids, Michigan's downtown development, Hannah has been a pivotal player in the Rad Women project, a public art and walking tour, in addition to spearheading the After Dark series of neighborhood improvement projects and events.  She's the owner and creative director for Lions & Rabbits, an art center, gallery and event space.  She and her team ran a successful Patronicity crowdfunding campaign in 2019 and received matching funds from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation. 

Learn more at Lionsandrabbits.com.

We’re joined on this episode by Zach Benedict, a principal architect at MKM architecture + design, inc in Indiana. Zach’s work has been focused on how design can impact the well-being of people of all ages and abilities. We talk to Zach about the power of data and how it tells the story of access, inclusion and illustrates why where you live matters.

On this episode we interview Noam Ron, Partner at Hudson Group, a Boston based real estate investment and development firm to talk about how they're working to support their small business tenants during the COVID-19 shutdown.  We also dive into a bit about Noam's perspective on the importance of small business retail tenants to the overall success of a neighborhood and, in term, a property owner.