From Cindy Brookshire:
WHAT: 1 By Youth will complete a massive one day, one community, one impact neighborhood revitalization project in the Georgetown South neighborhood in Manassas, VA. Projects include laying down safety mulch on playgrounds, building soft-fill pathways, picking up trash and litter, and, weather permitting, painting electrical boxes and fences.
WHO: Up to 2,000 youth and adult volunteers from VA, DC, MD and PA are participating. Sponsors include Mike Garcia Construction, Habitat for Humanity, Lowes, Virginia Contracting Supply, Walgreens, EE Wine, Comcast, JC Penney, US Food Service and more.
WHEN and WHERE: Saturday, April 24, 2010. Arrive by 7:45 am for Kickoff Rally at Boys & Girls Club, 9501 Dean Park Lane, Manassas. Press room is to right as you walk in front door. Move to work projects in Georgetown South neighborhood at 8:30 a.m., Block Party starts at 2 p.m. at Community Center, 9444 Taney Rd.
WHY: The City of Manassas was selected as the national pilot site for this concentrated “1 By Youth” effort by Colorado-based Group Workcamps Foundation, which has partnered with the City of Manassas’ award-winning Week of Hope program for the past three summers.
Georgetown South is a 45-year-old neighborhood of 860 townhomes located near Old Town Manassas. Rich in diversity, the community has nevertheless weathered more than their share of vacant homes due to the economic downturn and deterioration due to a high ratio of rental properties and lack of funds for neighborhood improvements.
April 22, 2010 at 3:10 pm
More wasted money. How many other attempts have been made to clean up this neighborhood? Obviously previous attempts have failed, or otherwise another attempt would not have to be made.
At one time GTS was one of the nicest neighborhoods around. What happened? Why at one time was it a nice, and now not so nice?
Again, we are looking at a situation where people are not expected to take care of their homes, and neighborhoods, and so others are expected to do that work. And, we wonder why there is a lack of self responsibility that seems to only inflict certain neighborhoods. Dependency on hand outs and Government programs also seem to go hand and hand in such situations. Funny how those programs never seem to make a difference.
Why can’t I get people to come to my neighborhood and do the same work? Why should it only be limited to “diverse” and in a middle of an economic down turn type of neighborhoods?
April 26, 2010 at 7:43 pm
I drove by GTS on Saturday, and saw plenty of kids working. However, none of them appeared to be residents of GTS. A tell tale sign of course would be the fact, if the residents of GTS worked on their own community, they would not need a National group to come in and do the work for them.
It must be nice to be a lazy liberal and have everyone else do the work, you are supposed to do. Only if I had not personal pride, I suppose I too could sit on my backside and expect others to do the work I should do.