Center for Justice & Sustainability: October 2009

This weekend was our annual Serve & Celebrate day, to kick off Homecoming week by helping others. I worked with a group in my neighborhood (Independence Plaza in Historic Northeast Kansas City) doing a neighborhood cleanup. The Neighborhood Council does a cleanup about once a month throughout the summer, and the help of the Jewell students made a huge difference in what we were able to accomplish this time. Here are some highlights:

We collected two huge roll-off dumpsters, one of trash and the other of yard waste. A lot of it was larger items that neighbors came to drop off, but much of it was just blowing around on our streets. Litter is a constant problem in poor neighborhoods, and we greatly appreciate the extra help in gathering up this garbage.
With the help of the local Jackson County representative Scott Burnett, we cut down some overgrown weed-trees in an 80 year old woman's back yard that were threatening her power lines. This problem had been plaguing this elderly neighbor for a long time, and our service would have cost her hundreds of dollars to get taken care of, which on a fixed income would have been impossible for her to get done.
The Jewell students found a large sum of cash lying in a vacant lot, so they deliberated about what to do with it and decided to turn the money that was very likely originally meant for bad and make a donation to some friends making a positive difference in the NE, Cherith Brook.
We picked up about 60 tires that were illegally dumped on the streets and alleys to be recycled.
One of my neighbors has been clearing out an empty and neglected lot (owned by a real estate firm in Colorado, one of many absent landlords who take poor care of urban lots in cities around the country). There are many kids who play in and around this lot, so this neighbor is clearing it out for their safety. The Jewell students hauled four or five truck loads of this yard waste over to the dumpster.
Even if taken great care of, there is more yard waste in our city lots that the City will actually pick up, so cleanups like this are a way that the Independence Plaza Neighborhood Council tries to alleviate this problem. Thanks to the help of the Jewell students, we were able to assist many neighbors who do not have the resources for hauling this waste away at their own expense.