West Baltimore Community Cleans Up
In preparation for ROOTS Fest, Baltimore residents held a Clean-Up Day on Saturday, May 14 from 10:00-2:00 at the "Hidden Stream" spot in West Baltimore. All of Baltimore was encouraged to come out and lend a hand. This project was part of ROOTS Fest, a national arts and culture festival coming to West Baltimore on June 22 - 26.CultureWorks, Fayette Outreach Community Center, Parks & People Foundation, and Nicodemus Baptist Church led the charge.
“This clean up is a true sign of how art and culture, within a community engagement, can create change,” says Ashley Milburn, Co-Director of the local non-profit CultureWorks. “This is a community event and we’re working together on a new creative a future with the residents of this Baltimore community.”
Hidden Stream refers to the 263 Chesapeake Tributary that was buried and diverted by construction for roads. Cock your ear toward a storm sewer between Cary and Calhoun Streets, and you’ll hear the water. The organizing partners and community members are hoping to bring back the relationship of the waterway back into the lives of this community through ROOTS Fest. The stream, as a metaphor, will be amplified as part of the festival, showing the power of art and culture to begin a new dialogue within communities. The festival is a celebration of that power of community to be creative and empowered.
The upcoming ROOTS Fest will show a significant new course for Baltimore. On June 25- 26, there will be the first large-scale, positive gathering of community members on the “Highway to Nowhere” (Route 40). The clean-up day is a part of the pre-festival work that is happening in the area with residents of the Baltimore community, members of Alternate ROOTS, and supporters. It is particularly a part of a ROOTS Community/Artists Partnership Program grant between Artist Jeff Mather and CultureWorks. The majority of the C/APP grants for this year were focused on the Baltimore community, and all will be presented as a part of the National Learning Exchange.
About the picture (left to right)
- Back row: Tim Bridges, Glenn Smith, Bryant Smith, Kemit Najee
- Front Row: Ray Baylor, Natalya Bruislousky, Jai Brooks, Ayanna Barmore, Ashley Milburn
- Other volunteers not in photo: Denise Johnson, Michael Braswell, Rev. Cedric Utsey, Michael Braswell
- Photographer and Volunteer: David Mitchell