Guerrilla Beautification Presentations

BIG UPDATE! because I've been so bad at updating progress. Since the last  presentation update, there has been two other presentations.

Keynote presentation. One was about the direction my project will take. Summarized, it will only going to be on lots that Ivanhoe owns and there will be test cases. Teens will still hopefully get involved and that has been the biggest challenge getting them interested.

Keynote presentation. The latest one is about our rapid prototypes where I went to talk to some ladies from the community and got their input on plants, location, and getting teens involve.

The next stage is to start designing and getting teens interests. After that, my focus will be on lots, plants, and locations.

Guerilla Beautification

I haven't blogged bout this in so long! So here's to a huge blog post.

So since the brainstorming of ideas, I researched everything and found that I was geared towards the beautification of the neighborhood involving teens. A little keynote presentation I did about my whole idea so you can get a better picture of it.

Now I'm kind of looking into details and notes I've done: 

Desired outcomes

·      Teen involvement

·      Beautification of existing/vacant lots that have been outgrown

·      Plant pretty things

·      Clean up yards

·      Grown up volunteers help

Systematic approach

·      Go in and clean someone’s yard

·      “Leader” asks the owner first and notify the neighbors so kids are safe

·      Leave behind a “You just got guerrilla” (or something similar)

·      Make sure owner of the yard is ok with it first before just doing it

·      One day activity

·      Small groups

·      How will plants live if people just cut over them?

·      Ask owners what they want from their yard (how much can be changed, how much effort they will put into keeping it clean, etc.)

Basic components

·      Cutting tools (lawn mower, gardening shears, etc.)

·      Planting tools (shovel, extra dirt, plants, etc.)

o   http://www.bhg.com/gardening/yard/tools/no-cost-or-low-cost-garden-tools/

·      Getting teens participation

Artifacts

·      Graphic stickers to spark interest in teens (links back to the council to find more information)

·      Graphic posters with one word (also links back)

·      Postcard sized information

·      How do they keep it underground but still spread information with no texting/phones/emails

I've also talked to Soil Service people and asked which plants would be really good and are perennials. The lady I spoke with was super nice and I approached her more with like I'm interested in planting rather than I'm doing a project. She was super nice and helpful and told me mums, asters, and pansies were really low maintenance and you don't have to plant them every year and they come back on their own (as long as they have enough sun). She also gave me lots of good edible plants that you can put in your lawn like kale, cabbage, blueberry bushes, and raspberry vines. She said it was good to plant during the fall because the ground is warm so the roots latch on better. All these plants will stand winter and come back during the spring so that's good. I also walked around the perennials section and wrote down some pretty looking plants that I saw common in other people's yard that takes little effort to maintain. The price in general was pretty cheap. If you want to start from seeds, it's only like $2 a packet. And they have already grown 6" pots that are $4. The biggest ones I saw that were reasonable were only $10.

I've also tried getting in contact with the Master Gardeners of Greater KC and they refuse to pick up their phones and I've left messages. Gonna keep trying.

I've also emailed the lady who is head of the teen programs and I'm going to go talk to her today about how to get teens involved.

I'm also going to email the beautification people at Ivanhoe to get more of what they do and how many tools they have available for the teens to work with.

F+S: Dissent!

Interesting article when things could go terribly wrong: Dissent Run Awry

Ivanhoe Brainstorm

Issues:

• No schools
• Food desert
• Beautification of community (needs help/make more appealing)
• Bringing life to the neighborhood
• Childhood obesity (ways to prevent: through healthy eating - awareness needed)
• Younger age group involvement
• Great homes but no one wants to buy (just need to fix up)
• Drop out rates in school (affects college/job)
• High rate of single mothers (perhaps needs help)
• More community involvement
• Safety (bad sidewalks, no lighting, etc.)
• No hang out place for teens
• Wants small businesses to start in community
• Teens have no guidance (in terms of careers and school)
• Wants to be seen as a good neighborhood

Possible solutions

• Provide resources for teens to gain knowledge in career development, why stay in school, financial advice, list of people and places to contact, what to do for a future, peer guidance help, etc.
• Educate residents about benefits, how to, health benefits, etc. of a urban garden (get them more involved somehow)
• Create something/somewhere that people can go and learn home fixing skills, beautification of their house, "handy work", etc.