• a bunch of your neighbors (usually between 25 and 50 of us!)
• enough food to feed a bunch of neighbors
• an opportunity to plan the future of Brightmoor
• information about volunteers coming to the neighborhood
• how to have a cleanup on your block
• other useful information about living here!

So, make plans to come!

It’s Thursday, June 6. Bring a dish to pass — we start eating at 6:30. The meeting itself starts promptly at 7 and ends promptly at 8:30. Join us at St. Christine’s Soup Kitchen (Dacosta and Fenkell).

This summer, for the first time, Art in the Park is going mobile, with children and adult volunteers from the Farmway riding bicycles to various parks around Brightmoor to provide children all across our community with the opportunity to create beauty and memories in a safe and affirming environment.

You can help! We need

• Old (or new) bicycles – we can repair and reuse bicycles that are donated. Children will be provided with helmets. To donate a bike, call 313-68-SHINE or click here for more information.
• Monetary donations are always welcome. Please specify “Art in the Park.” Donations are tax deductible.
• If you’re interested in volunteering, contact us as well!

“In seven years, that section of Brightmoor has transformed and been organized under the moniker Neighbors Building Brightmoor. Students tend two youth gardens and sell the food at local farmers markets. Adults grow everything from food to flowers in gardens called Ladybug Lane and Rabbit Run. Houses begging to be torn down are painted brightly, with inspiring prose. And young adults from elsewhere have moved in to start small commercial farms, gardens and parks on two-and three-lot stretches where the houses are long gone and the land was left barren.”

The article quotes City Councilman James Tate, who praised Neighbors Building Brightmoor and the Farmway:

“The Brightmoor Farmway has given a new identity to Brightmoor,” Tate said. “They said, ‘We’re going to take it upon ourselves to change our identity and let the rest of the world catch up.’ ”

Read the entire article and see great pictures of the Brightmoor Youth Garden here.

• several arrests on outstanding warrants
• recovery of stolen vehicles
• traffic enforcement activities
• a highly visible police presence

The partnership with the Wayne County sheriff is geared toward preventing crime and addressing ongoing safety and quality of life issues in our neighborhood. Here’s how you can get involved:

1. Volunteer for a neighborhood patrol. It’s just a few hours a month, but it makes a huge difference!
2. Donate to a fund for gas money for neighborhood patrols. This enables more people to be involved!

You can also sign up or donate at the monthly Neighbors Building Brightmoor meeting. We meet the first Thursday of every month at St. Christine’s (Dacosta and Fenkell). By working together, we can build a safer city!

As city planners and elected officials continue to think about the future of Detroit, we have a unique opportunity to help shape the future of our neighborhood. The “Restore the ‘Moor” meetings gives residents of Brightmoor the tools and abilities to craft a future that fits us. For meeting times and locations, visit Restore the ‘Moor on Facebook.

2012 was the best year yet for Neighbors Building Brightmoor! Not only did we run quality programs for kids, remove more blight than ever, start more gardens, and have more people move into the neighborhood, we became an organization totally run by neighbors. In 2012, NBB:

• boarded up 68 houses and maintained 200 lots
• organized numerous youth programs, including Kids’ Corner, Art in the Park, and The Brightmoor Youth Garden, which involved more than 100 children
• employed 44 teens over the summer to maintain neighborhood lots, parks, and gardens
• started Bright Teens, a weekly social club for Brightmoor teenagers
• expanded our membership and clean-up activities beyond our original 21-block target area to form what we are calling the archipelago”
• started a safety patrol partnership with the Sheriff’s department
• hosted and put to work more than 800 volunteers who worked side-by-side with residents for a total of about 10,000 hours of service to our neighborhood
• created 7 committees to distribute the work of our organization and build leadership capacity

We have always believed that true change only happens when people take ownership, invest and become accountable. This year that belief took a visible form in a totally neighbor-driven organizational framework in which everyone has a part to play making paid staffing superfluous.

We now have NBB members leading committees on the fol-lowing topics: Communications, Volunteers, Physical Resources (including the tool bank), Safety, Youth, Finance, and Planning and Land Use. If you are passionate about any of these areas or want to increase your participation in NBB, come to our next meeting to find out how to join!

The next meeting is THURSDAY, MAY 2, at 6:30 p.m. at St. Christine’s Soup Kitchen. Click here for directions.

The post below is by NBB member Riet Schumack from the February NBB Newsletter.

An abundant community does not focus on problems and differences, but on gifts, talent, dreams and possibilities. We each have our own problems and shortcomings—nobody has to tell us about them. When we focus on those issues, we occupy ourselves with what divides us and with things that often can’t be changed. But by focusing—as a  community—on our gifts, dreams and ideas, we build on what unites us. We build on possibilities. This is where association comes in.

An association is a group of people working together on a common goal. When we get together with other people who have similar dreams and ideas and put aside our individual differences, our pooled gifts and talents allow us to achieve things that wouldn’t be possible on our own. NBB’s committees are examples of associations: groups of people passionate about certain key aspects of community-building such as safety, land use and youth. Some associations are centered around gifts and resources such as volunteer management, finances, communication and physical resources, while others are organized around common activities, like our market gardeners work group. We also have as yet unnamed associations like small groups who are concerned about the Eliza Howell Nature Trail, interested in collecting maple syrup from neighborhood trees, beekeeping, and our latest one, starting some sort of dog club. All of these associations form NBB’s framework. These associations are the roof under which our community shelters. They are the frame to which we attach the protective walls of kindness, generosity, hospitality, forgiveness, caring and cooperation.

Associating yourself with others increases the effectiveness of your gifts and talents. We invite you to come to our next NBB meeting, at 6:30 pm on February 7 at St. Christine’s Soup Kitchen to find out where you can find a place to join others to make our neighborhood a better place.