The Problem
East St. Louis, IL is an impoverished community separated from St. Louis, MO by the Mississippi River. The City, once a mecca of entertainment and industry, is now mired with dilapidated and vacant homes, high crime, and overgrown lots.
Our Plan
We have chosen to partner with The REC Team, a group of millennials, entrepreneurs, community activists who joined together with a common goal of cleaning up the East St. Louis Community, in their on-going efforts to clean the city's streets, parks, and community areas to create and increase community pride and sense of responsibility. For our part of the partnership and in keeping with our organization's mission of advocating and supporting children's issues, we will focus our work on the city's parks and play areas. We will rely on the recommendation of The REC to determine the greatest need and to which areas this grant will provide the greatest impact.
Themes Addressed
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Community
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Community Enhancement
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The Benefit
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People
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Environment
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Here is how the project went:
This project went better than expected. Our entire team pitched in to make this happen for the children. We put aside self - our plans for our own time - to give back to our community. This was great!
Through this project I/we learned:
It doesn't take much to make children happy. All they want to be is children with no sense of negative influences around them.
What I/we might change:
Ideally, we would make this annual "Spring Cleaning" event to make sure the playgrounds are ready to receive children when warmer weather arrives.
My/our favorite part of this project was:
Creating a safe and welcoming place for children to play.
Some tips, tricks or fun facts about the project:
Working as a team makes any project more rewarding. When the team shares the passion, the work load is no load at all.
