Westside Communities Alliance

A partnership between Atlanta's westside communities and institutions of higher education.

Rise Up Atlanta Event in Ashby Circle Playlot

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On Tuesday morning, September 17th 2013, as a part of Rise Up Atlanta, hard-working volunteers coordinated by Park Pride showed up to revitalize Ashby Circle Playlot.

The whole volunteer crew!

Completed work includes:

  • Sanding and painting the playground
  • Removing invasive species from the perimeter of the park
  • Planting native species
  • Installing wattles to prevent soil erosion caused by stormwater run-off
  • Building birdhouses

Volunteers included:

  • Cheerleaders, players, and staff from the Atlanta Falcons;
  • Akamai Technologies staff for Danny Lewin Community Cares Day
  • Staff from YP

The next Rise Up Atlanta event in the Westside will be held on Tuesday, October 29th in Washington Park. Find more information here: http://www.handsonatlanta.org/HOC__Volunteer_Opportunity_Details_Page?id=a0CA000000ReePFMAZ

Mulching and sanding/painting the playground!

Read the story from the Atlanta Falcons.

See more pictures in our album and in Park Pride’s album.

Organizers of Ashby Rise-Up
From left:
Kendyl Moss, Vice President of Community Relations for Atlanta Falcons
Christi Jackson, Executive Director of The Conservancy at Historic Washington Park
Gwen Mason, Associate Director of Training Operations at YP
Gloria Smith, Resident of Washington Park
John Ahern, Volunteer Manager with Park Pride

Washington Park Community Service with GT OMED Students

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Early on a Saturday morning, 12 bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Georgia Tech students – OMED (Office of Minority Educational Development) Challenge counselors with Andre Dickens, Assistant Director of Outreach Initiatives with OMED – met at Ashby Circle Playlot ready to volunteer with the Washington Park Community Club and Neighborhood Association, led by Christi Jackson. Some volunteers even walked from Tech’s campus to be there.

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The first order of duty was to canvass the Washington Park neighborhood to complete a survey of: vacant properties, senior citizens, pet-owners, home-owners v. renters, and structures with fire damage.

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After canvassing, the students began cleaning up the park. Located near a ravine, the park is plagued with stormwater surges rushing through the area. Many of the tree roots suffer are exposed from soil run-off and the grassy areas are littered with broken glass and debris making it unsafe for actual play. West Atlanta Watershed Alliance arranged mulch to be delivered and students covered the exposed roots to provide more stabilization. Other students worked to pick up trash, broken glass, and some interesting car parts that were found on the playground.

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See the entire photo album on our Facebook page

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WCA Staff at Proctor Creek HIA Workshop

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Source: WAWA

WCA staff members Sheri Davis-Faulkner and Mackenzie Madden attended the Health Impact Assessment Workshop on May 23rd at the U.S. EPA Region 4 Headquarters downtown that focused on green infrastructure in the Proctor Creek communities. An HIA is a tool used to objectively evaluate potential positive and negative health impacts of a policy or project before it is implemented and provide recommendations to minimize adverse health impacts and maximize beneficial impacts. The goal of conducting such an assessment is to ensure that health and equity are considered in the decision-making process and that impacted communities are engaged. Please see the Health Pathways link below for more information.

The workshop was facilitated by representatives from Georgia Health Policy Center, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Environmental Protection Agency. We were joined by community members Yvonne Jones, Tony Torrence, and Shaheed Dubois among others. In addition to learning about the Health Impact Assessment process, we learned about the Boone Boulevard Street Project. This project has been chosen by the City of Atlanta’s Department of Watershed Management to address some of the community’s flooding concerns and will be implemented in collaboration with planned road diet improvements. The proposal includes a combination of planter boxes, permeable pavements, bioretention areas, and planting strips. Please see the HIA Proctor Creek link below for more information.

The Advisory Committee (37 members) will hold their next meeting will be held on July 23, 2013 from 9:30 am – 12:00 pm. The next Community Engagement meeting will be held at a date TBD.

For more information, please contact Tami Thomas-Burton at (404) 562-8027 or at Thomas-burton.tami@epa.gov.

 

HIA Proctor Creek Health Pathways

HIA Proctor Creek

Bridges Symposium

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Bridges Symposium 1The Bridges Symposium that took place on February 14, 2012, represented a major point of departure for beginning the conversation at Georgia Tech about community engagement. Co-sponsored by the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts and the College of Architecture, the symposium featured a keynote speech by Ira Harkavy, Director of the Netter Center for Community Partnerships at the University of Pennsylvania, a leading national voice on university-community partnerships. The event brought together Georgia Tech faculty, staff, and students, and members of the English Avenue Community, to discuss their relationship’s strengths, sites of opportunity, and visions for the future. The Symposium represented a key moment expressing the vision and direction of the Westside Communities Alliance to selected members of the community, as well as catalyzing potential participants at the Institute.