Youth Farm Leader hosts her Capstone Project at Unity Park

Youth Farm Leader hosts her Capstone Project at Unity Park

This past month we were excited to have one of our Youth Farm Leaders, Naomi Davis, host her Beautification Capstone Project by partnering with the Felege Hiywot Center and Keep Indianapolis Beautiful. Naomi Davis has been an active youth with us since she was in middle school and she has grown into an amazing, intelligent and capable young woman who will be studying Pharmacy at Purdue University in the fall. Naomi is well respected by not only her peers but also the staff and volunteers of FHC.
She brought together many community members for this day of service. Some of our community volunteers included students from Windrose Group home at Cardinal Point and members of The Green Thumb Project. We had over 50 volunteers come out to Unity Park to not only clean up the area but invigorate the wonderful spirit of the Martindale Brightwood community.

Students from Windrose came out to help!

Mama Camille from The Green Thumb Project does what she does best!

Here are some words from the Director of the neighborhood beautification event:
Hello, I am Naomi Davis. I am a senior at Charles A. Tindley Accelerated. As a senior at Tindley, we have to complete a Senior Capstone Project. The topic that I researched during my fall semester is the Lack of urban neighborhood development in low-income and minority neighborhoods. As a solution to this issue, I decided to host a Neighborhood Beautification Project with the help of the Felege Hiywot Center and Keep Indianapolis Beautiful. This project meant a lot to me because I have always lived an underdeveloped neighborhood and I can relate first hand how depressing it is to grow up in a neighborhood without the proper resources for survival.
The event turned out to be a huge success. Residents from the Hillside Community came out as well as other community members. IMPD, Greg Garret, and the neighborhood gardening group came out. The number of people that decided to come out to support the cause was remarkable. I enjoyed the sight of seeing residents, non-residents, and city officials come together  in harmony and learn about each other. As an outcome of my event, I hope that I was able to inspire people to become more active in their neighborhoods and community to fight for a change. I also believe that events like this will build long term relationships between residents and community members.  – Naomi
We were also honored to have members of our law enforcement team come out to help. Jerry Leary the east district captain came out to lend a hand as well as Officer Samone Willis who is the community resource officer. When asked what she thought of the event Officer Willis said “They are our future. and our future looks bright.”

Jerry Leary, East District Captain and Officer Samone Willis, Community Resource Officer lend a helping hand to make Unity Park more beautiful.

Naomi Davis and and Kelly DeRolf from Keep Indianapolis Beautiful take a break from working to pose for the camera.

Naomi and our Lilly Board member, Nicole.

FHC students working on cleaning up the Labyrinth.

Our Americorps volunteer, Dija Henry steps in front of the camera with Naomi.