For the last couple of years, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) has been planning to bring more than 30,000 youth from all over the United States to downtown Detroit for three days of invigorating service projects. (You may have heard about the "Skittle Factory Explosion.") The ELCA reached out to community organizations throughout Detroit to set up the projects.
In anticipation of the gathering, Focus: HOPE created the event's most ambitious project, ultimately employing 10,000 volunteers each day in an array of cleanup, board-up, mowing, and gardening projects in their 100 block revitalization area.
Check out this video to learn how project director Jerrell Harris worked with colleagues and community members to use Loveland's survey app and data from the Motor City Mapping project (the citywide survey built on Loveland's Site Control technology) in creating maps, workplans, and strategies to effectively deploy resources.
Jerrell Harris: So keep it 100 is a three-day, 100-block clean-up and beautification project. Over the next three days we will be boarding up all of the vacant homes in the Hope Village Area. We're gonna be cutting every vacant lot. We're gonna be installing rain guards and flower gardens.
We're painting curbs, we're installing photo banners on some of the houses. We're planting magnolia trees and black-eyed susans. So we're really taking the next three days to transform the physical environment for this 100-block area which is the Hope Village. We had this great opportunity where we knew we had all of these young volunteers coming from the ELCA. They're here for their tri-annual gathering.
And... if you'd like to try out the technology yourself, head over to SITE CONTROL and take a look! We've got a great little video there to walk you through how you can make your own maps using Site Control.