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Nearly 600 Volunteers Join in StreetScape 2013
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- The downtown never looks better than at noon the day StreetScape is observed.
This year the event took place Saturday, the 16th such annual effort, when 599 volunteers used rakes, brooms, hoes, trowels and shovels to weed flowerbeds and then added mulch as they replanted the beds with an assortment of flowers. Many volunteers got down on their hands and knees to tend to the work of beautifying the downtown.
They also picked up the litter, waste and other debris -- the number of cigarette butts was in the thousands -- that had accumulated on East Federal Street from the East End through Central Square to the Tyler History Center and a memorial to John Young at the West End.
The executive director of Youngstown CityScape, Sharon M. Letson, pronounced StreetScape a success and noted the number of volunteers has grown every year and inspired residents of other neighborhoods in the city to follow suit.
The 599 volunteers Saturday was a hundred more than StreetScape 2012, Letson said, which in turn was nearly 100 more than StreetScape 2011.
This year's event was titled "Grow the Yo." Most of the work was done by 10:30 a.m., well before the scheduled noon quitting time. Last year work was basically over by 11 a.m.
The president of Youngstown CityScape, Pete Asimakopoulos, has participated in every StreetScape except one when he attended his son’s graduation from college. Asimakopoulos, executive vice president of First National Bank of Pennsylvania, and 10 of his staff tended to the flowerbeds outside the First National Bank office on Central Square. This year, members of the staff of the Youngstown office of Cohen & Co. worked along side the bankers in tending the beds, he noted.
“Youngstown continues to rebound,” Asimakopoulos remarked. “Everyone continues to help and pitch in and the camaraderie is wonderful.”
That note of camaraderie was echoed by others interviewed as they worked in the median strip in West Federal Street.
Many who came Saturday were veterans of other StreetScapes but several were first-timers. Louise Zombeck, a retired elementary school teacher from New Middletown, and her fellow Wednesday Wallets, tended a stretch of the median strip in West Federal. Zombeck, a master gardener, came prepared with a straw sunbonnet and plastic kneepads.
Another Wednesday Wallet, Mark Dolak of Austintown, recently retired as a clerk from the downtown Youngstown post office after 28 years. “When I worked here, I drove this way to work every day,” Dolak stated. He returns ever year, he explained, “because when I drive this way, I can say, ‘Hey, we did this!’ We have pride. It makes you feel good and it looks nice.”
Volunteers from the suburbs keep returning to help residents of the city sustain the beautification efforts. At the John Young Memorial, 1st Ward Councilwoman Annie Gillam was shoveling dirt and mulch with the Johnny Appleseed Group. Among members of the Appleseed group are Ed and Karen Hahn of Boardman. With Ed Hahn were Boy Scouts from Troop 115 from Canfield and with his wife were Girl Scouts from Troop 495, also based in Canfield.
The Girl Scouts have taken part in every StreetScape since the first, Ed Hahn said.
Another master gardener, Rebecca Rogers of Poland, twice president of the Youngstown Garden Club, summed it up best. “[CityScape] is an incredibly successful organization,” she said, and “StreetScape is the best project.” She’s participated in nearly half, she said, and finds “They’ve gotten to be incredibly efficient.”
Indeed, two loads of mulch – a few remarked at its abundance – was deposited on South Champion Street last Wednesday and the flowers were unloaded behind the Children Services Board building Thursday. The tent where breakfast and lunch were served was pitched Friday. And volunteers driving golf carts were passing out water throughout the morning to those working on the flowerbeds.
The Community Corrections Association was collecting rubbish as volunteers cleaned out the beds and there was no shortage of tools for volunteers to use.
“People come expecting a good experience and they have one,” Rogers said.
Copyright The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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