Raise the Hammer
By Ryan McGreal
Published December 07, 2009
Hamilton's Crown Point Community - the neighbourhood bounded by Gage Ave, Burlington St, Kenilworth Ave and Lawrence Rd - is like the city in microcosm: an interesting, challenging, and hopeful mix of vibrancy, poverty, incremental progress, optimism, frustration and potential. Also like the city as a whole, the most exciting initiatives are coming from engaged citizens rolling up their sleeves to transform their community.
A new website called The Crown Jewel is celebrating Crown Point's successes, highlighting its challenges, and serving as a point of organization for members of the community to get together and work toward improving the neighbourhood.
The neighbourhood includes such highlights as Ottawa Street, Gage Park and the Children's Museum. At the same time, it also has pockets of deep poverty and high unemployment; and the north end of the neighbourhood is subject to black soot and other industrial pollutants.
The Crown Point Community Planning Team is working hard to make the community more livable, more compassionate and more supportive. This includes projects ranging from a children's soccer league and the recent first annual Ottawa Street Christmas celebration to a weekly community dinner at Compass Point, a teen mom support group, and the "Property Elves" initiative, in which volunteers help local residents and businesses with exterior property maintenance, including gardening, painting, cleaning and repairs.
Santa and some of his Crown Point volunteers (Image Credit: The Crown Jewel)
Community building is time- and labour-intensive work, and the Crown Point Community team needs all the help they can get! If you live in the neighbourhood or just want to help, be sure to contact the organizers and find out how you can get involved.
By Dwayne Brown Ward4 (anonymous) | Posted December 08, 2009 at 00:01:38
Ryan,
Thank you for supporting the Crown Point Community Planning Team's efforts. To be quite honest, it's a great feeling to know that "community" is making a comeback. We need strong communities - And we've certainly been neglected here in the east end! We've also been fortunate and thankful that residents are taking a serious look at what they can do to change that. Many local businesses and service providers are committed to helping us build on our strengths to make Crown Point a better place to live. Good stuff everyone!
And you don't have to live in Crown Point to share in this community...Diversity is one of our greatest assets. The more people who pitch in, in whatever way they can, the better. So for anyone who reads this - contact us anytime.
Crown Point Rocks!
Dwayne Brown Co-Chair, Crown Point Community Planning Team
By jason (registered) | Posted December 11, 2009 at 09:53:52
this is awesome stuff.
I really think that community groups like this and citizen involvement are the most effective ways to bring change to our city. It's not elected officials or fancy slogans or money wasting reports that give us the same results as the previous 89 reports.
It's citizens who care and are willing to work for the betterment of their community.
The area of the city in which Crown Point resides has certainly been neglected and even dumped on for far too long.
Congrats to this citizens group. Your neighbourhood is immediately better off due to the formation of this local group of people that care.
Cheers
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