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You are here: Home / News / People First: Binghampton – Fighting Blight with Art

November 28, 2011 by Mid-South Peace & Justice Center

People First: Binghampton – Fighting Blight with Art

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heidelberg-project4-500x375People First is a Mid-South Peace and Justice Center supported partnership with residents and activists working in the Binghampton community to raise voter turn out during elections and assist in long term resident-driven grassroots community organizing after the elections end.

For the past four months our team of activists and Binghampton residents have been canvassing door to door, talking with …residents and neighbors about the issues that they care about. Moving forward People First seeks to engage and organize residents from all races and religions across the Binghampton community to collectively address the needs of the neighborhood as well as ensure all redevelopment efforts in the area have real front end resident and community input. We have already hosted a candidate forum, a neighborhood BBQ and have just finished our second monthly meeting with area residents, talking about issues of the community and planning long term organizing for positive action….but..it’s not all about meetings…it’s about building community.

Upcoming Events – People First – Blight Art Project

This committee is working to recruit artists, volunteers and seeking painting supplies to covert the vacant,boarded up house at 2514 Harvard into a beautiful  artistic expression of the Binghampton community.

This committee met met Monday November 28th and Monday December 5th to  begin the initial planning work for this project. The core idea was originally to turn the house into a mural of sorts, but later was decided that due to the subjective nature of art..that this ran the risk of alienating area residents which is the opposite intention of this project. Thus it was decided to take a simpler approach.

The core idea is to pain the exterior of the house, and use the boards over the windows and doors to paint windows looking inside a home where a family might live. To create an image replacing a blighted vacant with a house lived in by a family. Thus the artists involved would be able to focus on the various views inside this conceptual home in their own style while painting the rest of the exterior in a manner that would make the place attractive objectively to the community as a whole.

We are currently working to recruit more artists, volunteers and are seeking paint and painting supplies, ladders, scaffolding, rags and drop cloths to covert the vacant,boarded up house at 2514 Harvard into a beautiful expression of the Binghampton community.

We have set a TENTATIVE DATE for this action for Saturday Dec 10th from 10am-4-5pm. that will also involve cleaning of trash and debris from the property as well and possibly patching a gap in the rear fence.

Those interested in volunteering in this project should contact Brad Watkins, Organizing Director at brad@midsouthpeace.org   Or call at 901-725-4990. check us out on our Facebook page.

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