Dumpster Day

It was a hot and sweaty morning but we had a good turn out and managed to fill 2 dumpsters by 11 am. We got our dumpsters, with the help of the Blue Valley Neighborhood Association, from the city dumpster program. The city will cover the cost of the dumpster and only charge the neighborhood $55 for a $300 dumpster. To cover our cost we ask everybody for donations, we ended up with $149 in donations , which cover our $110 cost for the dumpsters and leaves us with $39 to use on our next project. These donations are very important as we charge no dues for membership and have no funding grants. The only way we can bring things like the dumpsters or trash bags for the spring and fall cleanup is with donations from the neighborhood.
A big thanks to those who donated, they keep things happening in the neighborhood.

This is still there

Despite repeated assurance that it will be picked up by the city trash crews, we still haven't seen this pile of trash that we picked up 2 weeks ago disappear. Maybe this week.

I will make one more call. If it is not picked up this week, we will need to find homes for this trash.





UPDATE:

We were able to get the trash picked up by scattering it out in front of several empty houses. The city trash service never followed through on their promises to pick it up. But there is more than one way to get it done. Sometimes you just have to be sneaky.

This is gone

Most of this pile of trash was picked up by bulky items and we thank them for their cooperation

We got the leaves picked up

Sweep The Street part 2

As most of you know our Saturday the 18th Sweep The Street was rained out . However people worked around the rain to clean up and also did cleanup in the days after. Here are some pictures I took of the various people sweeping the streets to make them look better.

Sweep the Street part 1

Successful first meeting

We had a very successful first meeting.

Three people volunteered to serve on the board of directors.
Dale Fugate, Chairman
Yvonne Leathers
Reggie Pierce.

We, also, passed our bylaws, so with that done and a board of directors, we are a legal functioning nonprofit.

I want to thank neighbor Carla Ruiz for offering to translate our fliers into Spanish. She and her husband were unable to attend because of work conflicts but both expressed excitement about what we are attempting to do.

Our first event is going to be a neighborhood cleanup April 18 with a potluck party afterward. We will supply the meat and grill and eating utensils. Everybody come , bring a side dish and beverage of your choice.
We will post more information later.

Thanks to everybody who attended the meeting and helped get this organisation off on the right foot.

YES WE CAN!

Everyday in the headlines we read about budget cuts and short falls in the city. We have seen for ourselves the decreases in city services with the elimination of a regular bulky items pickup. In a time of limited city services only the crying child gets attention the quiet good one will be ignored.
So we need to make ourselves heard. We can best do that by organizing a block club. With a block club we can work on the various issues we have on this and surrounding blocks and either find a way to solve them together or bring them to the city with the impact of a group rather than one ignorable individual



We have problems with dangerous buildings that are rotting down and are often open where any curious child can enter them and be injured.




We, also, trash and rubbish piled on the curb and leaves piling up in the gutters and clogging the storm drains.


In addition we have gang sign tags throughout the neighborhood




Add to all that the houses that are either empty and for sale and the ones in bank foreclosure you have a neighborhood that is heading down hill. We need to work together to stop the slide.
So let’s meet, organize and toss ideas around. We can make a difference , we can change things.

It is official

Belmont-Topping Block Club is now an official nonprofit corporation in the state of Missouri.