The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
A QUICK SPIFF
Volunteers show up for acts of service to beautify, to show love for Lorain
The East 28th Street underpass in Lorain has never looked as good as it did after about 15 people took part in the first Quick Pick of the year on May 26.
Residents were asked over social media to convene at 10 a.m. to take an hour to tidy up the busy stretch of road. Weed whackers, rakes, shovels and lots of garbage bags were put to use as bits of debris, litter and high grass were eliminated from the area.
The event was organized by Max Schaefer, 27, of Lorain, who said the plan is to hold about 12 of the flash mob-like cleanups across the city. Last year, they held between eight and 10 of the events.
“(The idea) was born out of
“There’s a lot of good work to be done and a lot of people who want to do it.”
— Alex Barton, 29, the new priest at Church of the Redeemer
the charrette process that the Lorain Historical Society sponsored last year,” he said. “It was just me bumming around thinking of ways that I could make a difference in my neighborhood over the next 30 days.”
Schaefer said he then thought of expanding the scope of the project to include not only his home neighborhood, but also the rest of the city.
Last year’s events were so successful that Schaefer said he wanted to expand it for this year’s project, but he hasn’t decided what neighborhoods or areas of the city will be focused on yet, but that’s the way he wants it.
“I went around town and scoped out different neighborhoods, different abandoned properties that could use a little bit more love that are sometimes overlooked and I compiled a list of that,” he said.
Schaefer said the whole concept of a Quick Pick is for it to be similar to a flash mob, in which a group of people gathers seemingly out of nowhere to perform a task (sometimes dancing or just freezing in place). He said because of this, the locations and dates are only released through social media a week beforehand.
“We’ve got people here that I’ve never met before that just saw this on social media, and that’s kind of how we wanted to act,” he said.
While the city is normally tasked with keeping the streets clean and handling vacant properties, Schaefer said with the current financial troubles, the Street Department is sometimes unable to keep up, and there is a community-building aspect to the
Quick Picks.
“The entire idea of the Quick Pick is to engage citizens and to get them involved in building a better community,” he said. “We appreciate everything that the city is able to do to clean up our city and to keep it safe and clean, but we want to make sure that neighbors and citizens are also taking the opportunity to engage and do that themselves.”
One of these citizens was Alex Barton, 29, who is the just moved to town in July of last year. He is the new priest at Church of the Redeemer.
He was armed with a hat, gloves and a rake attempting to bring a copious amount of dried grass clippings to heel.
While in seminary, he said he was working at a church in Harlem, in New
York City, and his bishop sent him to Lorain and he fell in love with the city as soon as he got here.
“People are really committed to each other regardless of whether they’re Democrat or Republican,” he said. “There’s a lot of good work to be done and a lot of people who want to do it.”
According to Barton, the concept of projects like the Quick Picks appeals to him on a religious level.
“My idea of church is really being highly involved in the local area you find yourself in with all the good and all the bad,” he said. “I think this is a very great, small, powerful expression of that to just have concerned neighbors come around and clean up and make things look good for summer.”