Ideas for better neighborhood flow
Best notions would get up to $250,000 to help make dreams a reality
Schenectady Shanisha Hires jotted down her ideas on colored pieces of paper before tacking the paper on a board at the Electric City Barn.
The mother of two was among those who wasted no time in answering the call Tuesday afternoon by the Schenectady Foundation for city residents’ ideas to make Schenectady a nicer place. It’s part of the first phase of the foundation’s Thriving Neighborhoods Challenge. The gathering drew a large crowd to the renovated, mixed-use building in Hamilton Hill.
The foundation, a philanthropic group, and its public and private investors will bankroll the best ideas with up to $250,000 in grant money during this first round.
The city of Schenectady contributed $100,000 in community development block grant funds.
Ray Faught, 69, said he’d like to see the old weed-filled tennis courts with no nets in Hillhurst Park in his Bellevue neighborhood transformed into basketball courts and improvements made to a nature and mountain
bike trail.
Hires, who used to be homeless and lives in the Electric City Barn, said Schenectady sorely needs a performing arts center for adolescents.
“They need centers to be more involved with arts, music, poetry, and double-dutch rope jumping,” the 27-yearold said.
Foundation Executive Director Bob Carreau said he hopes the challenge will continue efforts to improve the area.
“It’s to put a call out to everyone in the city to say what is your best idea that will make the city, your neighborhood, a place in the city, a better place in some way, shape or form,” he said. He said suggestions could focus on neighborhood beautification, education, health and public art.
He said what makes for a thriving neighborhood “comes from the people who live there” and that the foundation wanted to fund at least one project geared towards children.
“It’s a broad landscape of what we’re willing to look at,” he said. “The challenge is not a challenge between neighborhoods, it’s a challenge within neighborhoods.”
Mayor Gary Mccarthy urged the audience to think big.
“I ask people to be open-minded, approach things maybe a little bit different, and challenge yourselves to think of things that you never thought were possible before and some things that we can do that may not even require money,” said Mccarthy.
Carreau directed people to the foundation’s website where they can download a “short proposal form.” The deadline to submit proposals is Oct. 19.
Carreau said the foundation will review proposals and will give a presentation to a panel of community leaders before making a recommendation to the foundation board of directors. The board will pick the winners in early January. The winners will be paired with a nonprofit to help bring their ideas to fruition.