5February2010

GRPD Spaghetti Dinner – Saturday, February 20, 2010, 5-8pm

Posted by admin under: Uncategorized.

A spaghetti dinner for the GR Police Department’s Family Support Fund.

4February2010

Midtown to Announce Special Neighborhood Wide Project, pending City Commission approval,February 10th

Posted by kello under: Uncategorized.

Midtown Neighborhood Association had submitted a grant request for hiring additional staff and 3 youth interns to accomplish Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design goals set forth by Midtown residents.  The funds would be coming from a Federally funded Justice Assistance Grant through the City of Grand Rapids Community Development Department.  Funding announcements will take place on February 9th-10th following approval by the City Commission.  Once funded, additional Midtown staff will help the Board of Directors and Midtown’s Community Organizer, Kelly Otto,  hit the ground running on an aggressive campaign to meet with residents on each and every block of Midtown to:

Increase the number of active block club groups as well as the number of block captains

Determine the strengths & weaknesses of each block

Create a list of do-able projects which will increase the curb appeal and perception of each block

Complete a one-time street by street and house by house lighting assessment

Complete monthly street by street vacancy assessment

Complete monthly graffiti assessments and follow up with removal of the graffiti

The options are only limited by residents willingness to join in and make their Midtown neighborhood great!  If you would like to support the neighborhood association in their efforts to receive funding for this grant, please contact your City Commissioner Rosalynn Bliss and let her know “I stand behind Midtown!”. Commissioner Bliss can be reached via e-mail at <rosalynnbliss@hotmail.com>

22January2010

Law Enforcement Appreciation Night

Posted by admin under: Uncategorized.

Friday, February 19th, 7:00pm At the Van Andel Arena

The State Fraternal Order of Police has organized a Law Enforcement appreciation night at the Van Andel for the Griffins hockey game. Two dollars from every ticket helps fund the construction of the Michigan Law Enforcement Memorial. Call or log in for discounted ticket prices. Please come out for a great cause and good time.

$10 upper bowl tickets
$13 lower bowl tickets

1. Order online at: http://www.griffinshockey.com/promocode
2. Type in promocode FOP (All Uppercase)
3. Order by phone by contacting Scott Bradfield by phone at 616-774-4585 X3060

PS: It’s dollar beer and hot dog night as well!

22January2010

GRPD release new crime tracking website

Posted by fotoman311 under: In the News; Public Safety.

From the GRPress – 1/21/10:

“GRAND RAPIDS — The Grand Rapids Police Department will unveil an online crime-mapping system today that will inform residents about incidents in their neighborhoods.

The Internet-based system will allow people to see the type of crimes happening across the city, narrowing the scope by offenses, date and geographic areas.

Data comes directly from force complaints and will be updated twice daily, said Officer Phil Porter, who works in the department’s crime analysis unit.”

On the new website you can pick from 15 categories of crime and see where they have recently taken place.  If you want to check for a specific day or range of days, you can select that by clicking on the date above the map.

You can also sign up for email alerts to automatically be sent when crimes happen near your residence by clicking “Receive Crime Alerts” in orange in the upper right corner.  Simply enter your email, the address or intersection you are tracking, the distance from your address for alerts to be sent, and select which categories of crime are sent in the email alerts.

Access the site at http://www.crimemapping.com/

More info at these news websites through Google News:

http://bit.ly/4SlBGt

18January2010

The Fix on 196

Posted by kello under: Uncategorized.

15January2010

How to Help Haiti? Here is what one Midtown’er is doing….

Posted by kello under: Uncategorized.

Grand Rapids student launches teddy bear drive for

Haitian kids after emergency efforts are over

By Kym Reinstadler | The Grand Rapids Press

January 15, 2010, 11:45AM

Katy Batdorff | The Grand Rapids PressBlare Gooch,12, who is part Haitan, is organizing a teddy bear drive for the island nation devastated by an earthquake. Blare has never visited the island nation. GRAND RAPIDS — A newscast showing Haitian kids roaming over rubble looking searching for their parents in the aftermath of Monday’s earthquake left Blare Gooch wishing he could give those kids a hug.

The St. Thomas the Apostle School seventh-grader resolved to do the next best thing: organize a teddy bear drive to give kids in Haiti something to hug.

“I put it on my Facebook page and a teacher let me announce it on the PA at school,” said Blare, a 12-year-old who is 25 percent Haitian and dreams of competing on Haiti’s national soccer team. “Several kids came up to me afterward to say they wanted to donate teddy bears, so I think it’s going to be successful.”

Blare started the drive Thursday by donating the big white teddy bear his father, Johrone Gooch, gave him on his first Valentine’s Day. He’s also contributing Brown Bear, his bedtime companion that made at Build-A-Bear Workshop when he was three.

A fluffing in the dryer with Febreeze and new ribbons could give these well-loved bears new life for children who may be separated from their toys, and possibly their loved ones, said Lisa Gooch, Blare’s mom.

She and Johrone also purchased a new green bear to donate.

Teddy Bears, and monetary donations to ship them, can be dropped off before March 15 at St. Thomas the Apostle School, 1429 Wilcox Park Drive SE, and at Lisa Gooch’s business, Hair Force, 1557 Michigan Ave. NE.

Gooch is arranging to ship and donate the bears through a Catholic relief organization, but not until the crush of basic needs for food, shelter and medicine subsides.

Blare’s goal is to collect 2,000 bears that will have to serve as tokens of comfort and love.

After the bears ship, Lisa Gooch said she will take Blare back to Build-A-Bear Workshop to create a bear to commemorate his compassion.

“I know that one day, a long time from now, I will see that bear in his office,” she said.

12-year-old’s teddy bear drive for Haitian kids surpasses all expectations

By Kym Reinstadler | The Grand Rapids Press

February 06, 2010, 4:00AM

Octavian Cantilli | The Grand Rapids PressBlare Gooch’s Blare’s Bears drive has help collect about 10,000 teddy bears. He has upped his goal from 2,000 to 20,000.GRAND RAPIDS — It’s going to take a beary big shipping container to get Blare’s Bears to Haiti.

Blare Gooch, 12, asked classmates at St. Thomas the Apostle School three weeks ago to help him collect 2,000 teddy bears to send to kids in Haiti who lost toys and loved ones in the earthquake.

Blare — who has Haitian heritage and dreams of playing on Haiti’s Olympic soccer team — eclipsed his bear-raising goal the first week.

More than 7,000 new or gently used bears have been received at Blare’s school and his mother’s salon, Hair Force 1. Most were dropped off, but some were in packages mailed from seven other states.

Another 2,000 bears have been collected through the studios of Thunder 94.5 FM, where the Scrubs in the Morning show is promoting Blare’s Bears for Haiti, along with a sister station in Flint, B95.

Now, there are 150 bear drop-off sites statewide and Blare has boosted his goal to 20,000 bears before the drive ends March 15.

“It’s really cool so many people want to show kids in Haiti that they care,” said Blare, a bright-eyed seventh-grader.

Sue Yeasi, secretary at St. Thomas the Apostle School, said many bears are donated with sweet stories and compassionate words that she wishes could accompany them to Haiti.

Logistics of shipping that many teddy bears to Haiti in a way that won’t compete with the need for basic services like food, water and shelter could have been overwhelming if Blare’s Bears had not connected with an established Grand Rapids relief organization, said Lisa Gooch, Blare’s mom.

Rays of Hope for Haiti is a nonprofit and non-denominational relief organization that has been working in Haiti and the Dominican Republic for 10 years. It has trusted distribution channels to get Blare’s Bears to kids who need comfort, Lisa Gooch said.

It costs almost $6,000 to ship a 40-foot container to Haiti, a voyage that takes three weeks, said Kim Sorrelle, Rays of Hope’s volunteer coordinator.

Rays of Hope, which has just one paid employee, partners with The Lighthouse School near Santa Domingo. The school is directed by her 34-year-old son Cristian Santiago, to purchase relief supplies in the Dominican, which school staff truck to Haiti, six hours away.

A water purification system that West Michigan volunteers constructed several years ago at The Lighthouse School was used round-the-clock last weekend to fill 8,000 bottles of water, which was delivered by staff along with 80,000 pounds of food to the Matthew 25 House in Port-au-Prince.

This hospitality house for visiting North Americans was rendered uninhabitable by the earthquake, although a section has become a makeshift medical clinic, Sorrelle said.

An estimated 20,000 people are living under bedsheets on grounds around the house, Sorrelle said.

“I can’t tell you how much it will mean to children in those circumstances to have a teddy bear to hold on to,” Sorrelle said. “In the rush to meet physical needs, we cannot forget emotional needs, especially among the children.”

Rays of Hope intends to deliver many of Blare’s Bears, along with food and water, to La Gonave, an island northwest of Port-au-Prince where Father Leviche Roosevelt, a Catholic priest, runs two orphanages.

Sorrelle said her son is Dominican, has been active with The Lighthouse School since 1994, and knows how to deliver supplies quickly, economically and orderly.

14December2009

Snow Plowing and Odd-Even Parking

Posted by kello under: Uncategorized.

The snow and ice season is here. The Streets and Sanitation Department has passed along several tips and information to help facilitate the clearing of snow and ice from the streets and sidewalks.

First Attention routes are the main streets in the business and residential areas. These are the streets that provide access for emergency services throughout the area and are cleared

first.

Plow routes are plowed when there are three inches or more accumulation of snow and after the First Attention routes have been cleared. City plows clear business and residential streets, cul-de-sacs, and dead-ends. The City has a contractor who plows the alleys.

It is important to remember that following a snowfall you are responsible for clearing your sidewalk, per city ordinance. This provides safer paths for school children and pedestrians.

Please abide by the following rules for parking on your street if posted with odd/even parking signs:

• NO PARKING on the odd-numbered side of the street on even numbered days from 1 a.m. to 6 p.m.

• NO PARKING on the even-numbered side of the street on odd-numbered days from 1 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The Odd/Even Parking Ordinance will be enforced & tickets are not cheap.

• From 6 p.m. to 1 a.m., the next day parking is PERMITTED on both sides of the street unless there are signs restricting parking.

To avoid confusion, please comply with the signs posted on the street where you are parking.

If you have any question, please call the Streets and Sanitation Department at 456-3232.

To report areas of concern in the neighborhood, please contact the Midtown Neighborhood Association at 732-9191 or by e-mail at midtownmi@yahoo.com

20October2009

Midtown’s Executive Board of Directors and Directors at Large

Posted by kello under: In the News.

Jenn Gavin, Ashby Row resident for over 10 years and Midtown’s Board President. Jenn is involved with the neighborhood association, its Board and committees  for over 8 years.

Kevin Hayes, longtime Brikyaat resident and Midtown’s Board Vice-President. Kevin is very involved with the  revitalization of the Brikyaat and planning-stages of improvements at the Farmers Market.  Kevin also serves as Midtown’s Staff Supervisor for Market Manager Melissa Harrington and Community Organizer Kelly Otto.

Amber Kilpatrick, Old East Resident and Midtown’s Secretary. Amber is very active on the Public Safety Committee and was instrumental in making the “2009 Back-to-School” backpack giveaway a success during August’s Community Celebration.

Josh Duggan, resident of the Woods and Midtown’s Treasurer. In addition to being very active in the GR Biking Community, Josh is a member of Midtown’s Communications Committee.

Heather Brazee, Woods resident, Board member responsible for Human Resources, Participating member of Public Safety Committee

Jeffrey Smith, Brikyaat Resident, Board member on the Communications Committee

Jorja Jankowski, Ashby Row Resident, Board member responsible for tracking House Plaque Sales as part of the Neighborhood Improvement Committee

Russ Taber, Brikyaat Resident, Board member responsible for handling Web Master duties as part of the Communications Committee

14October2009

MSHDA’s Property Improvement Program

Posted by admin under: Neighborhood Improvement.

MSHDA’s Property Improvement Program offers low interest home improvement loans to single-family homeowners with low-to-moderate income (up to $65,000, or $74,750 in certain areas), and landlords renting to low-to-moderate income tenants.  Eligible home improvements include the following:

• Windows
• Furnaces (including geothermal)
• Insulation
• Roof repair or replacement
• Solar water heating systems
• Siding

Other improvements include:

• Kitchen and bathroom remodeling
• Foundation repair
• Garage or carport (addition or repair) and
• Other permanent improvements to homes.

With the Property Improvement Program, eligible homeowners can borrow up to $50,000 for a single family site-built home. Lower limits apply to manufactured homes. Because we can amortize the loan up to 20 years, the monthly payments are very affordable for those on a fixed income. The interest rate for homeowners is 4%, 6%, or 8%, depending upon income.

Eligible landlords can borrow up to $25,000 per single-family rental unit, and an average of $12,000 per unit for multi-family properties (up to a maximum of $60,000 per property).  Eligible multi-family properties cannot have more than 11 units.  The interest rate is fixed at 8%.  There are no income requirements for landlords, but the rental units must meet MSHDA rental limit guidelines.

You can get more details about the program at www.michigan.gov/mshda, then click on the Home Improvement link.

Property Improvement Program brochure – 504KB PDF

29September2009

Midtown Fall Newsletter

Posted by admin under: Newsletter.

Midtown Fall 2009 Newsletter

Our latest newsletter is off to the printers and will then be mailed to you. You should be receiving one within the next few weeks.

If you can’t wait for the mail, here is the newsletter in color as a PDF file. (4.5MB)

Midtown Fall 09 Newsletter