Things are happening!

Over this past winter we started to become discouraged by our surroundings and it was hard to feel any excitement about going into another season of cleanups and outreach. I started praying that we would get the "bug" again, that we would once again feel excited and ready to reach out. Well, God is answering that prayer! Here's how ...

A few weeks ago we found out that a Crime Watch group is being created for our neighborhood and that the initial planning meeting was taking place in a church right up the street from us. I was able to attend that meeting last week at Camp Curtin UMC and met some "new" people and also found some people I had already been in contact with. We will be meeting again soon and I look forward to continuing to help make our neighborhood a better place with this group of people who also care about others!

A few days later, while out for a walk, we talked to one of our neighbors (who is related to one of the gentlemen I met at the meeting!). He mentioned that because of the rich history of Camp Curtin, it is looking to be quite promising that our area will be declared a historic area which will do wonders for revitilizing the neighborhood. Did you know that the troops who fought at Gettysburg were all trained in Camp Curtin, which is the neighborhood where we live?!?!

Yesterday another cool thing happened. One of my coworkers, who knows of our passion for the city, forwarded me an email from someone who is interested in starting a community garden in uptown Harrisburg! In addition to having a Crime Watch group this is another "dream" of mine that could soon become a reality! I am now in contact with this person and I have been able to share some of my knowledge about organizing neighborhood cleanups. I'm hoping we can help each other out to start not one, but two gardens ... one at his adopted lots and one at ours!

Yet another cool thing is that a friend of ours, who lives one block up from us on Emerald Street, also came to the Crime Watch meeting and she is going to be planting an empty lot near her house with sunflowers (she's calling it the Sunflower Initiative) with the help of neighbor kids! She already enlisted the help of several kids in the neighborhood to get some seeds started in little planters before moving them out to the empty lot! If you would like to help, please let me know and I'll give you her contact info.

God is awesome!

~Cindy