VASJ Day of Service

For the second time this year VASJ has come out to help make East 185th Street beautiful. September 20th was a day of service for VASJ High School.

Six students along with Jill Latkovich the campus ministry advisor visited Northeast Shores for the start of their day of service in the community. Jill told me “I want the students to know what Northeast Shores does, so I want to start our day at your office”. The students met with Jack Storey our AmeriCorp VISTA volunteer and Charlie Kamen our Programs Manager. As a native of the East 185th Street neighborhood Jack extolled the virtues of growing up in the East 185th St neighborhood. “If nothing else Cleveland can claim Superman and Life Savers” Jack told our visitors. Jack also shared what being an AmeriCorp VISTA is and why he chose to participate in that program. Charlie shared how he started as an unpaid intern at Northeast Shores. When Charlie’s internship was over he was offered a part time job at Northeast Shores as the Programs Manager. The point that both Jack and Charlie were making is that volunteering is a good thing and you never know where it may take you. After the students were done with their tour of the Northeast Shores offices we went out in to the field to get dirty.

With funding from the City of Cleveland we were able to add some fall flowers to the flower beds on East 185th St. We planted mums at the LaSalle Theater in anticipation of the Halloween events planned for the LaSalle. On October 22 there will be a child friendly Halloween party, followed by trick or treating on East 185th Street. Some of the merchants will be participating in trick or treating at their establishments.  This event will be from 11:30 to 1:30. On October 29th there will be a pop-up gallery “LaSalle Style” at the theater. Hours for this event are 6:00pm to 10:00pm.

We finished our morning planting mums in the flower beds of Muldoons and the beds at VASJ High School as these are the gateways to East 185th. We wanted these gateways to be inviting to the people visiting our neighborhood. VASJ and Northeast Shores want everyone to know we are proud of our street and neighborhood.

I want to thank the students of VASJ for helping me make our neighborhood a great place to work, live and visit.