VCU news

By Tito Luna
VCU Neighborhood Outreach Director

More than 300 VCU students, community members and residents from Carver, the Fan, Oregon Hill and Randolph neighborhoods joined forces for the bi-annual Paint the Town Green on April 12.

The event is the major project of the service-learning-designated Management 319 class in the School of Business, taught by Randall Sleeth, Ph.D. The project’s leaders are all members of Springboard VCU, a student group inspired by the class. The group’s purpose is to manage large-scale service projects for service-learning classes and other groups.

Working with the VCU Division of Community Engagement and four of VCU’s surrounding neighborhood associations — the Carver Area Civic Improvement League, the Fan District Association, the Oregon Hill Neighborhood Association and the Randolph Community Group – students participated in scoping and selecting projects, fundraising and money management, marketing and communications, and volunteer recruitment and management.

This year, organizers coordinated with similar activities already taking place in the neighborhoods, such as The Fan District Association’s ”Clean the Parks Day” and Councilman Parker Agelasto’s “5th District Cleanup.”

Neighborhood leaders identified projects, which included mulching, weeding, painting and litter removal. The city provided mulch, tools and trash collection services; VCU provided additional tools, supplies and food for the culminating celebration at Monroe Park. The neighborhood associations and area businesses contributed breakfast food and tools.

Jim Vigeant, the Fan District Association’s VCU liaison, said events such as Paint the Town Green benefit both the university and its neighbors.

“We continually look for ways to collaborate with students in our neighborhood, because through these activities bonds are created, character is nurtured and friendships develop as a result,” Videant said. “When good people get together to do good things the outcome is a better world. This we can all benefit from.”

Perhaps the day’s most ambitious project took place in the Randolph community, as volunteers began to weed, level and lay gravel on an existing trail that surrounds Petronius S. Jones Park.

The Randolph Community Group’s VCU liaison, Peyton McCoy, Ph.D., was thrilled with the results.

“Paint the Town Green was fantabulous! It was a great day full of energy, collaboration and creativity,” McCoy said. “What a testament to the transforming power of an idea – a real life example of combined individual contributions making a collective difference.”

Subscribe for free to the weekly VCU News email newsletter at http://newsletter.news.vcu.edu/ and receive a selection of stories, videos, photos, news clips and event listings in your inbox every Thursday. VCU students, faculty and staff automatically receive the newsletter.