I know it's been a hot summer around here without much rain. But some of the trees in the Shaw/Logan neighborhood have just withered away to death without any attention. Dead trees and trash on the sidewalks doesn't make for an uplifting neighborhood. Check out this tree I spotted on 11th Street.

Join us this Saturday for the kick-off Shaw Monthly Clean-Up. So far the weather looks to be a bit cooler then the past couple of days. So come out and pick up some trash with us!

Here are the details for the initial clean up. We'll target the 7th Street corridor from Rhode Island Ave. to New York Ave.

• Saturday, August 11, 2007


• 9:00 AM


• Meet at the closed Watha Daniel Library (7th & Rhode Island) and we'll disperse from there. Bring gloves, friends, and some water for yourself.

Plus, we'll be doing a frequent litter-picker card. Get your card stamped three times and get a free gift!

Also, check out the flyer and share with your friends. Design donated by, SugarB Studio.

VIEW FLYER

The launch of the inaugural Shaw Monthly Clean Up was a major success on Saturday. We had a 15 person turn-out and a few kids along the way to support the effort. I'm very proud to have neighbors who came out and made the time commitment to help clean the neighborhood. Thanks to everyone!

Overall, I think this was a great kick-off for this monthly event. We were able to tackle all of the large trash along 7th street and do a bit of detail work along the way as well. Countless cigarette butts were picked up . Plus, it was great to see a mix of neighbors I know along with a bunch of new faces. This was a nice way to meet some new people in the community.

Special thanks to James Carter for helping organize all of this with me and Kari for a bunch of day time logistics. Martin for some photography. And DPW for picking up our bulk trash. And of course everyone who came out!

So what's next? Saturday, September 8th we hit the streets again. Where should we go? What should we clean? Let us know in the comments.
Here are some current ideas:
- Skate park clean up over at 11th & Rhode Island
- Focus in on a letter street maybe.

Also, for any people who made it out on Saturday, please post in the comments any advice or thoughts on how to improve the clean up

See some photos below.

This Saturday is the DC Public School Beautification Day. This is great way to get involved in your community and to keep our schools looking good.

Details:
Saturday, August 25th
8AM - 1PM

Register to volunteer.

For more information:
volunteer4schools@k12.dc.us
Naimah Beyah (202) 727-0488

UPDATE: Some more info over at the ANC2C02 Blog.

Rob Goodspeed at The Goodspeed Blog posted a recent article about vacant property and how to accurately track vacant properties in the district. This is a highly relevant topic to this blog and is an important discussion our community should be having. This discussion should be happening not just at the blog/grassroots level but at the ANC, Ward, and council level.

Here's a snippet of the article:

The city needs a comprehensive, interactive community database of all vacant properties in the District. The database should contain government data, but need not be administered by government officials. It would be seeded by the “official” lists of vacant properties. Each property’s page would list the property’s address, owner’s name and address, assessment value, tax rate and payment history. Each property would have a unique page that would allow visitors to upload photos, as well as post comments reporting any information relating to the property: reports made to the city, crime, graffiti, dumping, etc. The properties could be categorized or tagged according to their status: for sale, vacant lot, suspected vacant, taxed as vacant, etc. All the properties would be displayed on a Google Map for easy searching. Regardless of the precise tools used, the system should be easy to use (easier than a wiki!) and contain large fonts and a simplistic interface.

Read it here.

I guess no one is worrying about this moped getting swallowed up by weeds.

We've changed our Shaw Monthly Cleanup to Saturday, September 15th. Not September 8th.

We are coordinating with Shaw Main Streets to help plant flowers and plants into newly installed treeboxes on 9th street.

The Details:
September 15th
9 AM
Meeting: 9th & Q (Carter Woodson Park area)

In addition to the planting we'll, of course, clean up some trash along the way. We'll clean as much of h 9th as we can! So please add this event to your calendar and we look forward to seeing everyone out there!

Here's some snapshots of the August cleanup.