The Pocket Park Initiative

As the Indianapolis chapter of Architecture for Humanity prepares for a trip to the Dominican Republic to help Engineers Without Borders renovate and expand a health clinic, AFH Indy founder ChunSheh Teo was also thinking locally.

In the last week he has met with Phil Schaefer of Keeping Indianapolis Beautiful and Tammy Golden of the Community Outreach Center of Reagan Park about a local beautification project.

Earlier this year KIB selected Golden’s proposal to turn a vacant lot into a serene pocket park on 23rd Street near the Monon for a grant. And now AFH Indy has jumped in to see if it can help make a preserve for neighborhood children a reality.

Here is how the KIB website described the initiative:

This is an important location, as the nearest park, Kennedy King Park, is across College Avenue and kids cannot get to it safely. This will give the neighbors a place to gather, and a place for the kids to play. It will create a focus for the neighborhood in an area of need. The park has not been designed yet, so specifics are not yet available as to what features we will be creating in this space. This is a group that was turned down three years ago that has since then built community and started work on their dream park without KIB. Their goal is to have a Paige Booker-style park, but we will start them out smaller and easier to help build the momentum of their neighborhood involvement.

As AFH Indy has more to announce on this project, it will post the information here on the blog.

Relief In Sight

In a few weeks, August 9th to be exact, four members of the Indianapolis chapter of Architecture for Humanity will venture to Batey Cinco Casas in the Dominican Republic to assist in the expansion and renovation of a medical clinic operated by the Batey Relief Alliance.

One of the Indiana chapters of Engineers Without Borders — one situation at the Rose-Hulman Institute — is partnering with AFH Indy to provide a roof for an unused building which was once public housing for Haitian sugar cane workers.

The roof is simply phase one for the facility as the construction of a surgical unit is on tap for the future. While thousands use the clinic for it out-patient services already, that number will continue to grow and this effort will allow the community to stay up with that.

And AFH Indy is asking for your help. The organization simply needs to secure funds for four plane tickets to the D.R. For more information or to help, please contact the projects committee at projects@afh-indy.org.