Part Ten of a Series

This series of informational blog posts come from a document Mike,Caesandra and Kevin created to help orient new Buffalo ReUse board members to our mission,vision,values and the actual history of our organization. Earlier parts: One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine

Buffalo Action for Revitalization

The BAR Program was initiated by Buffalo ReUSE to plug people into active citizenship–volunteerism–making a space for The City of Good Neighbors to be good neighbors. We created the BAR Program to improve quality of life in neighborhoods and literally build a thriving neighborhood, beginning with our target area–in the Masten and Cold Spring neighborhoods.  Our ReSource and office space literally straddle the adjoining borders of those neighborhoods. 

The BAR Program may seem like a strange interest for a demolition crew, but we are NOT a typical demolition company.  As a nonprofit organization and a green business we believe that investing in our neighborhood is paramount.  Every business in Buffalo from the smallest corner store to the largest corporation should make contributions of time, talent or funding to improve the city in which it operates and do so while respecting the environment and surrounding community.  Local businesses should emphasize and support sustainable communities through their own lifestyle; we are modeling the behavior we want to see in every local business.

The BAR Program has many components which are described below:

Blight Reduction

• Board Ups–to secure vacant properties against vandalism, arson, looting and squatting; we chose to use local public school art classes as the painters during our city-wide Neighborhood Peace Mural Project
• Street Blitzes–groups amass to clear debris from one end of the street to the other, mowing, pruning, edging, performing light-duty maintenance etc.
• Putting garbage cans and flower planters at the street corners
• Tree Plantings with RETREE WNY twice a year and maintaining the neighborhood’s arboreal inventory

Murals and Public Art

• Installing bike racks and bus stop benches/weather shields

Green Space Development

• Initiating Community Vegetable Gardens which contribute to access of fresh food and better nutrition in our low-income neighborhoods
• Creating Pocket Parks, safe pass-thrus of vacant lots and edible landscaping
• Securing Vacant Lots against illegal dumping
• Transforming Vacant Lots into aesthetic, useful and educational spaces
• Emphasizing best practices for indigenous plantings, rain gardens, compost, sustainable improvements

Supporting Home Ownership

• Building a space where the neighborhood can meet, organize and learn (158 Eaton St)
  Operating a tool lending library for garden, shop, power and hand tools so that groups can organize their own “action events” We’ve named our tool library, the TOOL BARn to further brand the BAR Program
• Maintain a yearly calendar of workshops which teach folks aspects of gardening, tool usage, and home improvement
  Provide access and information about the responsibility and process of becoming a home owner including: loans, grants, coaching, IN-REM, housing code violations, avoiding foreclosure etc

Community Building

• Coordinate events that bring together folks from our neighborhood and other parts of the City–like volunteer workdays, Open Houses at the ReSource, farm stands and
• Celebrate accomplishments of the BAR program and neighborhood–such as harvest potlucks, screenings of documentary films and farm stands
• Create a space where block clubs, women’s groups, neighbors and supporters can congregate to organize their own meetings, trainings or events
• Assess needs and concerns of the neighborhood and ways to meet those needs; safety (of persons, property, and the streets) is always the biggest concern

Brief History

Conceptually, the BAR Program began simultaneously with Buffalo ReUse and our core values of community, jobs and resources.  To that end, our first “action event” was painting mermaids and flowers on 4′x8′ plywood boards in Summer of 2007–used to secure the vacant Queen City Farm property at 194 E. Utica, which QCF designated for their urban farm community.  We had a potluck in Michael’s backyard and the boards were painted by the core group of founders, board members, volunteers, urban activists and newly hired staff; the was an event open to anyone.  At summer’s end, Buffalo ReUse scheduled the board up and another group of volunteers and founding members scrambled all over the QCF house securing openings and painting more boards on site.  By midday all the windows and doorways were shut for the upcoming winter season. 

Later that afternoon the group transferred the tools to the site of 50 Women with a Vision’s corner lot at Jefferson and Woodlawn.  Together, both groups cleared debris from the lot and erected the sign detailing the layout of their proposed Cultural Art Park.  Buffalo ReUse has always made efforts to connect and collaborate with other like-minded grassroots organizations and service agencies because collaboration of shared goals is what builds a community.

In the summer of 2008, we became a job site for The Mayor’s Summer Employment Program for six weeks. We named our participants The Green Summer Crew and charged our working teens to Green Our Neighborhoods. Eighteen teens and six Green Space Coordinators led the effort to begin transforming Eaton and Northampton Streets by building community gardens, performing street blitzes and initiate the rehab of 158 Eaton St.

Subsequent BAR Program action events have included the planting of over 400 trees in the Masten and Cold Spring neighborhoods. We have also boarded up 4 vacant houses near schools and another 7 houses on the West Side slated for rehab (in collaboration with PUSH).  We registered with City Hall and participated in The Great American Clean Up, collecting debris throughout the 5 streets surrounding the ReSource.  In 2008, we wrote a collaborative grant with Grassroots Gardens and were awarded funds by The Community Foundation of Greater Buffalo to jointly transform 20 vacant spaces on the East and West sides and establish a Tool Lending Library in Buffalo.  Spring of 2009 we were awarded member positions with Americorps to further develop the BAR Program.  We have been working on both, full scale, this last 6 months. 

Mission & Vision

The mission of the BAR Program is to facilitate active participation of citizens in creating thriving neighborhoods which cross social, ethnic and racial lines.

Successes and Publicity

Although the BAR Program does not directly generate revenue for Buffalo ReUse, our action events have generated a lot of publicity for Buffalo ReUse over the last two years.  Most of the events occur at the store so the events invite more potential visitors.  The breadth of our programs also secure us access to publications we wouldn’t normally be in–for instance, there are no other demolition companies getting 2pg articles in Edible Buffalo–but we did!