We have a list of volunteer needs you might like to assist with:

Wednesday Night
We will be installing the artwork at Grant Street Gallery (220 Grant), but it should be pretty easy, we’ll need most of the help doing food prep.
If you’re available to cut up and arrange veggies, fruits and breads Wed evening, please email Alison.  She lives near Grant and Auburn.
alison.altschuller {at} gmail(.)com
I will let her tell you the exact location of her kitchen so as to avoid 200 people moon bathing in the nude on her lawn.
You don’t have to worry about bringing veggies (unless you want to) but do bring some additional cutting boards, knives and platters or bowls.
If you’d like to prepare a family spread or dip recipe for the Reception on Thursday we’d love that too–a nice little artichoke or spinach dip or a roasted red pepper hummus, or caramelized sweet onion or even LIVERWURST!
(just give me a headsup so I don’t make my gramma’s recipe of “finely chopped refrigerator leftovers + mayo”

Thursday Night
Greeters and Bartenders and late night cleaner uppers
The reception is from 6:30-10pm.  If you’re available for general muscle power, please let me know

Friday to Saturday Evenings
The gallery will be open to the public from 5-9pm each evening as long as we have volunteers willing to babysit.
You don’t have to do anything except be gracious and let people look at the work at their leisure.
But if you know a painter or illustrator who would set up an easel and work while the public visits (especially Saturday the 25th) that would be a very special opportunity.

Crank Callers #1
We have to spend a few hours this week calling National Grid and speaking with an operator to have the 230 tree holes marked for digging.
It’s very easy–just time consuming.  Unfortunately, it has to happen during the workday; please let me know if you’re available for this.

Crank Callers #2
We have a script for people to use to telephone local contractors.  We want to inform them of our pickup services because we frequently hear from homeowners, “Oh I wish I’d known, we just renovated our kitchen and threw out all the old stuff!”  If contractors, who include removal of the “old stuff” as part of their fee, knew that we could take that material and give the home owner (or contractor) a tax break, we would divert more material from the landfill.
So, if you’d like to help us initiate those kinds of targeted phone calls, please let me know.  This can happen on a Saturday as well. volunteer {at} buffaloreuse(.)org

Crank Callers #3
Rebekah, our conference organizer, will need some help following up with about 200 people who have expressed interest in our Great Lakes Building ReUse Conference www.greatlakesreuse.org
She has a script you can follow.  If you have time this week, please let her know.  It’s really important to us.  There will be more conference needs soon as we get ready to mail out materials and prepare welcome packets.  If you’d like to shuttle guest speakers in from the airport or assist with the conference in other ways, please let Rebekah know.  2008conference {at} greatlakesreuse(.)org

Have you ever walked inside of a painting? If you have, I suspect it was probably confined within the floorplan of an art gallery or museum and it was a temporary installation. But what if your whole neighborhood existed inside of a painting? How long would it last and how long would it take to construct something so large? And what if the city came in and bulldozed your painting? Would you just give up or move to a different neighborhood or different city?
The Heidelberg Project is a unique neighborhood artscape which began 22 years ago when artist, Tyree Guyton transformed one abandoned crack house on his block in Detroit with discarded stuffed animals and remnants of urban life. He finished that house and started another one. He even painted the lots, sidewalks, burned out cars and everything else between. Today the Heidelberg Project, a local landmark, is a two-block area on Detroit’s lower east side and the third most visited tourist site in Detroit!

The Heidelberg Project is structured as a nonprofit organization whose mission is to improve the morale, lives and neighborhoods through art. “It is not simply art,” says Guyton, “the Heidelberg Project is more like a medicine. You can’t heal the land until you heal the minds of the people.”

Another unique artists’ neighborhood exists in Houston, TX where artist Rick Lowe created a space where artists and the public exchange community back and forth. Project Row Houses transformed 22 dilapidated shotgun houses into studio and exhibition spaces for artists to work and live and share with one another. The artist are selected and rotate out of the row houses every six months.

Please do not dismiss the value artists bring a community. Artists are boundary pushers and they know how to sacrifice and translate vision into reality. To hear more about the Heidelberg Project and Project Row House from the artists themselves, please join us at the Great Lakes Building ReUse Conference 2008! Register for the conference before October 9th to receive the discounted rate.

We hope you’ll be as excited as we are to speak with Tyree Guyton and Jennene Whitfield from Heidelberg Project and our other keynote speakers including:

• Michael W. Groman, Senior Director, Philadelphia Green Program, Philadelphia, PA. Groman’s program transforms and maintains thousands of vacant lots to increase economic investment and improve the quality of life in hundreds of Philadelphia neighborhoods.
• Jay Williams, Mayor of the City of Youngstown, Ohio has no illusions that he resides over a shrinking city, in fact, he fully embraces the “shrinking city” concept. His administration plans to strengthen the urban center through right-sizing; neighborhoods that are emptying out will be converted to greenspace through targeted demolition and development.
• and others in the field of hybrid deconstruction and building reuse.

The conference is about putting you in same room with ideas and policy makers who can enable similar projects for Buffalo (or where ever you’re living).

Great Lakes Building ReUse Conference
November 16 – 18, 2008
Hyatt Regency Buffalo
www.greatlakesreuse.org

1.716.885.4131
2008conference {at} greatlakesreuse(.)org

Super volunteer George Apfel, radio wizard, has created two public service announcements for our upcoming conference. Click on a link below and the spot should play on your computer:

Great Lakes ReUse Conference Announcement 1

Great Lakes ReUse Conference Announcement 2

Thanks, George, great job!

What if our teenagers were actively involved in community building?  What if all our schools incorporated environmental education components at all grade levels?  What if service for others was built into our children’s daily schedules?  How would our Buffalo neighborhoods improve?  Would our children mature with a deeper sense of compassion and responsibility?  What if our teens developed job skills and social skills that prepared them for meaningful careers?

Philadelphia is learning the answers to those questions. The Philadelphia Horticultural Society created Philadelphia Green which has beome the nation’s largest urban greening program.  It’s more than just planting trees or creating flower beds along the medians and sidewalks–PG and Green City Youth keep young people engaged.  It is about developing responsibility in the city’s youth and a healthy environment for residents.  Michael Groman led PG; now he is in charge of replicating that program throughout Pennsylvania and elsewhere.  He accepted our invitation to share his program and implementation strategy this November 16-19th at our Great Lakes Building ReUse Conference .

We hope you’ll be as excited as we are to speak with Michael Groman and our other keynote speakers including:

• Tyree Guyton, founder and Jenenne Whitfield, Executive Director of the Heidelberg Project, in Detroit, Michigan have spent twenty years transforming abandoned city blocks in Detroit to raise awareness about urban blight and to develop a strong sense of pride.  Their artistic accomplishments inspire young people to take ownership of their neighborhoods.
• Rick Lowe, Founder, Project Row Houses, Houston, TX orchestrated the reclamation of 22 dilapidated, yet historic, houses in the heart of Houston.  The reclamation of the houses serve as the material for an arts project that influences the cultural and economic revitalization of a neighborhood.
• Jay Williams, Mayor of the City of Youngstown, Ohio has no illusions that he resides over a shrinking city, in fact, he fully embraces the “shrinking city” concept. His administration plans to strengthen the urban center through right-sizing;  neighborhoods that are emptying out will be converted to greenspace through targeted demolition and development.
• and others in the field of  hybrid deconstruction and building reuse.

The conference is about putting you in same room with ideas and policy makers who can enable similar projects for Buffalo (or where ever you’re living)
Please register for the conference before October 9th to receive the discounted rate.

Save the Date:
Saturday, November 8, 2008 we’re collaborating with ReTree WNY to plant 230 bare root trees in one day!
We’ll potluck/picnic afterward.  Meet us at 298 Northampton at 9am.
To see how easy, fun, soggy it was, look at these photos

Buffalo ReUse and the Building Materials Reuse Association (BMRA) are pleased to invite you to the first Great Lakes Building ReUse Conference to take place November 16 through 18, 2008 in Buffalo, New York.

Registration is now open! To register, visit www.greatlakesreuse.org/register. To receive the early-bird registration price, register by October 9, 2008.

This conference is intended to bring together people eager to initiate or expand programs that encourage building reuse and vacant property stabilization in “rust-belt” cities surrounding the Great Lakes. Bring your energy, enthusiasm, ideas and inspiration!

Great Lakes ReUse Conference:
Regenerating Neighborhoods, Empowering Communities

Buffalo, NY
November 16th – 18th, 2oo8
Hyatt Regency Buffalo

Featured Speakers:

Tyree Guyton, Founder Heidelberg Project and Jenenne Whitfield, Executive Director,
Heidelberg Project, Detroit, MI
Jay Williams, Mayor City of Youngstown, OH
Rick Lowe, Founder Project Row Houses, Houston, TX
Michael Groman, Senior Director Philadelphia Green Program, Philadelphia, PA

Conference Format and Agenda:
Participants are invited to facilitate alternative presentations for design projects, initiatives, and exhibitions that highlight best practices as they relate to building reuse, neighborhood regeneration, and vacant property stabilization. The goal for the conference is that participants become inspired and engaged to direct social change in their home communities. Propose your vision, share your story, communicate your challenges, and highlight opportunities. Possible topics may include:

• Implementing building reuse, deconstruction, and/or rehabilitation efforts as a job training/job creation tool
• Community involvement in neighborhood planning and decision making
• Creative building designs and features incorporating salvaged/reused materials into rehabilitation/new-build projects
• Developing and implementing a building materials reuse store or entrepreneurial venture that encourages ecological sustainability
• Vacant property stabilization, preservation, rehabilitation, and/or weatherization
• Policy and/or planning initiatives to improve the urban environment
• Innovative and cost effective green space development and long term maintenance efforts

For more information or to register:

• Visit our website at www.greatlakesreuse.org
• Email us at 2008conference@greatlakesreuse.org or
• Call us at 716-885-4131

We hope to see you in November!

Regards,
Conference Organizers
Great Lakes Building ReUse Conference
www.greatlakesreuse.org

Click the link and listen to a recent interview with Joyce Kryszak from WBFO featuring Michael talking about the Sundance experience.

Stop by 298 Northampton St. to check materials you can use in your home.

7:30-5pm Tuesday-Saturday.