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The city of Eugene received $70,000 for community-led projects in the Bethel and Trainsong neighborhoods, such as clearing vacant lots and reclaiming public space, through a grant from the Bloomberg Center for Public Innovation at Johns Hopkins University.
The funding is from the center’s “Love Your Block” program. The grant also provides a fellow to support local efforts and two years of technical assistance from the center.
Mayor Kaarin Knudson announced the grant in a news release Tuesday, Sept. 29.
Eugene is one of 25 cities to have been selected for the initiative, which is part of a broader national program that has removed over 7 million pounds of trash and 550,000 square feet of graffiti. Those spaces were then transformed through resident-led projects, such as art displays.
“We’re grateful for the opportunity to connect Eugene with the Bloomberg Center for Public Innovation in this way and to continue to learn from their work,” Knudson said in the release. “This will be such a remarkable support to our efforts with the Bethel and Trainsong neighborhoods during these next few years.”
The Active Bethel Community and Trainsong Neighbors neighborhood associations provided letters of support for the grant application put in by the city’s Office of Equity & Community Engagement. The application was designed to support the Bethel Area Neighborhood Plan for a safer and more connected neighborhood.
According to that office’s manager, Fabio Andrade, the city has yet to identify lots, blocks, or other spaces that will be the focus of the grant. It is not known whether it will tie into the cleanup of chemically containment soil at Trainsong Park, he said.
“Projects will be selected later and in alignment with the neighborhood planning process for the Bethel area, which includes Bethel and Trainsong plus parts of West Eugene and Industrial Corridor neighborhood association areas,” Andrade told Lookout Eugene-Springfield in an email.
The next steps are still being defined, Andrade said. The city is waiting on information from the center before recruiting for the fellowship and setting up a process selecting projects.
