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“Rebuilding Together Volunteers Take on Mead Avenue in West Oakland Repairing Homes, Boy & Girls Club, and Making Block-Wide Improvements
The Boys & Girls Clubs of Oakland
OAKLAND, California|Sept. 8, 2004
“Rebuilding Together Volunteers Take on Mead Avenue in West Oakland Repairing Homes, Boy & Girls Club, and Making Block-Wide Improvements
OAKLAND, Calif.,—Sept. 8, 2004—On September 11th and 18th Rebuilding Together Oakland will hold its second annual West Oakland Block Building Program. This year’s program will focus on Mead Avenue, between San Pablo Avenue and Market Street. Hundreds of Rebuilding Together volunteers will converge on Mead Avenue on both days to renovate three homes, make block-wide improvements, and repair the adjacent Leonard J. Meltzer Branch of Boys & Girls Clubs of Oakland.
Each April, Rebuilding Together Oakland (RTO) repairs homes of low-income elderly and disabled homeowners as well as community facilities throughout Oakland. Now with the September Block Building Program, RTO concentrates its efforts on a single block area. According to Executive Director John Caner, “With our Block Building Program we see the opportunity to impact not only individual lives, but a whole neighborhood”.
The RTO home improvement teams will focus on repairs intended to keep the elderly homeowners safe and comfortable in their homes, including porch and flooring repairs, installation of handrails and weather stripping, plastering, painting and general clean-up. Block-wide improvements will include graffiti removal, and debris clean-up, weeding and eventual speed bumps installed by the City of Oakland. Boys & Girls Clubs of Oakland’s Meltzer Branch will receive roof repairs, new flooring, new lighting, interior painting and general clean-up.
RTO decided to focus on West Oakland because of the significant community need, and the generous sponsorships from Bank of America’s “America—Block by Block®” program and other Oakland partners. According to Emily Shanks, East Bay Market President for Bank of America, “We are delighted to support Rebuilding Together’s Block Building program where the community can experience immediate improvements to their neighborhood.”
The City of Oakland is also a key partner providing dumpsters, street closure and additional community services for the neighborhood during the program, as well as overall support for RTO. Councilmember Nancy Nadel adds, “This is a great example of a public-private partnership where we can work together by leveraging our respective skills and resources to reduce blight and improve the West Oakland community. We also look forward to a ‘spillover effect’ to inspire other similar projects, that will benefit all of West Oakland.”
The clients served by this year’s program include Velma Cains, age 79, who has lived in her house on 879 Mead Avenue for over 30 years. She looks forward to the new flooring in her back bedroom, a new bathroom window and repairs to her back steps. She says, “ The people from Rebuilding Together have been so nice, and I am so grateful that they will help take care of my home”.
This year’s Block Building Program is unique with the inclusion of the Meltzer Clubhouse across Market Street from Mead Avenue. By renovating the Boys & Girls Club, RTO has an opportunity to serve youth from the entire neighborhood. According to Calvester Stanley, President of Boys & Girls Clubs of Oakland, “Our West Oakland Branch was built in 1950 and is in great need of repair. We greatly appreciate Rebuilding Together’s support for our Club, which serves 559 girl and boy members ages 6 to 17, and the 326 other neighborhood youth who benefit from the special programs and activities offered annually at the site. The Clubhouse will eventually serve up to 1,500 West Oakland youth.”
Rebuilding Together’s Block Building Program is made possible by the generous sponsorship and volunteers from Bank of America, The Clorox Company Glad division, Port of Oakland, City of Oakland, Union Bank of California, World Savings, MBH Architects, Turner Construction, Citibank, Silicon Valley Bank, Loansoft and Alliance Metals.
About Rebuilding Together
Rebuilding Together (formerly Christmas in April) is the largest volunteer rehabilitation organization in the nation, providing free repair services to low-income homeowners, particularly the elderly, people with disabilities and families with children. In 1988, Christmas in April USA was founded as a national organization with 13 affiliates serving 18 states. Since then the organization has grown to include 865 cities and towns in all 50 states. To date, over 2.3 million volunteers have worked over 24 million hours to rehabilitate 87,450 houses and nonprofit facilities, delivering $812 million in market value.
The Rebuilding Together Oakland affiliate was established in 1994. Since then RTO has renovated 232 homes of low-income elderly and disabled homeowners as well as 26 community facilities throughout Oakland, engaging more than 11,000 volunteers to create almost $5,000,000 in project value. In 2004 RTO, will have worked on some 27 homes and 3 community facilities, and its 2,100 volunteers will have created close to $750,000 in project value. RTO is accepting applications for its April 2005 Rebuilding Program through October 15, 2004.
Anyone interested in becoming a client, or volunteering for the West Oakland Block Building Program or other programs, should contact Rebuilding Together Oakland at (510) 625-0316, or info@rebuildingtogetheroakland.org.