Community pulls together in Cody High area's blight fight

Rebuilding Detroit’s blighted neighborhoods requires more than paint, hammers and lawn mowers in the hands of well-meaning volunteers. It needs buy-in from the people who live there to make the investment last.That’s the philosophy of Chris Lambert, the tireless founder and president of Life Remodeled, the nonprofit that’s mobilizing 15,000 volunteers starting today for a six-day effort to transform Cody High School, two more schools and the surrounding neighborhoods.
And it’s why several hundred of the volunteers will be from the Cody Rouge neighborhoods themselves, including Cody students and residents from 150 block clubs in northwest Detroit.
They will stand side by side with executives and engineers from General Motors Co., mortgage bankers from Quicken Loans and church leaders from across Metro Detroit, together transforming neighborhood decay and impoverished schools into places of hope and pride, Lambert said.
“We are able to bring people together from a variety of backgrounds that don’t normally do projects together that are now doing them, and that makes all the difference in the world,” Lambert said.
“We all bringing our talents to the table and we learn from each other. I like to say it’s not just the residents of Detroit who are going to experience a life remodeled — it’s every volunteer, including myself. We are all learning to love each other more and understand each other more.”

From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/2...#ixzz3A4wL5lB0

The great thing about this effort is the emphasis on getting significant involvement from the surrounding community. The article said that 3,000 neighborhood residents have signed up. I hope this is the effort won't fizzle out and that it will be the start of a true rennaissance of the residential neighborhoods.

I love that the emphasis is on vastly improving the schools and school programs, and beautifying the buildings and grounds - In the suburbs, it seems the schools are the center of family life. A lot of the Detnews commenters stated that the high violent crime rate in the neighborhood will prevent this effort from really taking off, so hopefully more police patrolling and cooperation between residents and DPD will occur to decrease the incidence of crime.