"The 13th Street Outdoor Gallery Project" is a great example of how to encourage neighborhood cohesiveness and improve the quality of life as people take pride in the redevelopment process. The project, funded in part by The Community Foundation of Broward - Art of Community Grant, was a collaboration with 13th Street Alliance, (a non-profit business group dedicated to the commercial revitalization of the area from Federal Hwy. to Powerline and from Sunrise Blvd. North to the Middle River) and H.O.M.E.S., Inc., (a local non-profit organization dedicated to community development and neighborhood revitalization). Three artists were also a part of the team including Glen Mayo, Lorraine Maxwell and myself.


With this project we brought diverse residence from four municipalities together, those with different socio-economic backgrounds, various age groups and ethnicities to network together - their common ground being ties to their community. We engaged these residents to share their stories, history and encouraged them to become involved to help beautify, connect, and revitalize their municipality. 


Our goals being to brand the community as a safe, fun, arts friendly place where people want to live, work, play and thrive. We went to meetings in these municipalities to ask what changes folks would like to see within their neighborhoods and we got the conversations started. Together we engaged residence to become involved to meet and learn about the design process and as a result they became excited about change, they wanted to come out and support community growth.

We organized a Guerrilla Art Day to further increase community awareness and participation. In September 2012, residents, key stakeholders, the district commissioner and mayor took to the street. They all came out to paint the town so a full schedule of events were planned. We organized a sidewalk chalk competition, we created banners and temporary art to hang from the trees, we duct taped the lamp poles to create a colorful urban environment, we painted a house in the neighborhood and we also painted a car. There was a wonderful turnout for the event with 100 plus people. The fantastic collaboration of artists and the community left all of us feeling exhilarated and wanting more.

In March 2013 we organized a Community Art Day where we invited the public to come out and paint the large-scale murals which we laid out as a giant paint by numbers. The project was a huge success; it received a lot of good press, print media as well as television and web publications. It was very well documented as we created videos and a book that has since been published.  The project was a huge success. We replaced blight with beauty and we created neighborhood pride in Middle River Terrace, South Middle River, Lakeridge & Poinciana Heights. 
This area has since grown into a vibrant flourishing, colorful community!