Residents in Akron’s Goodyear Heights neighborhood have until Friday, Oct. 9, to submit applications for Goodyear Heights Community Development Corp.’s Shine Up Your Block program.
The nonprofit will select a block in Goodyear Heights to undergo a day of volunteer improvements that includes trash pickup, yard cleaning and other beautifications.
For Fred Strelbicki, the CDC’s board president, the event is also about bringing members of the community together in a meaningful way.
“When anybody thinks of a nice neighborhood, they think of kept yards, trash being picked up and things just being clean,” Strelbicki said. “It doesn’t need to be perfectly spotless, but we’re all doing it together. Neighbors are coming out, they’re interacting, and they’re getting to know each other.”
Akron Documenters Jessica Rice and Etta Thompson discovered this story at the Sept. 15 Ward 10 meeting.
Project Shine’s name is derived from a faith-based home improvement initiative that was previously spearheaded by Residents Improving Goodyear Heights Together, or the R.I.G.H.T. committee, Strelbicki said.
Although this is Goodyear Heights CDC’s first year coordinating the event, Strelbicki said the nonprofit has a history of organizing similar initiatives since it opened in 2024.
“We’ve spent most of our time on community events and interaction opportunities that will hopefully steer into some type of small-business support,” Strelbicki said. “It doesn’t feel like we get the same neighborly interactions as previous generations.”
The CDC is prioritizing less strenuous improvements than in previous years, including yard and trash cleanup and simple repairs. Projects that require more skill and specific tools will be considered, depending on the volunteer pool.
“We’ve got to gather materials and match up to the skill sets of the base of volunteers we have coming through the door,” Strelbicki said. “If somebody’s asking for their wooden front porch steps to be repaired and we have a volunteer with carpenter skills, great. But if it’s something else, like we’ve got a drywaller, I don’t know if it’s the same conversation.”
Strelbicki said he hopes the event can become a recurring way for the people of Goodyear Heights to show their love for their neighborhood and each other.
“I just hope that from the time we start to the end of the day, you notice a difference,” Strelbicki said. “The best way to say that is, in Goodyear Heights, our emphasis is that we are ‘for the good.’ We want to leave it better than it was.”
