Area Context Community Goal Updates

Goal 1: Market the Miller neighborhood to increase positive press mentions to at least once quarterly and to increase tourism by 10% in 2016. 

Awards:
Received the Hoosier-American Planning Award for Outreach for 2016 

(Jessica Renslow Accepting the 2016 American Planning Award for Excellence in Outreach at BSU.)

Marketing Partnerships
-StoryCorps (Chicago Office) recorded 12 pair interviews ( 24 people) in Miller on Saturday 3/19/16 and Sunday 3/20/16. This was the first time they had recorded in Indiana. They rarely do onsite interviews, but our Area Context Group convinced their producers that our neighborhood was ripe with interesting and positive tales to tell. The producers have recommended four of the 12 interviews for NPR’s national broadcast. Jessie Renslow garnered permission to edit and distribute the 12 StoryCorps recordings on all Miller Spotlight hubs/ local news media if so desired. 

(Podcasting 101 at Steel City Academy.)

***January 3rd-6th 2017 Gary's Miller Spotlight volunteers covered equipment management, digital literacy and basics of podcasting for 4 days in course (Harnessing Your Narrative created by Jessie Renslow) . They taught Gary kids how to harness their narrative through podcasting at Steel City Academy in Glen Park. 

***February 4th-6th 2017: Our community partners Family Folklore Foundation, Inc. and Almost Fairytales premiered a short film entitled "Radio Renaissance" at the Praxis Film Festival this February in Goldsboro, North Carolina. Congrats to these awesome volunteers. They have been helping us with our citywide digital time capsule project. The short takes place in the 46403 and explains the importance of digital literacy initiatives for emerging communities. 

***August 3rd & August 19th 2017: On August 3rd our community partners, Family Folklore Foundation, Inc. and The Indigen Storytellers Guild, held a storytelling workshops that was attended by 14 people at The Stage Gary Business Incubator/ Coworking Space. Participants are performing their stories at The Stage Gary on August 19th as part of their August Small Business Saturday. They will host another workshop & performance in November of 2017.

***We have a potential partnership with one of our NWI/Chicagoland media syndicates to air the interviews as podcasts once we get 30 plus interviews completed. 

Blogs about Gary’s Miller Community: 

http://www.millerspotlight.blogspot.com  

http://spicerweb.org/Miller/MillerHistory/movies.aspx    

http://millerhistoricalsociety.webs.com/apps/blog/ 

http://visitmillerbeach.com/ 

Goal 2: Host quarterly social gatherings with at least 100 attendees to update the Miller Quality of Life Plan and secure volunteers for new initiatives. 

(S'mores at the 2nd Annual Lake St Lantern Parade.)

-We hosted a Memorial Day parade down Lake Street on 5/28/16 with 42 people parading with 50+ spectators. We hosted this to kickoff the summer season and to bring at- tention to all the programming we are doing at Lake St Beach this summer and across the community as a whole. 

-We hosted The First Annual Lake St Lantern Parade down Lake Street on Friday 10/29/16 with 116 people parading with 100+ spectators. We hosted this to celebrate the progress being made at The Dana Evans Community Corner (the former Ralph’s Wilco) and to bring attention to all the programming we are doing in the community as a whole. 

(After party fun at the 2nd Annual Lake St Lantern Parade.)

-We cohosted Have S’more Fun Event with Councilwoman Wyatt and the Gary Rotary Club on 10/29/16 with 116 people at The Dana Evans Community Corner (the former Ralph’s Wilco). Locals were able to casually discuss the community goals and get excit- ed about projects happening across the city. 

-We hosted our 4th of July in January on 1/28/17 at the MBACD from 1-3pm. Thirty-six people helped us celebrate our milestones and add additional goals to our updated Community Plan.

-On Sunday 10/8/17 from 5-8pm at The Stage Gary (located at 925 N Shelby St Gary, IN 46403) will thanked our volunteers and celebrated all of Gary’s Miller Spotlight’s milestones. There was a short awards ceremony highlighting our extremely active volunteers. 

(Gary Rotarians helping run the 2nd Annual Lake St Lantern Parade.)

-We hosted The 2nd Annual Lake St Lantern Parade & Have S’more Fun Event on Friday 10/27/17. 100+ people paraded and 100+ watched. We hosted this to celebrate the programming we are doing and to bring a fun community event to the MBACD.

-We hosted a Main Streets info session on January 23, 2018. Gary’s Miller Spotlight volunteers are starting the process to become a Main Streets Community with the State of Indiana. This is a national program run in Indiana through the Office of Community and Rural Affairs aka OCRA.

(ARMP volunteers learning about OCRA's Main Streets Program.)

-Our community partners at the Aetna Manor Revitalization Program also hosted a Main Streets info session on February 17, 2018. The ARMP volunteers are also starting the process to become a Main Streets Community with the State of Indiana. This is a national program run in Indiana through the Office of Community and Rural Affairs aka OCRA.

Goal 3: Build virtual and physical community bulletin boards in 2016. 

-Part A:
Our backbone organization MBACD partnered with our local IT gurus, Openhill, and have launched Dragonfly NWI (the virtual community bulletin board). We partnered with them to run two tech literacy workshops for our local businesses and organizations. 18 representatives attended these workshops. They represented most of our businesses and organizations. They are starting to adopt the virtual bulletin board.

***We are continuing to do one-on-one training with folks who need extra help transitioning to this new platform. Checkout http://dragonflynwi.com 

-Part B:
We have a bulletin board secured at Wells Street Beach. The Pickford family partnered with us to update the board all summer.

We have partnered with The Charter School of the Dunes who have a digital sign. They are located at one of our community entrances (US 20 and Old Hobart Rd.) So, they post updates for the community when we make a request. 

(Bulletin board coming soon!)

3rd physical bulletin board is being built by Mary Duggard for the Dana Evans Community Corner (aka the former Ralph’s-Wilco).

We would like a 4th physical bulletin board on the east side of town (since we have the westward one at Wells St. and the digital one in the middle of town). We have approached a local artist and one of our local woodworkers. They have verbally agreed to create the physical bulletin board. We are setting out a timeline for this currently.