Jessica Renslow, Zully Alvarado and Gretchen Sipp were honored to accept the 2018 Community Award for Diversity and Inclusion at the Urban League of Northwest Indiana, INC. luncheon.
Thank you to all our community partners, volunteers and donors for helping to make this possible.
Our volunteers are seeking to improve accessibility to public spaces, services and programs in Gary’s Miller Neighborhood and surrounding communities that would allow for full participation of persons with disabilities. We ask that you please complete this survey to help us create a barrier free environment, that will allow for inclusion and participation. This is a collaboration between Causes for Change International, Great Lakes ADA Center, Northwest in Paddling Association, Team Gary, Indiana, Marquette Park Gary and Gary's Miller Spotlight volunteers. Thanks!!!
Thanks to the volunteers who helped us kickoff the beach season and to bring attention to all the programming we are doing at Lake St Beach this summer, and across the community as a whole, by participating in our First Annual Miller Spotlight Memorial Day Parade on 5/28/16.
They helped us show critical mass and bring Lake Street Beach back to it's former glory.
We had a vehicle decorating contest for the kickoff with 3 categories stroller, bicycle and golf cart.
We started at the Lake Street Supermarket (434 N. Lake St. Gary, IN 46403) at 10AM and ended up at Lake Street Beach Summer.
Our local food venders were there and the boat/ jet ski launch was be ready. A great time was had by all!!!
The Dune Buggy was up and running and offering free rides from Miller Station to the Douglas Center to Lake Street Beach to Marquette Park.
Launching the Lagoon Update:
Canoers and fisherman linger in our lagoon at sunset. Soon they will have an ADA compliant launch to start their sojourns from.
The launch is ordered! The permits have been garnered. Gary’s Miller Spotlight's Access Miller Action Group and Barrier Free Beach 2020 volunteers are very happy to announce that we have secured the funding for our community canoe/ paddle launch in Marquette Park. This will be an accessible launch that will help us to attain our community vision of being a universally designed area by 2025.
Thanks to Legacy Foundation for their $25,000 transform Lake Co grant, Mortar Net for their $3500 match, our generous local benefactors for donating, the Miller Community Fund for their grant and Gary's Rotary Club for their donation. We were able to raise a grand total $9,719.26. So, we have $34,719.26 to work with on this project. Give A big pat on the back to these awesome volunteers for all their hard work on implementing our community plan!
The ribbon cutting ceremony will be on 6/25/16 at the Annual Water Celebration. Contact our community builder, Jessie Renslow, via millerspotlight@gmail.com for more info
Build-a-Bike
Cycle Miller Beach is running a build-a-bike every third Sunday of the month during the MILLER BEACH FARMERS MARKET from 10am-3pm.
Also did you know Cycle Miller Beach has a blog? You can check it out here. Many members of Gary's Miller Spotlight Access Miller Action Group partake in this fun biking group. They love exploring our local trails and hot spots.http://cyclemillerbeach.blogspot.com
Wirt Swag:
Gary's Miller Spotlight: Education / Youth and Child Programming Action Group is looking for volunteers to help catalogue and sell Wirt swag at the All Wirt Class Reunion the 4th weekend in June.
Proceeds from these sales will go to help fund classroom wish lists from our Wirt-Emerson teachers. Any additional funds will go towards programming at our local high school. Contact millerspotlight@gmail.com for more info.
Grant Writing Workshop
If you're looking for a way to learn about grants/ grant writing click on this link at 10AM Thursday 6/16/16 for a free webinar/ workshop that will be given by the Indiana Association of Economic Development. Please spread the word!
We have 7 themes that are being addressed in our 29 community goals. Miller Spotlight volunteers presented our community plan at Wirt-Emerson on Saturday 11/14/15. Check out our full length plan on the Miller Spotlight Facebook page and look for our blog about the project's next phase coming soon. You can also email millerspotlight@gmail.com directly if you'd like a copy of the PDF. You don't have to live in Miller you just have to care about our revitalization efforts to participate. All are welcome to join!!!
Where did April go? How can it be May? There’s been so much awesome stuff going on within the community it’s making our heads’ spin.
Our 7 action groups are on their way to implementing our 29 community goals. We are actually ahead of schedule with completing our community plan! We have 45 community partners to date and are always looking for more. (If you're interested in joining our initiative please contact Jessie via millerspotlight@gmail.com.)
On April 20th our funding organization, Legacy Foundation, had us present our annual review to the Knight Foundation. We decided to make a 6 minute trailer of all that’s happened during Gary’s Miller Spotlight Initiative from Feb 2015- Feb 2016.
On April 20th our community builder, Jessie Renslow, and one of our awesome volunteer chairwomen, Derreka Rollins, were 1 of 6 pairs chosen as finalists to present an idea at the Knight’s Cities Challenge event at ArtHouse a Social Kitchen. The event was modeled after Shark Tank.
They pitched the Jr. Block Club idea. $50,000 was at stake. The jury picked IUN and Blue1647 to receive the award. The Parks Department and City expressed some interest and possible partnerships to help get the Jr. Block Club started. Our Education/ Youth & Child Programming Action Group is going to research these options for summer 2017.
This action group has also submitted an MCF grant for Harvest Fest 2016. 2015’s Harvest Fest was a roaring success with 200+ people attending and twenty three Gary 501c3s participating. It was a great showcase for area families to discover all Gary has to offer them. They look forward to an even bigger turnout this fall!!
**Area Context
On May 10th Miller Spotlight & the MBACD hosted an Acting Up Potluck. Folks brought dishes, or snacks. Eleven people attended this event. While we had fun and good food, we also discussed ideas for the Awesome Foundation's micro-grant initiative. Communities across Chicagoland hosted potlucks to brainstorm micro-grants that will help their neighborhoods on May 10th too.
The Awesome Foundation is a global community advancing the interest of awesome in the universe, $1000 at a time.Each fully autonomous chapter supports awesome projects through micro-grants, usually given out monthly. These micro-grants, $1000 or the local equivalent, come out of pockets of the chapter's "trustees" and are given on a no-strings-attached basis to people and groups working on awesome projects.
We chose to submit a grant for reflector vests for local volunteer groups. The vests will say “Community Volunteer” on the back. These vests will serve 3 purposes:
1.Promote safety
2.Unite all of our volunteer groups in a visually identifiable manner
3. Advertise the spirit of volunteerism and engage/ educate our community on how to
become active/ all our volunteers do within our community
***Looks for our grant video very soon!
**Environment and Eco Tourism
This group is investigating/ pursuing how to get their Miller Attractions Map as an advertisement on the South Shore.
They also helped us write 3 grants. We didn’t get the NIPSCO one but are waiting to hear about American Waters and the Environmental Justice grant. They are promoting our existing and upcoming ecotourism/ environmental activities and attractions via social media platforms, word of mouth and traditional media outlets.
**Access Miller (Transportation and Infrastructure)
On Thursday, 4/14/16 from 1-4pm Great Lakes ADA, Miller Spotlight and Barrier Free Beach hosted a website accessibility workshop at the MJGC.
Janet Peters, Project Coordinator of Accessible Technology for the Great Lakes ADA Center facilitated the workshop. 21 people from a variety of Gary institutions/ organizations attended. Janet has worked to promote full and unrestricted participation in society for persons with disabilities through the promotion of technology that is accessible to all.
Canoe Launch Update:
Our ADA canoe/ kayak launch will be installed soon! The ribbon cutting ceremony will be on 6/25/16 at the Annual Water Celebration. The launch is ordered. It costs $32,000 to buy and install. The permits have been garnered. Gary’s Miller Spotlight's Access Miller Action Group and Barrier Free Beach 2020 volunteers so far have gotten a Transform Lake County Grant for $25,000.00.
We have several smaller grants out that we should hear about in the next 2-3 weeks. A generous local donor is willing to match up to $3,500 of the remaining $7,000 of funds needed to complete this project. Thanks to the generous 40 donors (38 online and 2 in person) we have raised a collective $3300.
We just have $200 left to go until we meet our goal! Any additional funds raised or earned through the grants we've submitted will go towards adding visual and auditory amenities. Universal design is part of our community plan.This will help us complete our community plan for universal design and be a great tourist attraction. We will do the ribbon cutting at Gary’s Clean Water Celebration on 6/25/16. If you are feeling generous you can donate to our GoFundMe page.
Video of our awesome sister community’s (Michigan City) launch. This is what ours will look like but we’re hoping to add LED lights, guide ropes and auditory amenities.
***FUN FACT: This launch is getting done in record time and very affordably. Other Hoosier communities have spent upwards of $132,000 on purchasing and installing the exact same launch and it’s also taken several years to get completed in the past. We are getting it done in 7 months (start to finish) and for $32,000.
How is this humanly possible? Well, Marquette Park’s infrastructure is a huge bonus as barely any modifications had to occur to make this launch get installed. The community, partnering organizations and municipal entities have all decided to make accessible attractions a priority. So, the permitting process was relatively smooth. Go volunteers and teamwork!
Access for All Series Update:
We are in post production on one of our 5 videos, while also producing the the other 4. Our Access Miller (Transportation and Infrastructure) Action Group received $3,000 to produce this multi platform educational series on accessibility. We will release the videos and educational tools in August.
Access Miller Action Group and Barrier Free Beach 2020 went well. We trained by a representative from Great Lakes ADA Center and then conducted a neighborhood survey of our local hotspots to help them become more physically inclusive for all. 17 people attended this event. They completed the Marshall J. Gardner Center, Woodson Library, Miller Pizza Co., and got additional measurements for the lagoon. This was just the first of many surveys they will conduct for our community. We are hoping to make this a citywide initiative.
**Property Improvements Committee
PIC has gotten grant funding to do 11 decorative board ups across Miller.
On Sunday, May 15, 2016, they completed a decorative board up at the blighted Lake St. Beach Cafe.
The new coat of paint spruced up the place to help us get ready for our summer food truck park.
PIC is in the process of getting permission to board up Nobel School in September. The school board is very warm to the idea, they just have to go through the approval process. PIC is looking for a community partner to help install the upper level windows. They can cut and pain them, but need someone with a scaffold to help install them. Please email Jessie via millerspotlight@gmail.com if you, or someone you know is interested.
Here is a sketch of what the finished Nobel board up would look like.
Introducing Gary's Miller Spotlight's newest community partner, The Charter School of the Dunes. One of our community's 29 goals is to reduce vacant properties by 20 percent by 2018. Additionally, part of our community vision is to have eye-pleasing entrances. Well, the Charter School of the Dunes is helping us with both these items.
They applied for and received an environmental grant to knock down the blighted gas station on US 20 and Old Hobart Road and to remove the gas tanks. This year they are keeping the space trimmed up and using it as an overflow parking lot while they run soil tests and plan how to best use the space. We look forward to future partnering opportunities with them.
**Safety and Code Enforcement
On May 7, 2016 Miller Spotlight volunteers did a second wave cleanup with our later risers.
The Community Clean Up encompassed Park Shore Commons on County Line Rd. and Lake Street from the Douglas Center to Lake Street Beach. We hosted a community meal afterwards and leftovers were donated to The Ark Women’s Shelter.
Safety and Code Enforcement has partnered with the MCC’s Shoreline Committee to help make our summer 2016 the best one yet! They will work hand in hand with the new beach manager once the new hire has been announced and confirmed.
They are helping keep our beaches clean, our boat launch dug out and our level of professionalism of park employees a priority.
Gary's Parks Department has started digging out the boat launch. Getting ready for Memorial Day Weekend. Yay summer is nigh! Come to our Saturday 5/28/16 Summer kickoff at Lake Street Beach in Gary's beautiful Miller community to see what all the buzz is about!
**Jobs and the Economy!
This action group has been working with local venders like Miller K to help give constructive feedback and promote local venders, as well as prepping to host two workshops.
One of Gary's Miller Spotlight's 29 community goals is to have a food truck (ideally a food truck park) from Saturdays-Mondays at Lake St Beach from 9am-7pm this summer.
Local burrito guru Mary Garcia has got all her permits set with the city and parks and she will be one of our go to food park folks for Lake Street Beach this summer. Congrats to the Garcia family for starting a local business!!! Please like the El Paso Del Norte page. https://m.facebook.com/tasteofelpasodelnorte/
If you or anyone you know is interested in having a cart/ truck in our Lake St. Food Park please email Jessie via millerspotlight@gmail.com.
Upcoming Miller Spotlight Events
Tuesday, 5/24/16 Park Shore Commons Bingo 3-5pm meet in the community room
Address:
860 N Wells St.
Gary, Indiana, 46403
Thursday, 5/26/16 2:30pm!
Our Jobs and Economy Action Group has partnered with Horizon Bank to give a financial literacy workshop for the students at Wirt-Emerson VPA. They will discuss budgeting, interest rates/ credit cards and the basics of student loans.
Saturday, 5/28 Starts at 11AM- Sunset
Lake St. Beach Food Park Kickoff Help support local venders and showcase Lake Street Beach. We will have a food truck and the boat launch will be dug out. We are trying to really promote activity at Lake St this summer.
Thursday, 6/16/16 2:30pm
Our Jobs and Economy Action Group has partnered with Horizon Bank to give a financial literacy workshop for the residents at Park Shore Commons. They will discuss budgeting, interest rates and credit cards.
(Our community builder being interviewed by two of our community partners The Boys & Girls Club and The Gary Digital Storytelling Project. We are teaming up with these organizations to help complete our oral history project.)
Gary’s Miller Spotlight’s first quarter of 2016 has been pretty epic so far. Our rockstar volunteers are implementing the community goals that they created from reviewing the opinions expressed in last year’s community surveys along with the facts surrounding these perceptions.
To date, we have 43 partners that have agreed to help our community implement our 29 goals. (Check out our full length plan here, or you can also email millerspotlight@gmail.com directly if you'd like a copy of the PDF.)
We are happy to announce that the ADA-Indiana Steering Committee selected our Miller Spotlight: Access Miller Beach (Transportation and Infrastructure) Action Group's proposal, “Access for All,” as one of the 2016 Coros ADA Community Grants. “Access for All” is a multimedia outreach series that will be created for Gary’s Miller neighborhood to educate residents, businesses, municipalities and service providers on the importance of inclusion of persons with visible and non visible disabilities within the community. This multi-platformed project will make it a priority to address the following areas: civic, cultural and recreational, physical environment, and transportation. Production on this series began in March. We will release the first installation of the series in May. It is our goal that people citywide will use these free materials to make Gary, Indiana as inclusive a community as possible.
2016 Miller K Market survey is starting to reap results. Our local grocery store, Miller K Market, is family owned. They have started incorporating the constructive feedback they received from us on upgrades they can pursue this year. Please check them out!
They fixed the Miller K sign on Rt 12!
Additionally, the Miller K Market has started carrying a wider array of produce and products, including organic.
Thanks to those who took our Miller K Market survey and the MCC for partnering on this effort with Gary's Miller Spotlight. Our Jobs and Economy Action Group took general data from emails received from people living in the area and constructed an online survey that 200+ members of the community took. An additional 50+ took the paper version of the survey. The data was compiled and given to our local grocer. Jobs and the Economy is one of the 7 themes being addressed in our 29 community goals.
Our Jobs and the Economy Action Group had a nice turn out at our first financial workshop for our community. It's never too early or late to learn how to budget. A financially literate community is an empowered one. Thanks for hosting Miller Beach Arts & Creative District. A shout out to Horizon Bank for co-hosting and partnering on this goal with us. We are planning 3 more workshops sponsored by Horizon this year. Look for more info coming soon.
Gary’s Miller Spotlight Safety and Code Enforcement Action Group has begun to facilitate general rapport programming at Park Shore Commons. Additionally, we have started implementing monthly community cleanups across this 242 unit apartment complex. We hope to replicate these initiatives at all our apartments (Lake Shore Dunes, Marquette, Ishiyama and Wood Lake Village), but are in the process of recruiting more volunteers and securing commitments for programming from the police. This programming is a great way to have fun, promote new leadership among our community and keep folks updated on our community goals as they progress. Hope to see you at Park Shore Commons in April! We will also host two major community-wide cleanups. One on County Line Rd and One on Lake St. on 5/7/16. (More info on these events listed below).
Gary's Miller Spotlight's Area Context Action Group is partnering with NPR's StoryCorps program to collect oral histories for the The Library of Congress. Our community was designated as one that serves a diverse population by StoryCorps. StoryCorps interviews celebrate the voices and milestones in communities and encourage meaningful interactions between our organizations and the people they serve.
A huge thank you goes out to our two local partners, Marquette Park UMC and Temple Israel. StoryCorps-Chicago sent one of their production teams to our neighborhood to kickoff this project. We were the first community in Indiana for them to come on site to! We did the first 12 interviews (24 people) on March 19th and 20th. We will showcase these interviews at a fun engagement event this summer. We are looking to host 4 large sessions of interviews in the fall and are seeking more community partners to help with the process. We would love to get at least 100 people interviewed.
What is StoryCorps?
StoryCorps Mission Statement:
“StoryCorps’ mission is to preserve and share humanity’s stories in order to build connections between people and create a more just and compassionate world.
We do this to remind one another of our shared humanity, to strengthen and build the connections between people, to teach the value of listening, and to weave into the fabric of our culture the understanding that everyone’s story matters. At the same time, we are creating an invaluable archive for future generations.”
The inspiration for this portal and calendar came from a need seen within the community from these two entities. This was validated from our 2015 community survey, where it was stated as a desire by many folks interviewed. It was then incorporated into our community plan as one of our goals.
Thanks MBACD and Openhill for taking on this major need for our community. They partnered with Gary's Miller Spotlight Area Context Action Group to host a tech literacy course for our local businesses and oragnizations. Go to http://www.dragonflynwi.com to check out the portal and stay tuned for more info!
Local vender, Kidstuff Playsystems, has started building 11 ADA compatible bike racks that will be coming to Gary's Miller Community this May.
Gary's Miller Spotlight Access Miller Beach (aka Transportation and Infrastructure) Action Group has worked hard to obtain the funds for this project and identify the best spots for these racks. If you're interested in helping install them Kidstuff will host a workshop in early June. Stay tuned for more one-off volunteer opportunities!
We had many entries in the 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 5th categories. (Oddly none in the 3rd category.) So, the judges chose two from the 4th category instead. Announcing our winners:
1. pre k-3rd grade
-Yvonne Madx
2. 4-6th grade
-Aniya Haypa
4. 10-12th grade-Arthur Lemme
4. 10-12th grade- China Williams
5. Adult-Maryann Urbanczyk
Congrats! Our community builder will return the art work to all participants and handout the gift cards to the winners this week. Thanks for making this inaugural event a smash hit!
Is your website accessible? Could you be losing business and or members by accident? Come check out Gary's Miller Spotlight and Barrier Free Beach 2020's workshop this Thursday (4/14) from 1-4PM at the Miller Beach Arts & Creative District (540 S. Lake St. Gary, IN 46403). Janet Peters, Project Coordinator of Accessible Technology for the Great Lakes ADA Center will facilitate the workshop. Janet has worked to promote full and unrestricted participation in society for persons with disabilities through the promotion of technology that is accessible to all. Please pass along the word!
Members of our Environment and Ecotourism Action Group just wrote a NIPSCO environmental grant and an American Water grant with our community builder that would teach 15 local teens about the environment, complete 2 community clean ups, identify illegal dump sites, complete 2 service projects and install 10 signs. We will find out on 4/22/16 if we got any of these grants.
Is your website accessible? Could you be losing business and or members by accident? Come check out Gary's Miller Spotlight and Barrier Free Beach 2020's workshop this Thursday (4/14) from 1-4PM at the Miller Beach Arts & Creative District. Janet Peters, Project Coordinator of Accessible Technology for the Great Lakes ADA Center will facilitate the workshop. Janet has worked to promote full and unrestricted participation in society for persons with disabilities through the promotion of technology that is accessible to all.
Monday, 4/18/16
Education/ Child and Youth Programming Action Group Meeting at 6pm at Marquette Park United Methodist Church.
Saturday, 4/23/16
Green Gary Day Bike Ride meet at the Douglas Center at 1pm
Tuesday, 4/26/16
Park Shore Commons Bingo 3-5pm meet in the community room
Address:
860 N Wells St.
Gary, Indiana, 46403
Tuesday, 4/26/16
Miller Spotlight Property Improvements Action Group Meeting 6 PM at Miller Pizza Co.
Saturday, 5/7/16 Community Cleanup
(Starts at 11am for County Line & Lake St. More info soon!)
Saturday, 5/14/16
Barrier Free Beach 2020 Training at Woodson Library and community assessment (We’re partnering with Great Lakes ADA.)
Saturday, 5/28 Starts at 11AM
Lake St. Beach Food Park Kickoff Help support local venders and showcase Lake Street Beach
Gary’s Miller Spotlight volunteers presented our community plan at Wirt-Emerson on Saturday 11/14/15. Check out our full length plan here, or you can also email millerspotlight@gmail.com directly if you'd like a copy of the PDF. You don't have to live in Gary’s Miller Community you just have to care about our revitalization efforts to participate. We are a Legacy Foundation initiative.
