Putting kids to work, preparing a community for change

Minneapolis Steps Up

August 2004—Over the years the scarcity of jobs and the abundance of crime have deeply implanted the suspicion that a kid out on Lake Street is either looking for, or about to be found by, trouble.

Though the epidemic days of the 1990s have been supplanted by a growing revitalization, perceptions change slowly when those who would benefit most from greater opportunity are often the last to encounter it.

Now members of the Lake Street community are turning good intentions into results, creating a model youth employment initiative that has worked efficiently to spruce up conditions at street level while supporting broader civic goals.

Ted Muller (right) of the Lake Street Council with Gregory M. Oats, who supervises the Lake Street Ambassadors street cleanup crew.

Curb appeal
As advance planning for the redevelopment of the former Sears site at Chicago and Lake came together, the city and leaders in the private sector saw an urgent need to establish confidence in the surrounding neighborhood’s prospects for reinvestment.

The business community has banded together for many years in trying to keep the sidewalks clean and orderly.

At Chi-Lake, a partnership called the Chicago Lake Improvement Project has been active since 2002 in coordinating regular street cleanups. CLIP relies on a rotation of sanitation professionals, volunteers from the neighborhood and convicts ordered to the duty to avoid jail time.

Many individual businesses, especially those not involved in organizations and partnerships, hire their own people to do the odd job of sweeping up litter. But litter is persistent on a street like Lake. People come and go, people hang out. Many tend not to be the fastidious type.

Like the businesses on Lake Street themselves, cleanup efforts corridor-wide have varied – occasionally very impressive, in other instances leaving much to be desired. For a long time, trash on Lake Street has been an accepted reality.

Sweeping change

But not by Ted Muller. The director of the Lake Street Council, the umbrella business organization for the Lake Street nodes, has maintained for years that confidence in this commercial street begins with tidiness. His small but influential organization has been a reliable advocate for sweeping investment in the corridor, and also for sweeping the corridor.

“Investors and customers like to see a clean curb,” Muller said. “And you’ll find in almost every case that the people who are up to no good on the street will gravitate toward the broken glass and the litter. Remove the mess, you help remove the mess-makers.”

In June, working from a privately funded $16,500 budget, Muller launched the program he dubbed the “Lake Street Ambassadors.” It put six young people to work cleaning the sidewalks and curbs of the Lake Street corridor, including a few blocks north and south, from Lake Calhoun all the way to the Mississippi River. That’s five miles.

Applicants streamed in from the city’s Step Up program, the Minneapolis Work Force Center and through referrals from school-based programs. Muller and his office-mate Joe Stratig, a workforce development manager for Goodwill Easter Seals, interviewed more than 30 kids to get the ones they hoped would show up and work hard.

Involvement pays off
The Ambassadors have worked hard, covering around 30 square blocks per day. In addition to taking litter off the streets, they have built connections for the city and the Lake Street Council with many of the emergent small businesses.

Rayshawn Love, a Lake Street Ambassador, at the Bloom-Lake corner

Chip Wells, Director of the Minneapolis Employment Training Program, is unequivocal about the Ambassadors program, calling it “the most successful neighborhood cleaning program that METP has been associated with.”

Wells credits Muller for this success. “Ted has a real interest not just in making the program work but in the kids themselves.” He said the Ambassadors have had great attendance, show up on time and work with rare enthusiasm.

Muller meets with the crew each morning before they head out to work, taking up such topics as community relations, professionalism and teamwork.

He has also arranged field trips – getting the Ambassadors a special ride alongside dignitaries on the Hiawatha LRT the week before the line opened, as well as arranging a top-to-bottom tour of the former Sears building. Before the Ambassador program ends August 20, the group will go to Minneapolis City Hall and Valley Fair.

Civic initiative, private support
Mike Christenson, director of planning and strategic partnerships for the city’s Department of Community Planning and Economic Development, returned to his roots to raise the money through grants from Abbott Northwestern Hospital and other Lake Street businesses. Christenson formerly directed the Allina Foundation and has worked to build bridges between the area’s largest corporations and small businesses.

Abbott Northwestern Hospital donated $13,000 for the Ambassador program. The balance was raised by John Wolf, owner of Chicago-Lake Liquors. Target donated the walkie-talkies the crew uses to keep together on the street.

“The Sears tower redevelopment will be huge,” Christenson said, “and it will create a ripple effect if all goes well. That’s why it’s so gratifying that in the run-up to the project we have found ways to put kids to work utilizing private-sector resources from the surrounding neighborhood.”

The seven Ambassadors, he said, are among 1,600 kids that city-sponsored job programs have helped this summer, a large increase from 2003.

Next steps
When asked, every one of the Ambassadors said they were enjoying their experience. Several said they wish the program would continue and expand.

That hope, said Muller, is shared by many members of his organization who have expressed their appreciation for the crew’s hard work.

Meanwhile, August 20 is approaching and the Ambassadors will soon lay down their brooms.

Muller says he is optimistic about the program’s future. “We did good and good things will follow,” he said. “We’re running a marathon, not a sprint.”