Noble Neighbors gather for first community event
On Saturday, June 7, 50 neighbors gathered to pick up litter, sweep and clean up Noble Road sidewalks between Noble Elementary School and Woodview Road at the first “Noble Neighbors’ Pick Up for Pride!” event. There were so many volunteers with brooms, shovels and grabbers that the group cleaned portions of Monticello Boulevard and some side streets, too. Kids, young parents, middle-aged adults and folks well into retirement proudly picked up together.
Noble Neighbors (www.nobleneighbors.com) is a neighborhood organization that started in January 2014 in a living room on Montford Road. Friends and neighbors of a woman who was brutally and randomly attacked a week earlier called for a meeting with police and city representatives. The group has quickly grown to five times its original size, and just added 20 new members at its Pick Up for Pride event.
Noble Neighbors has developed into an action team of people who want to see our neighborhoods along Noble Road thrive in friendliness, beauty and safety. We want to attract new homeowners to share our fondness for a great place to raise a family and to grow old. So many of the neighborhood churches have embraced us that we have the luxury of rotating our meeting places among their buildings.
Noble Neighbors is creating events that help foster community and safety. Pick Up for Pride!—our first community event—was a resounding success. In addition, several new street clubs and block watches have formed in the past four months. A “cash mob” to support our Noble Road businesses is in the works for late summer. Other events and activities are in the planning stages—all with the purpose of increasing the visibility of people who want to work together to make this neighborhood flourish, and attracting others who want to join us.
We are partnering with the city, real estate professionals, business owners and others who are willing to invest in our neighborhood’s revitalization. We are marketing the features that attracted us to live here—our diversity, which includes our newest neighbors, the Nepalese refugees; our affordable housing in a wide variety of styles; and our tree-lined, walkable streets. Our playgrounds, library, churches, schools, rich arts community, and neighbor-owned businesses make this neighborhood a great place to live.
Noble Neighbors is grateful to the managers of CVS, on the corner of Monticello Boulevard and Noble Road, who donated bottled water, latex gloves, garbage bags, and their corner lawn space. Thanks also to the City of Cleveland Heights, which donated Pick Up for Pride! flyer printing and blue recycling bags, and then carted away the full garbage bags at the end of the event. Several other Noble Road shop owners joined us and expressed appreciation for [our] caring about the business districts.
Noble Neighbors is, above all, about being neighbors. We cherish our diversity and we gladly join together to help each other thrive. The word that describes us best is—home. This is home.
Brenda H. May
Brenda H. May co-leads Noble Neighbors with founder Cynthia Griggins. Each has lived in the Noble area for decades and plans to stay. Learn more at www.nobleneighbors.com.