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WE SAW YOU: The World (Porch) is a Stage at Cooper-Young Porchfest

Big dogs stay on the porch at Cooper-Young Porchfest. So do the little dogs.

Bands — whether local or from out-of-town — perform on porches or in the yards of people who live or have businesses in Cooper-Young.

The annual event, which was held April 16th, is open to all bands, whether local or from out-of-town, says Amanda Yarbro-Dill, executive director of the Cooper-Young Community Association.

“The nice thing about it is it’s so egalitarian,” Yarbro-Dill says. “Bands can be some retired guys who like to play together. Or, a band you could pay a cover and go see at [Bar] DKDC.” “

Macrophonics perform at Cooper-Young Porchfest (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Music lovers listen to The Stupid Reasons at Cooper-Young Porchfest (Credit: Michael Donahue)

This year’s event marked the first time I attended Cooper-Young Porchfest. And I’m so glad I did.

Bands actually performed on front porches and in yards. The weather was fabulous. The crowd wasn’t wall-to-wall people like the throng at the annual Cooper-Young Fest, which, don’t get me wrong, is also very, very fun.

In other words, it was a beautiful day to go to a festival.

I like the description of the event on the Cooper-Young website. Porchfest is “intended to be a grassroots celebration of spring, music, and Cooper-Young.”

The website also stated that the event was bringing back its annual community yard sale, which is held before the music begins.

“It’s kind of a perfect Cooper-Young day,” Yarbro-Dill says.

People can hit the yard sales in the morning, have lunch at one of the restaurants, and then listen to music all afternoon, she says. “It’s spring. It’s the best time. In April, if you can avoid the rain, it’s the best time to do anything.”

Jack Oblivian at Cooper-Young Porchfest (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Madaline Collins and Gio Giannangelo at Cooper-Young Porchfest (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Lee Johnson at Cooper-Young Porchfest (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Brian Kwoba and Monica Miller at Cooper-Young Porchfest (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Travis Bradley, Bailee Rebecca, Courtney Oliver, Rory Dale, and Jordan Nichols at Cooper-Young Porchfest (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Tennessee Screamers at Cooper-Young Porchfest (Credit: Michael Donahue)

Yarbro-Dill, who lives in Cooper-Young, did not have a band perform on her porch. “I wanted to be able to get out and be free and see what the day was like instead of being tied to my house.”

So, what did she think about Porchfest? “I was super pleased. It was great every year, but this year felt just super good. The thing that I noticed when I was out is everybody was just happy to be out together. I never, literally, saw anybody act like an asshole.”

Yarbro-Dill didn’t have an exact figure for how many people attended, but she got some estimates talking to people while walking around. “I would say more than 500 people.”

This was the third year to hold the festival, she says. “The first year was 2021. And that year I didn’t know what to expect as far as how many bands would sign up. So, that year we had 40 bands and 20 porches sign up. Then last year in 2022 it basically doubled in size and we had 80 bands on 40 porches. This year, it was about 100 bands on about 40 porches.”

To be a host, you have to live in Cooper-Young, Yarbro-Dill says. “So it’s from Southern to Central going one way. And East Parkway to McLean the other way.”

If you missed Cooper-Young Porchfest this year, go next year. You’ll love it.

Jon Hay, Lola, and Matt Anderson at Cooper-Young Porchfest (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Lexie Lang and Cristian Nieves at Cooper-Young Porchfest (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Edwin Dorsey and that newspaper guy at Cooper-Young Porchfest (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Jillian Lichterman, Peter Benjamin, and Greer Goodwin at Cooper-Young Porchfest (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Jonathan Finder and Jared Hogan at Cooper-Young Porchfest (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Michael Schaefgen, LJ Harper, Lane Wade, and Robert Gallagher at Cooper-Young Porchfest (Credit: Michael Donahue)
Justin Weirich, Margo Araoz, and Lawson Day of Macrophonics at Cooper-Young Porchfest (Credit: Michael Donahue)
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Cooper-Young Porchfest Returns for a Third Year

Rascal Flatts once sang of sitting on the front porch, drinking ice-cold cherry Coke, but this weekend nearly 40 front porches in Cooper-Young will be for more than those cherry Cokes — they’re going to be stages for nearly a hundred bands putting on free concerts at the third-ever Cooper-Young Porchfest.

Since the inaugural festival in the spring of 2021, Porchfest has clearly grown from the 40 bands volunteering to perform on 20 porches. Its inception is not an original idea, with more than a hundred cities holding porchfests of their own since 2007, says Amanda Yarbro-Dill, Cooper-Young Community Association’s executive director. For Memphis, though, its first Porchfest came at just the right time when freshly Covid-vaccinated people were buzzing to get out and about. “A lot of bands hadn’t really gotten back to playing a lot,” Yarbro-Dill says, “so I think there was a lot of enthusiasm because of that.” But she didn’t expect that the next year the number of volunteer bands would double and that it’d even increase for this year’s fest.

“It feels like Cooper-Young Festival Junior,” Yarbro-Dill says of the event. “But it’s an entirely music-focused day instead of an arts and crafts fest day.” The acts, each lasting around an hour, range in their genres from Americana to environmental crybaby punk. You can also catch some family-friendly drag performances, including a Disney-inspired show with Taco Belle at 3 p.m. and a show with Magical Miss Mothie & Friends at 5 p.m. Since all the performers are volunteers, tips are encouraged, with most accepting Venmo or Cash App.

Photo: Brandon Dill

“It’s like if you wanted to come and spend the whole day in Cooper-Young, you can,” Yarbro-Dill says, adding that before the fest begins, the Cooper-Young Community Association will host its annual Community Yard Sale. (Find the map for the yard sales here.) “You could start out in the morning, and go to yard sales. Go to lunch somewhere here in the neighborhood; patronize our businesses. Come by the gazebo, where we’ll be selling T-shirts and then we’ll also have the map for all the shows. Then you can go to however many shows you want.”

Following the festival, for the first time, there will also be an after-party presented by Young Avenue Sound, Memphis Whistle, and Underground Art. “They’re gonna actually shut the street down there to have a street party and have bands play,” Yarbro-Dill says. Cyrena Wages, Jombi, Joybomb, and DJ Kaz will perform.

A full lineup of the day’s events and a map can be found below and at cooperyoung.org/porchfest. Porchfest is sponsored by Memphis Made Brewing Company and Steve Womack’s State Farm Insurance Agency.

Photo: Brandon Dill

Community Yard Sale, Cooper-Young Historic District, Saturday, April 15, 9 a.m.-1 p.m., free.

Cooper-Young Porchfest, Cooper-Young Historic District, Saturday, April 15, noon-6 p.m., free.

Porchfest Afterparty, parking lot and garage of Young Avenue Sound, Saturday, April 15, 6 p.m., free.

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Raise a Glass: Cooper-Young Beerfest Returns Saturday

Three cheers for the return of the Cooper-Young Beerfest! The 11th annual event will feature more than 100 different beers to sample from 33 breweries and two home-brew clubs.

“It’s exciting to get back to it,” says Cooper-Young Community Association (CYCA) treasurer and Beerfest committee chair Mark Morrison. “It’s been with its challenges though. We’re balancing community safety, the safety of volunteers and brewers … with the financial stability of the CYCA. This is one of our two major fundraisers, and we weren’t able to have either last year.” Part of that balance led them to require full vaccination for everyone attending. The number of tickets has also been reduced to limit capacity.

Ten of the on-site breweries will be first-timers to the C-Y Beerfest. All featured breweries are “within a day’s drive,” according to Morrison. “It’s been the heart of our philosophy since we started in 2010. For one, to make people aware of all these great breweries we have both in Memphis and in the region, where people could go and visit.” It’s also an opportunity for regional breweries to consider expanding distribution here.

Another thing unique to the festival is that organizers require all participating breweries to have a knowledgeable person manning the tent. “What that means for the attendee is that the person who’s pouring the beer could be the brewer who brewed it, the owner of the brewery, or a sales rep who works for them. We think that’s important because those people know about the brewery, they know about the beer.”

Cooper-Young Beerfest, 795 Cooper, Saturday, October 9th, 1-5 p.m., $50.

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Porchfest: National Trend Comes to Cooper-Young

“Porchfest” may be an unfamiliar word here in Memphis, but it’s an idea that’s been catching on across the country for over a decade. Begun in Ithaca, NY, in 2007, the idea is a simple one: Ask homeowners in a neighborhood to offer their front porches as stages for musicians; then listeners can go from porch to porch to hear them play, creating a low-cost music festival of the most intimate kind.

People have been playing on porches around here forever, of course, including the occasional shows hosted by Robert Jethro Wyatt, co-founder of Black & Wyatt Records. But this Saturday, the concept will be ramping up considerably, as the Cooper-Young Community Association (CYCA) launches their first-ever such event, Porchfest 2021, on Saturday, April 17th, from noon to 6pm.

Speaking with Amanda Yarbro-Dill, executive director of the CYCA, I learned a few things about this groundbreaking approach to live music which, oddly enough, was being discussed even before COVID-19 descended upon us.

Memphis Flyer: Was organizing Porchfest 2021 a logistical jigsaw?

Amanda Yarbro-Dill: Yes, it was. Everyone’s been really responsive, but figuring out the timing of the shows has been tricky. It’s the first time I’ve ever done anything like this. So I guess it was easier than I thought it might be.

How did it come about? It’s such an innovative idea.

Last February, pre-pandemic, we had a resident who’s a musician come to us and say, ‘Hey, I played a porchfest in Philadelphia, I think Cooper-Young would be the perfect place to have one. What does the community association think about helping me with this?’ And we all thought it was a great idea. So I started doing research. But then COVID happened and we couldn’t do anything. This year, I started talking to people about the level of risk involved, as far as COVID, and we decided it’s something we can do safely.

The first porchfest was in Ithaca, NY, in the 90s, and it’s a model they’ve done in tons of different cities. If you go to the website you can see links to thirty, forty, fifty of varying sizes. But I think they’re all like ours, where it’s just a volunteer operation. Bands volunteer to play, porches volunteer to host them. And some group organizes the whole thing.

It began long before the pandemic, then.

Right! And then it suits this moment we’re in fairly well, where we’ve come to a point where many people have been vaccinated and anything outside is inherently safer than anything inside. So it makes a lot of sense to us.

What safety precautions or protocols are in place?

We’re asking that everyone please follow the CDC protocols. I would love to go out on Saturday and see a majority of people wearing masks. We all know now that’s a show of respect to everyone else. Because who knows what my vaccination status is? We don’t know for sure what can or can’t be transmitted, so I think we’re going to need to stay with this model of wearing masks. And that’s the messaging I’m putting out: social distance as much as you can, wear a mask as much as you can. Be respectful to all these volunteers who are making it happen.

Was it hard to find porches?

No, that’s kind of the crazy thing. When I first started talking about this with my husband, I said, ‘I will be happy if we have six bands play.’ I had a very low threshold. I didn’t know what the response was going to be at all. And I’m in a Facebook group, and invited people and bands that I knew to join, and I think in the first week we had ten porches signed up. In the end, we had more porches than we needed.

Porches will have rotating bands?

Some have only one performer, but most have at least two. With some of the porches, basically it’s the house of the musician, and they were like, ‘Okay, I’m going to book my whole porch for the whole day.’ They just took it upon themselves to do that.

What else has the CYCA done? Will there be transportation?

I would suggest to just park in Cooper-Young and walk around. It would also be a great thing to ride your bike to. And we do have custom made signs that will be in every host’s yard. We’re hoping people come and then go to neighborhood businesses, go get take out or eat at a restaurant. Go to Memphis Made. They’re our only sponsor. Buy beer from them!

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Cooper-Young Four Miler Goes (Kinda) Virtual as Leaders Try to Keep Connections Alive

Cooper-Young Festival Four Miler/Facebook

Last year’s running of the Cooper-Young Festival Four Miler featured physical athletes running together at the same time. Can you imagine?

Cooper-Young thrives on connectivity. Those who live in the Midtown neighborhood will gather to celebrate almost anything at all and will gather to aid in almost any cause.

But COVID-19 (of course, it’s always COVID-19) blunted that connectivity. No longer could neighbors casually settle in on a patio or neighbor’s porch for a drink. No longer could beer-loving Memphians raise a cup at the annual Cooper-Young Beerfest. No longer could runners toe the start line for the annual Cooper-Young Four Miler. No longer could tens of thousands clog the streets for the annual Cooper-Young Festival.

But the virus hasn’t stopped Cooper-Young leaders from trying to connect neighbors in different ways. It also hasn’t stopped them from attempting a run of the Four Miler this Saturday, October 3rd, in a different way.

Beerfest and the race are easily the biggest fundraisers for the Cooper-Young Community Association (CYCA), the group who organizes and advocates for the residents of the Midtown neighborhood. This year, the CYCA is “struggling,” according to its president, Stephanie Gonzalez. But the neighbors, she said, are trying their best to stay connected in these disconnecting times.

We caught up with Gonzalez to talk porch concerts, a Facebook group to help Cooper-Young residents share resources, and Saturday’s virtual Cooper-Young Festival Four Miler. — Toby Sells

Memphis Flyer: How has the CYCA worked to keep Cooper-Young connected?

Stephanie Gonzalez: A lot of what we do is focused on events and getting people together, whether that’s our general meetings every month, or doing happy hours at local bars, or our annual yard sale, or plant swaps. Then, of course, there’s our big fundraisers, the Four Miler and Beerfest.

Cooper-Young Beerfest

So, when all this went down in March, we were kind of at a loss for what to do. At first, we were kind of like everybody else. When is this going to end? Is it gonna be possible for us to still have our events?

But we wanted to show support right off the bat. So, one of the things that Amanda Yarbro-Dill, our executive director, started doing was sending out information on where people can get help for food scarcity, or grants, or anything along those lines. She actually created a Cooper-Young Coronavirus Mutual Aid Facebook group that was a resource for sharing that kind of thing. We felt like our biggest role was just being a conduit of information in the beginning.

But over time, we started hearing from neighbors who are really missing that connection that they get from CYCA events throughout the year. So, the first thing that we really tried doing was a Fourth of July decorating contest.

The idea was to dress up your pet, or your kid, or decorate your house and send in pictures for the chance to win some prizes. That was fun but didn’t get a ton of engagement in that. But it gave us the idea to start thinking a little bit more outside of the box. That was when we really started thinking about what we were going to do for the fall.

One of the things that we’ve been really concerned about is just making sure that whatever we do, people feel comfortable with it. Throughout this whole central planning period, we sent out multiple surveys to the Four Miler runners’ list, which is about 2,000 people. We got about a 50 percent response rate on the survey, which is pretty unheard of.

One of the things that they were saying was, “I’ve done virtual races in the past, and I don’t want to do something unless it’s unusual or fun.” They didn’t want to just run a race where they run a race, record their time, and then that’s the end of it.

Cooper Young Historic District/Facebook

Cooper-Young Festival from not this year. You know why.

We really started thinking about that and incorporated some of that into other ideas. We start doing a trash pickup once a month where people could meet up and kind of split off, say hi to each other at the gazebo, but then kind of take off with their quarantine partners and pick up trash. We’ve had a decent amount of people show up for that.

So, then we decided to take it to the next level and try doing the porch shows. People felt comfortable coming and hanging out with their own little group but also feeling like they were getting this sense of community, I guess.

So, we combined all of these ideas and said, “Why don’t we go for a virtual Four Miler, but also make it a celebration of the Cooper-Young neighborhood and spirit.” In addition to having the actual runners come through the neighborhood, we’re encouraging people to have little quaran-team parties with their bubbles and interpret that any way they want.

There are a lot of artists and musicians in Cooper-Young, so we’re encouraging people to play on their porch. We’re encouraging neighbors to go walk or run the race course, get on your bike, go see what’s going on. Then there’s the runners themselves. The idea here is that we’re hoping that people will continue to feel connected with their neighbors, but being able to do so in a safe and comfortable feeling way.

MF: How are the Cooper-Young neighbors doing during this pandemic?

SG: The reaction has been really encouraging. Part of that is because everything that we’ve been trying to do has been … safety is just top of mind for us. Like the porch shows, for example, the fourth in the series of that is [Thursday night]. Tony Manard is going to be playing.

Tonight! Tune in for Tony Manard Music at 6!

Posted by Cooper Young Community Association on Thursday, October 1, 2020

Cooper-Young Four Miler Goes (Kinda) Virtual as Leaders Try to Keep Connections Alive

If you notice on the Facebook page when we share those events, we’ll say that you can stream it live or if you happen to be in the neighborhood and walking around, maybe you’ll catch it. But we don’t want to publish an address, because we don’t want this to be a situation where, all of a sudden, there’s 50 people on a corner, and it feels really uncomfortable.

MF: How big a financial blow has it been to cancel or change events for the CYCA?

SG: We’re struggling. Our two biggest events every year are the Four Miler and Beerfest. Without the ability to have those two … that’s where the entirety of our operational budget comes from.

Normally, we would be earning the money for 2021 in 2020. This year, we’re not able to do that. So, we’ve had to cut our one staff member down to part time. We had to stop publishing The Lamplighter [the Cooper-Young neighborhood newspaper] because it’s something that the CYCA heavily subsidizes.

It’s a struggle, and it’s a struggle trying to come up with creative ideas right now for how to raise funds. So, we’re really hoping that even if people don’t want to run the race, we’re really hoping that they’ll … you have the option to buy a T-shirts just to support us. We’re really hoping that people will kind of jump in there and support this effort because they want to support the CYCA.
Cooper-Young Festival Four Miler

The 2020 Cooper-Young Festival Four Miler is modeled in a Facebook photo by CYCA executive director Amanda Yarbro-Dill. The shirts are available even if you don’t run the race.

I know a lot of other nonprofits are struggling, and we’re right there with them.

MF: Is there anything that we left out or anything else you want to add?

SG: For the Four Miler, you can run it any time during the day. But for those quaran-teaming gatherings, we’re really trying to focus people between 4-8 p.m. That’ll be the biggest concentration of when something’s going on in the neighborhood.

Whether you’re a runner or a neighbor, get out during that time and go around the neighborhood. Take in that friendly, welcoming, artistic feeling that our neighborhood is known for.

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Cooper-Young to Host a Virtual July 4th Celebration

Cooper-Young Community Association

Normally, around this time, the Cooper-Young Community Association (CYCA) would be gearing up for its annual CYCA 4th of July Family Parade at Peabody Elementary School, complete with decorated bikes, people, and wagons, as well as live music, Mempops, and fun family activities.

According to Amanda Yarbro-Dill, executive director of CYCA, this event was always a chance for CYCA to thank the Cooper-Young community for partaking in paid events, like the Cooper-Young Festival 4-Miler and Cooper-Young Beerfest, throughout the year.

“The parade has increased in attendance every year, and it’s one of the things that we use our money we make from other events to put it back in the neighborhood, give everybody a reason to get together and see each other,” she says. “It’s just a nice, sweet, simple little thing that we certainly can’t do this year.”

When it became clear that they could not get together for the parade this year, Yarbro-Dill and the rest of the team at CYCA decided they needed to find an alternative way for community members to interact with each other on Independence Day. What they came up with was an Instagram contest wherein community members are invited to submit photos Cooper-Young Community Association

 of children and/or pets dressed in costume, or of homes decked in 4th of July decor, in hopes of winning fun prizes like gift cards and Cooper-Young swag.

“That was kind of our thinking: Well, if we can’t do this together, then if people want to still use it as an opportunity to kind of show off and have fun with that kind of thing, let’s give them a chance and give prizes to make it a little more fun,” says Yarbro-Dill. “I think the whole neighborhood has really suffered from not being able to get together easily. So it’s kind of like the illusion of a social experience, even though we’re all just stuck in our pods or bubbles.”

Yarbro-Dill says that this is a chance for members of the community to show off the spirit of their neighborhood and that anyone can participate, whether they’re from East Memphis, Bartlett, or beyond.

“I just hope that, even if people are just seeing each other on Facebook, this will give everybody a boon,” says Yarbro-Dill. “We haven’t been out and haven’t had the opportunity to be together, so this will give everyone a chance to see each other and reconnect.”

Cooper-Young’s Virtual July 4th Celebration, instagram.com/cooperyoungassociation, July 4th, all day, free. Submit photos with hashtag #CYJULY4.

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MEMernet: Stay Home, Advice from Cox Street Bigfoot

Flow Chart Help

The Memphis Fire Fighters Local 1784 tweeted this helpful flow chart for anyone out there still confused about how to help during the coronavirus pandemic.

Bigfoot Help

A Bigfoot statue on Cox in Cooper-Young dresses for many occasions, like Christmas and St. Patrick’s Day. He did his part last week to educate the public on coronavirus best practices.

Posted to Twitter by the Cooper-Young Community Association

Cox Street Bigfoot says “STAY HOME. GO OUT BAD, STAY IN GOOD. BE SAFE. 6 FEET GOOD.” Listen to Cox Street Bigfoot.

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Infill Frenzy: More ‘Tiny Homes’ Could Be Headed for Cooper-Young

City Cottages

(Read in that movie-trailer-voice guy voice)

In a world where developers are hungry to build inside the city, developers have to get crafty, and that means Cooper-Young could get even sillier with tiny homes.

From the same guys who brought you the tiny village (coming soon to Elzey), comes the tiny apartment complex on York. That full-length attraction comes with a tiny featurette, a solo tiny home planned across the street on a tiny triangle of land down by the railroad tracks.
City Cottages

A sample of a home built by City Cottages. This is not one built in Cooper-Young. Those haven’t been built yet.

The guys just pulled off the tiny village concept in February, back when the tiny home concept was brand new. But this time, there’s a new sheriff in town: The Cooper-Young Historical District status.

Will they be able to sell the idea to the Landmarks Commission, Land Use Control Board, and the Memphis City Council? No spoilers, please! We’ll all have to wait to find out.

(End the movie-trailer-voice-guy voice)

Ed Apple, of Apple Partners LLC, has applied to the Landmarks Commission to build two new “tiny home” concepts in Cooper-Young, at the corner of Tanglewood and York in a sort-of-residential, sort-of-industrial area close to railroad tracks.
City Cottages

For the south side of York, Apple’s application calls for “new single family attached (two family) homes” at 2039 York and 2040 York. The application says “homes.” If they are, indeed, two separate units, they are pushed together to look like one, four-unit complex.
City Cottages

On the north side of York, Apple wants to build one tiny home on an equally tiny strip of land. Ready to call this place home?
City Cottages

The house would face York. Here’s what it would look like.

City Cottages

For both projects, Apple has, once again, partnered with Little Custom Homes to build the houses. The homes are pre-fabricated at a facility in Arkansas and assembled on site. Apple and Little Custom Homes have argued, though, that the houses aren’t modular homes or trailers.

Both projects sit on land zoned for residential use and both site are currently vacant.

In February, the council approved Apple’s previous project to build 10, 1,000-square-foot rental houses at the corner of Elzey and Tanglewood.

While that project did not have to get Landmarks approval, the council approved it only with a set of conditions. For example, it none of them could be used as a short-term rental, they had to have residential roofs with architectural shingles, street-side landscaping and more, according to the Cooper-Young Community Association.

For its homes in Cooper-Young, City Cottages invites prospective tenants to ”enjoy life from the center of town without permanently putting roots down.”

City Cottages has also eyed the University District as a site for more tiny homes.

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Trash Pile-Up

Leaves, limbs, and big items like toilets, furniture, and pallets have been piling up on Memphis sidewalks for weeks, and while city officials called the situation a “crisis,” they can’t say when all the trash will be removed.

Crews of city sanitation workers have been and will continue working overtime on weekdays and weekends until the city can stabilize the regular collection of waste outside of trash cans, according to Memphis Public Works spokeswoman Matoiri Spencer. 

Until then, “you can anticipate delays in the removal of excess trash, limbs, and yard debris,” she said, and asked for “patience by allowing us to prioritize the use of our resources to respond accordingly to this crisis.”  

“Citizens serviced by the City of Memphis are encouraged to leave trash/debris at curbside until services are rendered,” Spencer said. “We regret any inconvenience at this time and anticipate resuming normal collections very soon.”  

The situation began with so-called Winter Storm Titan, she said, that dumped snow and ice on the Mid-South in the first days of March. The storm knocked down numerous trees in Raleigh and Frayser, and crews have been trying to clean them up ever since. The disruption pushed back pick-up schedules, which were already strained by the end of leaf season and the beginning of spring-cleaning season, Spencer said. 

But no matter the reasons, residents remain confused about the delay in trash collection. Kristan Huntley, executive director of the Cooper-Young Community Association, said residents in her Midtown neighborhood are frustrated with the lack of communication.

 “They’re not really sure when stuff’s going to be picked up or why it’s not being picked up,” Huntley said. “What is being picked up? What isn’t being picked up? Why has this been sitting here for three weeks? What do I have to do? When is this stuff going to be picked up?”

The situation has also caused friction between city leaders and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the union that represents many of the city’s sanitation workers. AFSCME Executive Director Janice Chalmers said city leaders turned down her group’s suggestions to quicken the clean-up process. The sanitation workers are executing the city’s plan but are “getting negativity because the way the city wants it done.”

“Whatever they want us to do and whatever they ask of us, we cooperate,” Chalmers said. “But when we do it how they want us to do it, we can’t be held accountable because it didn’t work out.”

But the city apparently doesn’t need the labor union’s backing, according to Spencer.

“It is not necessary for us to point fingers or exchange words with AFSCME over whether we have their support during this crisis, because there may be enough blame to share,” Spencer said in a statement.

The city has long tried to implement a volume-based, “pay-as-you-throw” collection system that would charge residents to collect any trash outside of their garbage cans. The idea was part of larger changes planned for Memphis waste collection last year but was defeated by a Memphis City Council vote in December.  

“With limited resources, we are consistently challenged during certain seasons because residents continue to discard excessive amounts of waste at no additional cost and expect for it to disappear within a week,” Spencer said. “No other city does this for what we charge our customers, $22.80, which is not enough to fund the cost of such an operation.”