In March, a survey of people living in the Vance Avenue area
revealed residents hoped for a cleaner, safer, and more active
community. In response, the Vance Avenue Collaborative is
working to make the neighborhood — a poverty-stricken area
where vacant and abandoned lots make up the majority of
the land and less than half of adult residents have high school
diplomas — a vibrant cultural center.
Residents of the neighborhood, bounded by Crump Boulevard,
Third Street, Beale Street, and East Street, decided their
initial plans would be to create a homeless service center, start
a minority youth entrepreneurship initiative, and focus on the
area’s musical history.
The meeting was led by University of Memphis faculty Ken
Reardon and Katherine Lambert-Pennington. Both stressed
the importance of relying on local resources and ideas to combat
the area’s challenges.
“We have many young men and women in this community
who have extraordinary energy, creativity, and a commitment
to redevelopment in this city,” Reardon said.
Overall, the Vance Avenue Collaborative identified more
than 50 projects it would ultimately like to do to improve
public health and safety, education, social services, economic
development, housing, and public transportation.
Various community programs have already been put in
place to work on those issues. The collaborative has established
a successful community garden near Linden and Lauderdale.
MIFA has plans to create a program called Promise Neighborhood,
based on New York’s Harlem Children’s Zone, that will
provide mentoring to area children.
“There are a lot of people thinking about the problems in
this community and how to reimagine it,” Lambert-Pennington said, “and those resources are out there to make it happen.”
