Neighborhood Clean-up with Cabrillo Economic Development Corporation and the Neighborhood of El Rio

El Rio , CA—Cabrillo Economic Development Corporation (CEDC) is a non-profit housing community development corporation (CDC) serving Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties. Since 1998, CEDC has been a proud member of the NeighborWorks® Network through its affiliate status with NeighborWorks® America, a national intermediary that provides funding and technical assistance to CDCs across the country. NeighborWorks® Week (NWW), now in its 23rd year, is a celebration of the accomplishments of the NeighborWorks® Network working in more than 1,500 communities across the nation. It offers an opportunity for all of us to contribute to the remarkable transformation of distressed neighborhoods in our communities. During NWW, residents, business people, government officials and other volunteers work side by side to help complete any number of projects designed to improve communities across the country.

Each year CEDC participates in NWW by organizing a volunteer project to improve a community in which we work. This year the community of El Rio is our project site. This community is also the site of an affordable 140 unit rental project to be constructed by CEDC as part of the River Park development. This year’s project may include trash pick-up, landscaping, painting and fencing. We will address as much of the neighborhood as we can muster the people power and resources to cover.

Last year, Fillmore was the site of CEDC’s NeighborWorks® project. Eighteen homes were included, and over 180 volunteers and 28 donating businesses worked hard to paint houses, landscape yards, build fences and remove unwanted items. According to Vanessa Downing, a Fillmore resident whose home was included in the block-long make-over, “There was a sense of community at the event. You see your neighbors and wave ‘hi,’ but you never really stop to talk to them. [My neighbors and I] all agree that we need to get together more often to host a barbeque or block party of some kind.”

In 2004, we helped a family in Santa Paula The Avina-Martinez family had recently recovered from a family crisis. Their oldest daughter had been diagnosed with cancer five years before and was now in remission. Faced with mounting medical bills, the family had struggled to make ends meet; putting much needed plans to improve their home on hold indefinitely. On Saturday, June 5^th of 2004, 50 volunteers and 25 donating businesses helped give the Avina-Martinez family the home of their dreams. Together, they painted the house, installed a new kitchen, landscaped, removed a garage, and installed outdoor fencing. The transformation was gratifying for everyone involved. And a year later, the grateful Avina-Martinez family helped make the 2005 project in Fillmore a success. They did everything from reassure Fillmore families that they would benefit from being a part of this project, to recruiting sponsors, and volunteering the day of the project.

CEDC was in Ojai for 2003. Over 75 volunteers scoured and repainted the home of Gene Marie McDaniels, a disabled homeowner in the community of Meiner’s Oaks. They also cleaned up her yard, hauled out and disposed of yard waste, built an interior wall and paved the driveway to more easily accommodate her wheelchair. And the year before that, CEDC was in Oxnard to organize sponsors and volunteers to paint a local church.

Thank you for your interest in CEDC’s NeighborWorks® project to take place in El Rio this coming June. In an effort to involve the local community in this project we are asking that you help us get the word out to everyone who might be interested in participating.

For more information, please contact Kathryn Benner at: 805/672-2582.