A phone, a storefront, and the block in between

In Issue #6, we reported the pilot’s first milestone — 20 of 100 blocks cleaned and $2,000 paid to the North Lawndale residents who cleaned them — and showed how every scan is becoming a 3D record of the neighborhood. This month is about who gets to take part next: the neighbors who carry Android phones, and the businesses on the blocks we clean.

A clean block is good for the people who live on it and the people who do business on it. This issue is for both.

UIC’s Office of Community Collaboration gave us the Android phone we build on.

We have said it in almost every issue: a large share of North Lawndale carries Android, and an app that only runs on iPhone leaves those neighbors out of the paid work. Building for Android properly takes a real Android phone to test on — and now we have one, thanks to the Office of Community Collaboration at the University of Illinois Chicago.

This is the same office whose $2,000 sponsorship paid for the first twenty blocks. First they funded the work. Then they funded the tool that lets more residents do it. To everyone at UIC’s Office of Community Collaboration: thank you. Every Android screen we test from here on has your support behind it.

The Android app is built. Now we need you to help us launch it.

Before Google Play will offer a new app to everyone, Google asks for it to be tried by a small group first: at least 12 people, for 14 days. That is the last step between the GCC app and every Android phone in the neighborhood — and in every other neighborhood, anywhere in the world.

If you have an Android phone, you can be one of those testers. It is free, it takes about a minute to sign up, and you can do it from anywhere.

On an iPhone? You are already set — the app is on the App Store. Please pass this along to someone with an Android phone.

We are building this with our neighbors, for the neighbors who are looking for work.

Nothing about GCC is done to a community from the outside. Residents mapped the first hotspots. Residents cleaned the first twenty blocks, each on a street they know, and were paid $100 a block for it. Residents’ walks are what the block-by-block record is made from.

What we hear most from neighbors is simple: people are looking for work they can start now, close to home. Every sponsored block is exactly that — one paid job for one neighbor. Our goal for this pilot has not changed: 100 blocks cleaned, 100 community members paid. The more blocks that are sponsored, the more opportunities there are to offer.

Local businesses: your sidewalk is your first impression.

This is where we are growing next. We are expanding from residential blocks to the blocks where our neighbors shop, eat and get their hair cut — and we are inviting the businesses on those blocks to take part.

The thinking is straightforward:

• A clean front invites people in. People slow down, stop and shop where the sidewalk is swept and cared for. The outside of your business is the first thing every customer sees.
• It tells the community you care. When a business pays a neighbor to clean the block it sits on, people notice — and they remember who did it.
• The money stays on the block. Your sponsorship goes to a resident who lives nearby, for work done in front of your door.

A swept sidewalk says two things at once: we are open, and we care about this block.

Here is how it works for a participating business. You sponsor the block your business is on. A local resident cleans it and is paid for the work. You receive before-and-after photos of the cleaning, and a tax receipt — GCC is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.

Sponsor a cleaning today.

$100 = one cleanup, one paid resident, one before-and-after photo set in your inbox.
Own or manage a business? Sponsor the block outside your door, or write to info@globalcommunitycleaners.org and we will walk it with you.
Have an Android phone? Join the test group and help us launch.

Next issue: the Android test, and the first businesses on the map.

We will report back on how the Android test went and on the first businesses to sponsor the block outside their door — with the photos to show for it.

Dr. King’s apartment is six blocks away. The work continues.

— The team at Global Community Cleaners NFP