Love the Heights

Ten dedicated volunteers in Ward 10 have been empowered with never-wear-out aluminum litter tongs to pick up litter around their neighborhood blocks, at their own pace. Dragons are the mascot at East CLC and mythically, dragons are the protectors of rivers & streams like the Little Cuyahoga river that wraps around the base of Goodyear Heights.

$300 funded by a 2022 Akron City Council Neighborhood Partnership Grant with Wingfoot Church acting as fiscal agent.

Fall 2022-ongoing

Prior to the painting of the fall 2023 mural on the side of Pioneer Market, nothing in the oldest section of historic Goodyear Heights (phase one) mentioned the rubber workers who called the Heights home. Inspired by the Broadway musical “Hamilton,” the mural tells the story of the Heights in a modern street art style. References to Para rubber trees & even pioneering blimp pilot Melvin Vaniman and his tabby cat Kiddo appear in the mural.

$2800 funded by a 2022 Akron City Council Neighborhood Partnership Grant with Wingfoot Church acting as fiscal agent. Artist is Shea Flaherty of Art by Shea Flaherty.

Completed Fall 2023

Goodyear Heights was designed in Garden City style by landscape architect Warren Manning. Multiple pocket parks, the 410 acre Goodyear Heights Metro Park, three community gardens, and residential gardens all work in concert to provide many unique greenspaces throughout the Heights. The annual garden walk highlights select spots every year and spectators are welcome to tour the sites at their own pace on garden walk day. Locations are plotted on a Google map & paper copies are also available.

$400 funded by a 2022 Akron City Council Neighborhood Partnership Grant with Wingfoot Church acting as fiscal agent.

Fall 2023;
Summer 2024-ongoing

An online Facebook group that saves information, photos, and stories pertaining to Goodyear Heights and in some cases, the history of Goodyear. In-person meetings are usually held the last Thurs of the month at the Goodyear Branch Library, from 6-7pm. Check the events page for updates. (*No monthly meeting in June 2024 as the Jane’s Walk history tours will be taking place instead.)

Fall 2022- ongoing online;
Spring 2024-added monthly in-person meetings with guest speakers

Decorating for Halloween is serious business in the Heights. Keep Heights BOOtiful is a neighborhood house & yard decorating contest that Love the Heights ran in Oct 2022 on the Goodyear Heights group page on Facebook. Prizes for the top three were sponsored by Ward 10 representative Connor. Since the Facebook group was archived in 2023, there was no way to digitally run the contest. In 2024, the GoodyearHeights.org website (another Love the Heights project) will run & host the contest.

October 2022;
October 2024-ongoing

Five volunteers with professional rain gauges, snow rulers, and hail measuring sticks are positioned throughout the Heights and report precipitation data to the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail & Snow Network whose data is then used by the National Weather Service and the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration to better understand weather patterns.

$500 funded by a 2022 Akron CIty Council Neighborhood Partnership Grant with Wingfoot Church acting as fiscal agent.

Spring 2024-ongoing

A little meet & greet block party for all residents living in voting precinct Akron 10-H. Cookout/potluck, yard games, and voter registration party was held as part of my civic duties as a precinct captain (PC) for Akron 10-H. Voted in on March 19, 2024 with my term being four years, I am the representative to the Democratic Party of Summit County (Member County Central Committee - Democrat) for the 150 households in my precinct. (The GOP PC is up for election in 2026.) Some of my good friends are on the other side of the political spectrum, but common ground tends to be a lot wider than people think.

$300 funding for food provided by the Freedom Bloc in order to promote community engagement, get neighbors to meet each other, and to provide an opportunity to register to vote.

Spring 2024

Halfway between Memorial Day & Labor Day, the third Saturday in July will be a community garage sale day where everyone holds sales at the same time.

List your sale with GoodyearHeights.org to be included on the neighborhood sale map for the day. Check out the events page for updates.

Third Sat in July 2024-recurring annually

Plans are in the works for a car show in August! Details are still being worked out. Check the GoodyearHeights.org event page for updates.

August 2024

Jane’s Walks are free, resident led walks where residents talk about history, stories, and ideas for the future. Anyone can led a Jane’s Walk. For summer 2024, Love the Heights will organize four mini-walks of 20-25min each, centered around the historic phase one section of Goodyear Heights. Walks are flat, accessible, and a mixture of walking and standing. They will take place right before the music & market days at Public Square Triangle Park. Meet up spot to start is the Warren Manning sidewalk mural at Pioneer & Goodyear Blvd. For schedule & updates, see goodyearheights.org/events

Summer 2024-ongoing

A website dedicated to all things Goodyear Heights that is able to reach more residents & businesses than a social media page. Readers can find information on how to get things fixed, learn about news & events, and register to volunteer at community events.

$300 in funding & volunteer labor supported by Love the Heights merchandise sold at Bay Window Thrift & Collectibles, Pioneer Market, and Rubber City Clothing Co.

Spring 2024-ongoing

Want to support Love the Heights? Buy merch or commission a custom doodle illustraton that can be turned into something else like a t-shirt, logo, sticker, magnet or button. This funding model is inspired by Sojourner Truth’s practice of selling copies of her portrait to support her advocacy (“I sell the shadow to support the substance.”)

Summer 2024-ongoing

The project that started it all, I began blogging about my litter picking adventures, neighborhood explorations, local history, and Heights photographs on Facebook at Love the Heights - Goodyear Heights, Akron, OH. As it is a public page, it is viewable even without logging into Facebook. The Love the Heights blog is still very much active and includes shares of relevant Heights happenings as well as original content. After getting my first ipad for my birthday in 2023, my digital drawings and doodles now occasionally appear on the blog.

Spring 2021 - ongoing