Block Builders program aims to revitalize neighborhoods

ST. LOUIS – When Alandon Pitts looks out at what once was the Paideia Academy’s parking lot, he can’t help but think about how things once were in this College Hill neighborhood.

“If you look around, the story kind of tells itself,” Alandon Pitts told FOX 2 Wednesday.

The school, closed since 2015, is now covered in ivy, with neighboring lots and alleyways filled with trash and overgrown shrubs and trees.

“This is a prime area that needs to be revitalized,” Pitts explained.

Pitts taught at the school and is now back in College Hill to help with the Block Builders program to help clean up the area.

“College Hill was an area in which I grew my passion in education,” he said. “I learned about a difference I can make in this community. Being back over here for an event like this means the world to me.”

Block Builders is an extension of the Clean Up, Build Up campaign, a Regional Business Council initiative along with the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis. Thursday morning, about 200 volunteers from Ameren, Missouri American Water, Spire, and other local businesses will help clean up the area. On Saturday, another clean will be done at Peace Park, just a couple blocks away.

“We think this is a way to tell our stakeholders and to show our corporate partners that this is the path forward,” James Clark with the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis said. “If you want to lift St. Louis, you have to go all the way down to the neighborhood level.”

Pitts is hopeful to not only clean up but help redevelop the neighborhood as well.

“I grew up in this neighborhood and it’s time for a change,” he said.

There will be two more cleanups this year, in September and November. Clark said the Urban League gets calls every day asking for the program’s clean-up to come to their neighborhood, which serves St. Louis City, County and East St. Louis.

According to Clark, the campaign is data-driven. Overgrowth and abandonment of properties determine what’s next.

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