Making a difference
Dreamers Company wraps up annual Mission Washington
From mulching to cleaning out flooded basements, nearly 100 young people fanned out across Washington last month to beautify, rehabilitate and brighten the city’s neighborhoods and parks.
The members of Dreamers Company Inc. of Washington were participating in Mission Washington, held each year in June. The volunteers are mostly middle school and high school students from Washington County school districts, including Trinity, Canon-McMillan, Chartiers-Houston, Washington and McGuffey,
“It’s almost like a mission trip in Washington,” said Jessica Ashmore, site leader. “The amount of young people that we have involved is absolutely amazing. It shows the love these kids have for their community. We want to foster that love to more and more kids. The more you love your community, the more you’re going to want to help it.”
Aaron Miller, director of Dreamers Company, was pleased with the youths’ efforts during Mission Washington.
“They’re the best,” he said. “We help the students learn different skills and where we can we put them with professional tradespeople to learn a trade. It’s just a really remarkable group of kids. It’s made a huge difference in our community. I’m really proud of their work. It was a great week.”
Dreamers Company is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the revitalization of Washington’s residential and commercial real estate inventory.
“We’re helping to address the issues of blight and community spaces and green spaces,” Miller said. “We work very closely with the city of Washington on their overarching plans for the community. We’ve been working particularly with the parks department on the playgrounds to make sure they’re safe and viable spaces for the community. We also address blight for the elderly, disabled or veterans with housing situations that may be as simple as planting new shrubbery to painting porches. We’re just trying to ease the burdens that might be on people’s hearts. When we can, we’re out there trying to make a difference.”
During Mission Washington, volunteers were in the community each day from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. volunteering at the Seventh and Eighth Wards, Park and Dewey and Washington parks, beautifying the 400 block of Allison Avenue, completing yard work and helping homeowners affected by flooding earlier in June. The students stayed at Washington & Jefferson College for the week.
“We did community projects that either focused on one house or a block, as well as the parks,” Ashmore said. “Our main thing was to make sure the parks are a fun and safe place for kids because that’s the future of Washington.”
Dreamers volunteers cleaned out the basement of Sandy Rogers, whose Campbell Avenue home was hit with flooding.
“I think the kids had a ball here cleaning up,” Rogers said. “I am so thankful for it. It’s a wonderful volunteer program. They took so much stuff out. They tried to salvage what they could.”
The Dreamers Company will continue to provide assistance in the months ahead.
Miller said one Saturday is set aside each month from March through October to perform similar tasks. The next scheduled day for work is July 19.
“We’ll be going back to some of the playgrounds,” Miller said. “There’s some trees to trim. We’re going to be in the community to wrap up a few different projects.”
Anyone interested in joining Dreamers Company can message the group through its Facebook page or Instagram.