2016 Highlights

Glass House Collective invites you, our partners, friends, and neighbors to celebrate the incredible events of 2016, our fifth year on Glass Street! We are proud and pleased to present our year-end highlights as we look ahead to what 2017 has in store.

– Glass House Collective hosted Glass Street LIVE, our annual block party with over 1,500 visitors throughout the day! We kicked off the day with the Wayne-O-Rama parade, explored Sherman Reservation with The National Parks rangers, danced to the music provided by Jazzanooga, watched the live mural paintings, covered a CPD squad car with bright water paints, watched skaters pull fancy tricks at the pop-up skate park, and enjoyed over 50 vendors and delicious local food trucks. Watch our official video footage from the day HERE!

– Wayne-O-Rama ignited a celebration of renowned artist Wayne White’s imagination, and we commissioned him to create giant puppets to march in our Glass Street LIVE parade. They depicted the Civil War Generals Sherman and Cleburne who faced off at nearby Sherman Reservation.

-We partnered with National Parks Service to feature our local 50-acre National Park, Sherman Reservation, shuttling guests up from Glass Street to the memorial battlefield as part of the National Parks Centennial Celebration, and to highlight our neighborhood’s open spaces.

– The former Glass House building has become headquarters for ArchWay on Glass: a venture to equip area youth with business skills through marketing and sales of local products.

– GHC’s How-To Guide and community process was featured prominently at the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum in New York as part of their ongoing series, By the People: Designing a Better America.

– The New York Times chose to lead its article about the Cooper Hewitt exhibit citing GHC’s work as its featured example of tactical urban design in action.

– Our Active Trails grant partnership enabled Nikki Lewis, community coordinator to lead 21 outdoor education field trips engaging over 200 area kids on campouts, canoeing trips, stargazing excursions and hikes on nearby trails, as well as using public transit (CARTA) to visit landmarks like Lookout Mountain’s Point Park. Shout out to Outdoor Chattanooga for the partnership!

– Usher Raymond made a special visit to Glass Street, choosing to feature Studio Everything and local artists and kids in his TNT documentary feature that aired over Thanksgiving this year as part of State Farm’s Neighborhood Sessions.

– We founded the Glass Farm Block Leaders, a new community leadership initiative coordinated by Glenwood neighborhood leader, Dr. Everlena Holmes. 15 Block Leaders currently serve as neighborhood point people to share information and welcome new residents.

– Habitat for Humanity’s Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative (NRI) has chosen us as an official partner and the Glass Farms Neighborhood as the impact area for their work improving private residences. Their partnership directly correlates with our Residential Improvement lens.

– GHC and NRI hosted a Neighborhood Beautification Blitz on June 5th, where 10 homeowners received landscaping and residential assistance in one day, with over 20 volunteers.

– Habitat’s NRI team and volunteers have surveyed 149 residents around the Glass Farms neighborhood since beginning their focus here in September 2016.

–  Habitat’s NRI team has completed renovation for 3 homeowners, and they are processing 4 viable applications from interested homeowners heading into 2017.

– We commissioned local artists 2$ON and Charlie Newton to create 90 ft. panels of original artwork now installed on either side of the formerly broken and vacant billboard at the Glass Street and Dodson Avenue intersection. This sign was one of our How-To Guide Phase II projects and creates an eye-catching gateway focal point for the neighborhood.

– Local artist Zachary Reynolds of Woodwise designed and coordinated the efforts of local youth to complete 6 tables and 12 chairs fabricated from inexpensive plywood. This How-To Guide’s “Portable Street Furniture” project then provided seating during the September Glass Street LIVE event.

-Under Chris Woodhull’s leadership, Build Me a World, a non-profit focused on mentoring Chattanooga’s at risk youth, now shares building space at 2501 Glass Street with our GHC offices, and hosts Wednesday “Alive and Free” support meetings.

– Empower Chattanooga continues to host free cost saving energy workshops and have held 10 meetings this year in conjunction with our GNN meetings.

– We’ve partnered with Empower and Love Fellowship church members to serve food and engage residents at our pop-up family movie nights series at Love Fellowship. There were 13 movie Nights in 2016 and 520 people attended over the course of a year.

– In partnership with Hardy Elementary, Glass House Collective, Studio Everything and Empower Chattanooga hosted a Back to School Bash to give students a kick-off to their new school year.

– We hired Nikki Lewis as our Community Coordinator, Whitni McDonald as our Communications Coordinator, and Tara Poole as our part-time Director of Operations and Development.

– Nikki Lewis attended 18 neighborhood association meetings and collected over 200 surveys to assess residents’ input about extending trail and park access. We combined their input with leadership from W.M. Whitaker Landscape Architects and Trust for Public Land (TPL) and the Southeast Conservation Corps (SECC) to the table as partners to create a master plan that will eventually connect with the South Chickamauga Greenway via Billy Goat Hill.

– GHC, SECC and TPL and Sierra Club completed the Pennsylvania Reservation connector trail from Glass Street to Sherman Reservation, a 50-acre National Park in Glass Street’s backyard.

– Our partners with the SECC also completed the Fitness Loop connector portion of the trail following an old rail bed that completes the trail loop linking the Pennsylvania Reservation trail to Awtry Street.

– We commissioned artist Geoffery Meldahl to design and fabricate temporary sculptural wayfinding signage for the new SECC trails. Meldahl completed the signs at Studio Everything (fulfilling another How-To Guide project goal), and they are now installed at both ends of the Pennsylvania and Sherman Reservation connector trail.

– Residents and youth partnered with Rondell Crier to design and fabricate two coordinated functional sculptures: the Atlas Ring bike rack and Icarus Wing bike repair station. As bike transport is a main way users make it out to the open studio afternoons on Tuesdays and Thursdays, this How-To Guide project is as practical as it is beautiful and educational.

– We coordinated a Juneteenth commemoration program up at Sherman Reservation, featuring poetry, speeches, and music in honor of the holiday to mark the official end of slavery in America.

– Local businesses received access to a much-requested practical resource: Portable sandwich board signage any group can use to advertise specials and announce active presence on the street. Part of our How-To Guide Phase II effort toward “quicker, cheaper, and lighter” solutions, the signs were built by contracted residents, using inexpensive materials, and came in particularly handy during the Glass Street LIVE party.

– 17 Glass Street youth participated in this year’s Mainx24 Parade as part of the Wayne-O-Rama float waving and making the puppets dance that they helped to create earlier this year for our Glass Street LIVE parade.

– As part of our public space and streetscape impact area, we have expanded our footprint to include the Dodson and Glass Street intersection, and are working with city partners to attract a Save A-Lot grocery store to the intersection, along with parking lot improvements.

– We invited Kevin Smith, Monty Bruell, Carlos Hampton, and Vanessa Jackson to join our Board of Directors.

– We celebrated our Executive Director, Teal Thibaud’s acceptance to National Arts Strategies Chief Executive Program hosted at Harvard University.

– We hosted two separate Collective Investment Tours where we shared a meal and invited interested community members to visit us on Glass Street, and plan ways to directly contribute their time and money toward our work.

– We joined the fun with Alex Gilliam of Public Workshop leading Avondale Rec. Center youth through the design build process in partnership with green|spaces and AIA.

– GHC supported this year’s National Night Out at East Chattanooga Rec Center, a fun, safety-oriented community festival with 300 local participants dancing, sharing school supplies, face painting, and serving hot dogs.

– We supported a Community led Halloween Party held at the Avondale Rec. Center ballfields, serving 750 East Chattanooga neighbors, with plenty of candy for the kids!

– This year’s Community Christmas Party was completely resident-led and initiated under the leadership of Katie McCallister through the Good Neighbor Network, with support from the Glass Farms Block Leaders and Mark Making for usage of their space.

This list keeps us motivated to continue exploring creative avenues to better connect and foster new life here on Glass Street. We’ve grown this year! With your ongoing support we hope to continue garnering national attention for our work, inviting everyone to the table, and collaborating to create a place where we can thrive.

Here because we love it here,

Teal Thibaud

Executive Director