The Renaissance Park Community Association is cleaning up West Main Street in Peoria. Check out how you can help the organization continuously improve this diverse Peoria neighborhood.
Peoria Looking to Clean Up One Volunteer Group at a Time
*Photos provided by Jessica McGhee*
By: KELLY SHEEHAN
PEORIA, Ill. — Although this winter has torn apart most of Main Street, businesses in West Peoria are focused on bringing the beauty back to their block.
The Renaissance Park Community Association has been working hard to bring together their business district and clean up the area for the past four years. The organization has just received a large grant and saw this as an opportunity to make their voluntary group more official.
Founding member of Renaissance Park Community Association Jessica McGhee is very excited about the grant.
“We have been around for four years,” McGhee said. “But we’ve never been super organized. We decided this year we would make it more official and we’re currently working on our bylaws.”
The Renaissance Park Community Association has recently established 10 official members. These are the businesses that are promoted on their website and continue to give to this organization: Broken Tree Coffee, The Art Garage, Pitch Karaoke Bar, Mr. G’s, Hey Lola, Epiphany Anglican Mission, Blue and One World.
Until this point, the organization has run on a completely voluntary basis. The area has experienced problems with trash cleanup and frequent criminal activity.
“My husband and I own Blue,” McGhee said. “We realized we were in the middle of a lot of trash. We wanted to promote safety and help bring pride to Main Street.”
Essentially, in the warmer months (April-November), the group meets on the first Sunday of the month at Blue. From there, the group travels around the area doing things like cleaning up glass, building garden beds and painting buildings.
“We also adopted a community garden, just across the street from Blue,” McGhee said. “We are looking to expand our organization, but it’s important that we also have boundaries.”
McGhee and other members plan to get businesses all the way to University Street involved in their efforts to bring life back to the community.
Leaves N’ Beans is one of the businesses that the association looks to pursue. Kate Simmons, manager of the coffee shop on Bourland and Main Street, likes that this group is getting more support.
“I’ve always been very concerned about this area, with it being so close to Bradley,” Simmons said. “A lot of my staff is Bradley students, and I know cleaning up this area will give them more room to spread across the city. Also, my staff could get involved and that would possibly spread student involvement in the clean-up process. I’m excited to see where this goes.”
The Renaissance Park Community Association has big plans to continue improvements of the West Peoria section of Main Street. They welcome businesses that are corned to Main Street as well. Further information will be provided as the bylaws become finalized.
“It’s important that we make Main Street a beautiful place,” McGhee said. “The goal is to make it a source of pride for the city.”
Explore this map to check out all the local businesses in the association.