During the mid-2000s, local newspapers ran stories with evocative phrases like "quiet crisis" and "brain drain" in lamenting the flight of young, talented minds from Cleveland.

Bob Yanega saw those negative headlines, too, and decided he wanted to do something about it. Yanega, a self-professed "serial entrepreneur" with a background in commercial construction and real estate, is the creator of Choosing Success Programs, a Cleveland-centric advocacy project aimed at area high school students.

The program provides live, in-school presentations showing students how to connect with the opportunities right in their own backyard. The goal is to motivate youth to become passionate, lifelong residents of Northeast Ohio.

"Many kids don't have parents who expose them to what's great here," says Yanega, of Larchmere. "We need to sell Cleveland to young people."

Yanega has been giving Choosing Success talks at local high schools for the last 18 months. Along with providing students with tips on college and career choices, he also mixes in a "sales pitch" about Cleveland, pointing to the city's affordability, increasing job rate and wealth of cultural options.

Choosing Success, under the umbrella of its parent organization The 1990 Project, recently received a boost as one of the winners of The Cleveland Colectivo's fast- pitch presentation event. The program now has a chance to get some much-needed funding from the giving circle, and Yanega believes his brainchild is worth it.

"We're presenting facts about the city," Yanega says. "Keeping the next generation in town is a powerful, broad-based message."

 
SOURCE: Bob Yanega
WRITER: Douglas J. Guth

During a recent address at the City Club of Cleveland, Joel Ratner of Neighborhood Progress Inc. touted recent success stories that the nonprofit has invested in, including a new home for The Intergenerational School underway at the Saint Luke's campus.

Ratner believes that even though Cleveland has been hard hit by the foreclosure crisis, the city can stabilize its population and begin to grow again through promoting thoughtful, equitable, synergistic development that helps everyone succeed.

"For a long time, there was a debate over whether it makes sense to invest in people or place," said Ratner. "However, we believe it should be people and place."

Ratner cited Pittsburgh as an example of a city whose population has been right-sized and has even begun to grow again in recent years.

As examples of why community development matters, Ratner presented statistics showing that neighborhoods where NPI invested heavily over the past decade not only fell less steeply in the recession, but are also coming back more quickly than others. He also believes that every Cleveland neighborhood can be successful.

Ratner touted the recently-announced Slavic Village Reclaim Project, which leverages private investment by Safeco Properties and Forest City to help rehab 2,000+ properties on 440 acres, as one example of innovative best practices.

He also cited NPI's partnership with the Key Bank Financial Education Center to help low-income residents build wealth through savings and investment programs. Through a possible merger with Cleveland Neighborhood Development Coalition and LiveCleveland, Ratner hopes to begin serving additional neighborhoods.


Source: Joel Ratner
Writer: Lee Chilcote

Cuyahoga County residents have picked which two large-scale projects will get funding through the Cuyahoga Arts & Culture (CAC) Creative Culture Grants competition.

* Dancing Wheels received $130,421 for a television documentary that will expand on the dance company's performance of the multi-media ballet, Dumbo. The film will explore issues of bullying and social injustice using the life stories of artists and community figures.

* LAND studio was awarded $150,000 to fund a multi-faceted light installation illuminating public spaces in downtown Cleveland.

Both projects were selected by 6,500 county residents in a public voting process held February 1-20. The winning arts programs, scheduled for completion in 2014, were chosen from a list of six finalists selected by an independent panel of arts and culture experts.

Officials from competition sponsor CAC were pleased by the voter turnout, and believe the winning projects will engage the region in creative ways.

"All six finalists had a different spin on how to connect arts and culture to the community," says CAC executive director Karen Gahl-Mills. "The two winners did a great job of reaching out to the general public."

CAC's pilot voting program revealed just how much creativity exists in the area, Gahl-Mills maintains. "It was delightful to see it come forward in new, exciting ways," she says.

The nonprofit is now assessing the program for possible future iterations. Gahl-Mills is not certain CAC will put on an annual public vote, but she can certainly envision county residents stuffing the ballot boxes for future arts projects.

"It's a great investment of public dollars," she says. "It isn't just the organizations that win; the community wins, too."

 
SOURCE: Karen Gahl-Mills
WRITER: Douglas J. Guth

Last summer, the Near West Recreation League's t-ball league was a hit for Cleveland kids. Organizers believe a recently debuted bowling league will play a similarly big "roll" in the health of a community that didn't have much in the way of organized sports.

The bowling program, open to 70-plus youngsters between the ages of 6 and 10, launched February 16 at Corner Alley in downtown Cleveland. The league is part of a two-year partnership between Ohio Savings Bank and Ohio City Inc. to support recreation activities on the Near West Side. Downtown Cleveland Alliance is also a partner in the new program.

The bowling league was created for children from Tremont, Detroit Shoreway and other West Side enclaves, although similar to the t-ball league, kids have been coming from other parts of the city to participate.

"Sports are a great way of bringing people together at a young age," says Eric Wobser, executive director of Ohio City Inc.

They're also a method of keeping people in the neighborhood, maintain the rec league's leaders. Retaining young families in the 25- to 34-age group has been problematic for Ohio City and downtown. Sports can be another amenity that grows a neighborhood population, while also integrating a community of diverse backgrounds.

"It's improving the quality of life," Wobser says.

If the bowling league proves successful, the rec league will add other sports throughout the year. Plans for the remainder of 2013 include youth-oriented baseball, soccer and basketball. The league may "age up" as well, from young kids all the way to junior high students.

"We've struck a chord with the community," says Wobser.
 
 
SOURCE: Eric Wobser
WRITER: Douglas J. Guth

Two Cleveland families with deep Irish roots have teamed up to open an Irish bar and concert venue in Kamm's Corners. They say that Paddyrock Superpub will live up to its name, offering a range of live music, live sporting events on big-screen TVs and a full menu.

"What we're doing is original for a neighborhood bar on the west side, because there are no other concert-type venues like this one," says Sheila Sheehan, who opened Paddyrock with her husband Jimmy and West Park native Danny Riley and his family. "We love Irish music. We're excited to showcase the music."

But it won't just be Irish music, says Sheehan, who describes the style of bands as "just fun." They include country, lounge, and, soon, polka. Paddyrock is a large venue with two levels, including a sizeable bar area and a stage for live music.

Other amenities include a 15-foot high-definition superscreen for games, and an upper level with pool tables, dart boards and a balcony overlooking the stage.

Sheehan, who has owned two other West Park bars and lived in the neighborhood for over two decades before recently moving to North Ridgeville, says there's no interesting story behind the location. "They offered it to me and I said yes," she says of the former Stir Niteclub space.

Yet she lights up when talking about the Wolf Tones, an Irish band that is stopping by on Sunday night as part of their American tour. "They're legendary," says Sheehan excitedly. "We've been getting great crowds for the music."

Sheehan is also excited about the direction West Park is taking. "When I first moved here forever ago, the community businesses were good but they were closing up," she says. "Recently, it's become more of an entertainment district."

"This is one of the last communities where families really know each other," she continues. "It's all non-corporate businesses, actual mom-and-pops. There are deep community roots here, and we all stick together and help each other out."

If you stop by, there's a good chance you'll bump into a member of the Riley or Sheehan family -- many of them work here. It's a West Park tradition, after all.

Paddyrock Superpub is located at 16700 Lorain Avenue.


Source: Sheila Sheehan
Writer: Lee Chilcote

For a number of years at the tail end of the 20th century, Greater Cleveland's public and private leaders attempted to pull the city up through ambitious marketing campaigns. For awhile it seemed to work. The national media began referring to Cleveland as the "Comeback City" in conjunction with the grand openings of ambitious projects like Tower City Center, Jacobs Field and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.
 
But toward the end of the '90s a strange thing happened: The city, for all intents and purposes, stopped marketing itself.
 
Why?
 
"We began to believe our own press," says Rick Batyko, president of the Regional Marketing Alliance of Northeast Ohio, which conducts the Cleveland Plus campaign. And civic officials "moved on to other tasks and defunded marketing."
 
In essence, Northeast Ohio stopped telling its tale with the tale barely begun -- a rather large mistake in retrospect. "The underlying economy wasn't doing that well," Batyko says. "That's something you couldn't see in the skyline shots."
 
During the mid-2000s, the region's narrative thread was picked up by Cleveland Plus campaign. Established in 2005 -- with founding members that included Greater Cleveland Partnership, Positively Cleveland and Team NEO -- the organization champions Northeast Ohio as a culturally rich, yet affordable place to live.
 
Read the rest of the story here.

Within the past five years, the Kamm's Corners commercial district at Lorain Avenue and Rocky River Drive has transformed itself. This once-faded stretch of Irish bars and half-empty storefronts has become a diverse foodie destination, where you can as easily order a gourmet burrito as a pint o' Guinness.

The presence of restaurants like the recently opened Thai Elephant have created a buzzed-about cuisine scene that's a far cry from the West Park of recent memory.

"It's really an exciting time to be a part of the Kamm's Corners commercial area," says Cindy Janis, Commercial Development Manager with Kamm's Corners Development Corporation. "I get calls quite frequently from businesses looking for new space in the area."

Thai Elephant, which opened in January, is the latest addition. Sirima Krabnoic, the Thailand native who also owns Thai Chili restaurant in Avon Lake, renovated a long-empty former Chinese restaurant at 16610 Lorain into a comfortable, colorful eatery with beautiful hand-woven Thai tapestries on the walls.

"We wanted to expand our business, and we thought that Kamm's Corners was not a bad area for a second location," says Krabnoic. "It's authentic Thai food."

Thai Elephant is open for lunch and dinner seven days per week. Most dishes range from $6 to $13, and the menu has an extensive list of traditional dishes.

Soon, the restaurant will be installing a striking new sign -- hint: It has an elephant in it -- with the help of the City of Cleveland's Storefront Renovation Program.

"They're a wonderful new addition to the neighborhood," adds Janis.

Among other new or recent openings on Lorain, Janis cites the Jasmine Bakery, Olive and Grape, Kamm's Closet and Cafe Falafel (slated to open in two weeks).


Source: Cindy Janis
Writer: Lee Chilcote

Back in 2011, Fresh Water ran a feature about Ohio's newly instituted Film Production Tax Credit, which helped attract big-budget productions like "The Avengers" and "Alex Cross," plus smaller films like "Take Shelter" and "Fun Size." We decided to revisit the topic to see how it's working out for Cleveland, and Ohio.

The health of Lake Erie has come a long way in the past 40 years, and it is now considered by many to be a case study of a recovering ecosystem. Yet not very many people know that, in part as a result of cleaning up our water pollution as well as our close proximity to a Great Lake, Northeast Ohio companies have developed rich expertise in water technology.

To leverage this cluster, influence policy, and conduct research and education, a group of organizations have launched The Alliance for our Water Future, a new nonprofit organization that seeks to spur innovative solutions to freshwater issues locally and globally.

"Silicon Valley is an example of what one industry cluster can do for a region," says Byron Clayton, Vice President at NorTech. "Companies all worked together in that region to leverage their strengths. In Northeast Ohio, we have a great legacy in cleaning up industrial waste water. We identified areas where we have the best chance of competing, and that's been the focus of our water technology cluster."

The areas that NorTech identified are automation and controls (identifying the best, most efficient way to control water), absorbents (extracting contaminants from water) and corrosion resistance (preventing water systems from corroding).

NorTech's role is to identify, organize and accelerate clusters. The Alliance will help promote this success story and spur cross-sector collaboration. By working together, the groups involved in the Alliance hope to make a global impact.

"This is about the economic future of our region," says Fran DiDonato, Program Manager of the Alliance. "If we can show that we had success with cleaning water, then that gives us credibility when we export our solutions to other places."

Two Northeast Ohio companies, MAR Systems and ABSMaterials, were recently selected by the Artemis Project as 2012 Top 50 Water Companies. Rockwell Automation is also considered a major player in the water technology field.

The founding members of the Alliance are NorTech, Case Western Reserve University, Port of Cleveland, Cleveland Metroparks, Cleveland State University, Hiram College, Great Lakes Science Center, Kent State University, MAR Systems and Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District.


Source: Byron Clayton, Fran DiDonato
Writer: Lee Chilcote

Each year in Cuyahoga County, 20 fortunate artists are awarded $20,000 Creative Workforce Fellowship grants to pursue their art, which often takes a back seat to more pressing needs. The fellowships also help to brand the region to outsiders as an artist-friendly place to live.

Recent transplants to Cleveland arriving from so-called "big-ticket" metropolitan markets say that they are experiencing appreciable cost savings in terms of housing, transportation, entertainment and food. And that translates to a better standard of life with little lost in terms of quantity and quality of offerings.

It's crunch time, folks! In less than three weeks, the 2012 holiday season will be a memory. We feel your pain. To help, we've stitched together a provocative assortment of gift ideas that should knock out your list in no time flat. This year, keep it fresh, keep it tasty, keep it local.

A school garden is a real, living world, a type of lab that offers teachers a way to embed creativity, collaboration and love for nature into their curriculum, believes Carlton Jackson, a farmer, self-described "food evangelist" and proprietor of Tunnel Vision Hoops, a provider of hoop houses that allow for year-round food production.
 
The Cleveland-based company is offering Cuyahoga County public school students grades K-8 a chance to win a hoop house for their school. The Gardens that Teach contest, which runs through February, asks students a series of questions about the preparation, construction and maintenance of a theoretical school garden. Answers will be reviewed by a panel of experts from the realms of food policy, botany and community gardening.
 
The winning school will receive the greenhouse-like hoop house, while the other participants will learn about the benefits of plants, year-round gardening and healthy eating, says Jackson. "We wanted kids to use their math skills," he adds. For example, "how many pounds of tomatoes can they get? What will the do with the food once it's grown?"
 
Hoop houses provide a high-temperature environment that protects crops from strong winds, cold and frost, allowing fruits and vegetables to grow during gardening's so-called "off-season," Jackson says.
 
The concept also is in line with the city's Sustainable Cleveland 2019 project, a movement that in part aims to increase the percentage of locally produced food. Mayor Frank Jackson also proclaimed October 24 to be Food Day, a national venture with the overriding objective of "eating real" and promoting healthy diets among the population.
 
The Gardens That Teach contest is certainly a nourishing exercise for Northeast Ohio's young students, says Jackson.
 
"There's a wonderment in watching something grow," he says. "If we can kids back to that, it would be a beautiful thing."
 

SOURCE: Carlton Jackson
WRITER: Douglas J. Guth

A parent can cover their child's eyes when there is violence on television, but who will do that for a child when they're exposed to real-life trauma? That is the question United Way is answering with its 2-1-1 community access line, a 24-hour help number that's part of Cuyahoga County’s Defending Childhood initiative.

United States Attorney General Eric Holder and Cuyahoga County Executive Edward FitzGerald hosted a news conference September 28 at Martin Luther King Jr. High School to announce a $2 million Justice Department grant that will aid Defending Childhood programs including the community access line.

The phone line is manned by United Way staff members. These trained staffers determine if Defending Childhood services can help a child who has witnessed violence or experienced trauma. Diagnosing and treating children who have lived through violence can be a significant step in helping them avoid trouble later in life, says Stephen Wertheim, president/CEO of United Way.

 "The trauma a kid goes through can impact their function in society," Wertheim says. "We're trying to get to these problems at the root."

While at the high school event, Holder participated in a round-table discussion with students and teachers. He later met with a group of law enforcement officers and social workers that were also on hand.

The impact of violence on children has reached "national crisis" proportions, Holder told the audience during the Sept. 28 conference. Assessing and screening the young people victimized by violence must take precedence over merely prosecuting those perpetrating the trauma.

Studies have shown how post-traumatic stress can negatively effect children, says FitzGerald. 

"If a child witnesses horrific acts of violence, they're more likely to be involved in the justice system themselves," says the county executive. Through a preventative measure like the 2-1-1 help line, "the idea is to increase public safety rather than just incarcerating everyone."

 
SOURCE: Stephen Wertheim, Ed FitzGerald
WRITER: Douglas J. Guth

The way Beachland Ballroom owner Cindy Barber sees it, Cleveland's music glory days are far from over. Yet our music scene could use some better amplification. That's why Barber has created a new nonprofit, Cleveland Rocks: Past, Present and Future, to preserve the legacy of the city's rock-and-roll history while also promoting and shaping its future.

"The past is the legacy project of capturing Cleveland music history, the present is documenting what's happening now, and the future is figuring out what we need to do to grow it," says Barber. "There's already a huge amount of music business here. We need to take stock of what we have and what we're missing."

Barber cites music business startups like Gotta Groove Records, Fortune Drums, Audio Technica and Dr. Z Amplification as success stories. She also wants to highlight the local bands that are touring and getting signed nationally.

"The plan is to create a website to highlight the bands that are getting attention," she says. "If they're out touring the world, they can bring that energy back to share with other people in Cleveland and grow the music business here."

To kick off the project, Barber and others are organizing a series of live interviews with local legends that played a role in Cleveland music history. The first event is scheduled to place on Saturday, November 3rd at 1 p.m. at the Beachland Ballroom. Tickets cost $15 and include lunch and the opportunity to participate as Larry Bruner, former booking manager for the 1960s folk music venue La Cav, is interviewed by Steve Traina, DJ for the WCSB radio show "Steve's Folk."

Future plans include working with the Rock Hall to preserve oral histories and promote live music, helping musicians identify investment sources for growing their bands or recording albums, and marketing the music industry here.

"All the clubs that came together as part of the Cleveland Music Coalition [to challenge the city's admissions tax] are part of this," says Barber. "We want to use the nonprofit to support what they're doing to create live music in Cleveland."


Source: Cindy Barber
Writer: Lee Chilcote