Fresh Water photographer Bob Perkoski documents the entire Lottery League experience -- from draft night through debut performance. Through a complex process, some 200 musicians are assembled into 42 bands, which then write music, practice, and perform before a live audience. Enjoy the show!

For some, the term "Rust Belt" conjures unpleasant images of empty factories, foreclosed homes and unhappy people wandering cracked streets, wondering when times will get better. But what's really happening in some of the Midwest's major cities, and how different is it from the way these cities are often depicted?

Jack Storey thinks he has an answer. The impassioned city advocate has created a documentary chronicling what he believes is a more accurate representation of resilient cities working on reinventing themselves.

"Red, White & Blueprints" is an examination of the strides being taken by Cleveland, St. Louis, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Buffalo and Youngstown, highlighting the most innovative initiatives, individuals and ideas coming out of these cities.

"It's a positive movie about the Rust Belt, which nobody is really doing," says Storey, 30. "We're showcasing another side of these cities."

Storey, founder of the grassroots community development organization Saving Cities, spent two weeks in the summer of 2011 traveling and taking footage with friend Rick Stockburger. He met steelworkers and autoworkers, entrepreneurs and politicians, all with their own ideas on how to boost their respective homes. Locally, he interviewed figures including Gina Prodan from Unmiserable Cleveland and Katie O'Keefe, better known as "the pink-haired tattoo girl."

Storey, of Collinwood, learned just how tough Midwesterners are. More surprising was how deeply the people he met cared about their city's livelihood. "It was the most educational experience of my life," he says.

"Red, White & Blueprints" debuted this week at Cleveland International Film Festival. (Screens tonight at 6:30 p.m. on stand-by.) Storey hopes the film gives viewers a truer vision of what it means to live in Cleveland and other less heralded parts of the country.
 
 
SOURCE: Jack Storey
WRITER: Douglas J. Guth

As the owner of a small consulting firm, James Gasparatos knows all too well the struggles of running a small business, including promoting the company and finding the right talent among other things. The challenges gave Gasparatos the idea to start Gigfinity, an interactive website designed to help small and mid-size Cleveland businesses connect with customers, promote their companies and find local talent. The site also allows job seekers to peruse and apply for jobs with Gigfinity businesses.

“Gigfinity is a social commerce site focused on marketing and hiring for small businesses,” explains Gasparatos. "My business partner, Eric McGarvey, and I were running our own small consulting companies when we had this idea a few years ago. We saw a gap where there were a lot of opportunities here for both small businesses and for job seekers. We connect them.”
 
Small businesses can post their profiles on Gigfinity -- free of charge -- detailing their services, job openings and even work samples. The businesses only pay a fee if they fill a job or get customers from their listings on Gigfinity.
 
“We only want them to pay if there’s something of value for them,” says Gasparatos. “Here, people who are looking at your profile most likely need your service.” Additionally, Gigfinity is offering small businesses a free credit for signing up on the site. Simply put in offer code “G1000” to get the free credit when signing up.
 
Service seekers can search the database for companies that fulfill their needs. And job seekers, or “gig seekers” can search for open positions or post their resumes and profiles.
 
It’s all about keeping it local and supporting the little guy, says Gasparatos. The site, which officially launched in the beginning of 2013, already has more than 60 small business listings and around 10 open jobs.
 
Gasparatos plans to team up with local high school and colleges in the area to attract and retain new talent to the growing small businesses. “Nothing brings everyone together as a region like small businesses and jobs,” he says.
 

Source: James Gasparatos
Writer: Karin Connelly

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

A team of Cleveland Clinic researchers have found that regular screening for Lynch Syndrome, the top genetic cause of adult colon cancer, can significantly reduce the occurrence of subsequent cancers. Researchers screened all colorectal cancers surgically removed at the Clinic for Lynch Syndrome and referred those who tested positive to genetic counselors.

Lynch Syndrome affects patients at an early age and often leads to multiple colorectal cancers. Women are additionally more susceptible to uterine and ovarian cancers. By identifying the disease early, people with Lynch and their families can work with their doctors and counselors to keep an eye on signs of early cancers.
 
The research was led by Charis Eng, Hardis Chair and founding director of the Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute’s Genomic Medicine Institute. The findings were published in the online Journal of Clinical Oncology.

“This paper shows successful implementation of a rapid, cost-effective system-wide screening to detect potential Lynch syndrome,” says Eng. “Because of this research, we know how to catch these things early and how to prevent them. If you are positive for Lynch, cancer can occur as young as age 25 and you should get a colon screening every year, and women should also get uterine screenings.”
 
Eng says patients with Lynch Syndrome can then weigh the surgical options when they are diagnosed with colon cancer. Patients may opt to have the entire colon removed, and women may opt to have the uterus and ovaries removed as well, to prevent future cancers.
 
“Instituting high risk surveillance early routinely saves lives,” Eng says. "It is an extreme challenge to bring genomics research to successful implementation in genomic medicine practices,” says Eng. “Here, we have achieved 100 percent successful implementation of universal Lynch syndrome screening.”

 
Source: Charis Eng
Writer: Karin Connelly

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

Imagine having an online resource with the information needed to custom design your own career path. That’s what the UNCOMN.TV does. This project identifies what employers need in employees, what educators need to be teaching students, and what students need to be doing to snag jobs -- thus helping to turn brain drain into brain gain.

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

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.

If Northeast Ohio has a digital divide, then Cleveland-based nonprofit broadband provider OneCommunity wants to lay down enough fiber-optic cable to successfully bridge the gap.

The divide is particularly wide in Cleveland's poorer neighborhoods, says OneCommunity CEO Brett Lindsey. In response, his organization created the Connect Your Community Project (CYC). Since 2010, CYC has provided broadband training, equipment and support for nearly 8,000 Cleveland and East Cleveland residents. The group's work is supported through a $18.7 million grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP).

The organization's new adopters receive a refurbished computer at no cost after matriculating through the training program. They also have the opportunity to receive a free modem and affordable, high-speed home Internet service.

In modern society, everything from job postings to health care information is online, notes Lindsey. The idea is not to give Cleveland's underserved access to solitaire or funny YouTube videos, but an electronic education that will allow them to look up information on their child's school system or connect with far flung family members.

"The haves and have nots in terms of technology are significant," says Lindsey. "This is a way to get people engaged."

OneCommunity is also bringing "digital literacy" to Cleveland families with young people on track for college entry but not currently connected to broadband. Computer training and access can go far in spurring parental engagement in a student's post-high school academic career, Lindsey believes.

So far, so good, says the OneCommunity CEO. In its initial CYC data, 75 percent of parents surveyed used their home broadband connection to communicate with their child's teachers and administrators.

"We have to continue to ensure that people don't get left behind," says Lindsey.

 
SOURCE: Brett Lindsey
WRITER: Douglas J. Guth

Education is on the forefront of Cleveland's transformation plans. The city is aiming to reform its troubled school system as well as increase the number of youth attending and graduating from college.

Cleveland Public Library (CPL) had Cleveland's goals in mind when planning its African American History Month programming for this year. Throughout February, the library will offer a variety of education- and educator-focused programming, music and events at its main facility and branch locations. 

"We try to focus on topics that resonate with the community," says CPL programming director Aaron Mason. "Education is the topic of the day."

Featured programs and events include:

* A showcase of student-produced music and videos created by Cleveland’s youth through the efforts of Reading R.A.M.M. (Recording Arts Music Media) founder Edward “Phatty” Banks. The February 9 event at the main library is designed to connect area children with reading and education through use of pop-culture-style music and media.

* A performance by Ralph Miles Jones and Baba Issa Abramaleem, otherwise known as "The Seekers of Truth Revolutionary Ensemble." Jones is a multi-instrumentalist and recording artist from Oberlin College. Abramaleem is a composer, visual artist, playwright and percussionist-guitarist. The duo plays CPL's Rice Branch on February 15.

* A free screening of the documentary "PUSH: Madison vs. Madison" on February 22 at the Martin Luther King, Jr. branch. The film covers the trials of a talented but dysfunctional high school basketball team.

This year's round of African American History Month programming is meant to look ahead rather than back at history, notes Mason.

"The library should be a place of learning and engagement," he says. "It's about exposing people to new ideas."
 
 
SOURCE: Aaron Mason
WRITER: Douglas J. Guth

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.

In 2012, Northeast Ohio was a popular place for venture capitalists and angel investors to back startup companies. Investments nationally decreased by 10 percent last year, and decreased in the rest of Ohio by 33 percent, according to a study in The MoneyTree Report by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association.
 
But in Northeast Ohio, according to the Northeast Ohio Venture Capital Advisory Task Force, 105 tech-based companies in Greater Cleveland raised $201 million from venture capitalists and angel investors -- a 34-percent increase over the amount raised by companies in 2011.
 
“We’ve been on an upward trajectory of the number of companies that have been able to raise money,” says Samantha Fryberger, vice president of marketing for JumpStart. “There’s a strong angel community here and our angels are well organized and well educated.”
 
In fact, Northeast Ohio has the first and fifth largest angel funds in the country. Fryberger says the diversity of businesses and the number of support organizations attract investors to Northeast Ohio. 
 
“We have a very robust early-stage investment ecosystem right here in Northeast Ohio,” says Clay Rankin, managing member of the North Coast Angel Fund, which invests in life sciences companies and is the country’s fifth largest angel group. “We’ve been building a lot of momentum in the last six to eight years. We’ve been very fortunate in supporting early stage ventures.”
 
Citing successful companies like Juventas Therapeutics, Cleveland HeartLab and Neuros Medical, Rankin says it’s no wonder Cleveland is growing in investments. “There really are world class companies being developed right here in our backyard,” he says. “When you have world class companies, you attract support from angel groups.”

 
Source: Samantha Fryberger and Clay Rankin
Writer: Karin Connelly

Arts and culture can define a community, creating a critical mass that translates into jobs, business opportunities and, ideally, sustained economic prosperity. These were the words of Northeast Ohio Sustainable Communities Consortium Initiative (NEOSCC) director Hunter Morrison during a January 25 roundtable hosted by the Community Partnership for Arts and Culture (CPAC).

These also are words that CPAC president and CEO Tom Schorgl likes to hear. The focus of the roundtable event was sustainability, and how the arts and culture community can assist the region as it evolves through population and land use shifts. The local arts sector becoming engaged in these issues can help keep Northeast Ohio resilient, vibrant and sustainable, said Morrison, a notion that the CPAC president shares.

"We have cultural clusters throughout the region, and the ability to communicate on a larger basis with the population about those clusters," says Schorgl. "We need to continue to reach our audience."

The roundtable, which drew over 50 attendees to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History's main gallery, was CPAC's first such event of the year. The nonprofit will sponsor similar forums through November, with an overall aim of connecting the arts and culture realm with professionals from sectors including community development and health and human services. Past roundtable speakers have included Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald, Cleveland Metropolitan School District CEO Eric Gordon, and City of Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson.

"The idea is to provide a forum for new ideas around a common cause," Schorgl says.

 
SOURCE: Tom Schorgl
WRITER: Douglas J. Guth