Last Saturday, July 23, Shaker LaunchHouse and Ohio Homecoming hosted the largest gathering of Ohio entrepreneurs and innovators of its kind at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum and the Great Lakes Science Center. The 6ixth City Tech Fest is designed to promote and celebrate the region's hottest entrepreneurs.

"We had 200 people and 26 of the fastest growing start-up companies," says Todd Goldstein, LaunchHouse partner in charge of finance and operations. "It was a really good makeup of entrepreneurs, investors, business leaders and people from the community."

In addition to the showcases, there were educational demos, new product launches, expert panels, keynote addresses and musical acts. "At any given time there were entrepreneurs giving pitch sessions in front of 120 people," says Goldstein. "It was just another way for us to help entrepreneurs from all over the region gain more exposure."

MobileXpeditions, a start-up in Dublin, Ohio, won a trip to Tech Week in Chicago and the opportunity to showcase their company this week.

"The whole idea of 6ixth City Tech Fest was to mix with the Chicago Tech Fest, but do it in Cleveland, Ohio," says Goldstein. MobileXpeditions was chosen as the winner by a panel of six judges who are involved in business incubators and other entrepreneurial organizations around Ohio.


Source: Todd Goldstein
Writer: Karin Connelly

MedWorks' first-ever vision-only clinic at Quicken Loans Arena last Wednesday proved to be quite successful. So much so that it also illustrated the need for more free or affordable vision care in the area.

"We served over 900 people with exams or glasses," says MedWorks office manager Alyson Andrassy. "We anticipated up to 800 people. We had to turn away 500 people."

Optometrists, opticians and ophthalmologists from all over Ohio volunteered their time, while the equipment for the eye exams was donated by Optics Inc. as well as Onesight. Patients had more than 2,000 donated frames from which to choose. Roughly 180 volunteers, from students to doctors, made the event happen.

MedWorks has been trying to accommodate the people who were turned away last week, as well as re-assure those who were seen by doctors but did not get their glasses that their specs will be delivered to them soon. "The phone has been ringing off the hook," says Andrassy. "For those who were not able to be seen, we're setting them up with our partner organizations to be seen as soon as possible."

For now, Andrassy is referring people to Vision USA, an organization run by the American Optometric Association that provides vision care to those who do not qualify for government aid or private insurance.

Given the success of the vision clinic, MedWorks hopes to organize future clinics, perhaps on a yearly basis.


Source: Alyson Andrassy
Writer: Karin Connelly

In American culture, automobiles have long symbolized personal freedom. But present-day bike advocates say the exact opposite is true: Rather than create a sense of giddy liberty, cars foster feelings of isolation and enclosure. For that reason and more -- environmental concerns, high gas prices, the desire for a healthier lifestyle -- more people are opting to go "car-light" and "car-free."

As a corporate attorney, Candace Klein has worked with a lot of women who own businesses. She saw many of her clients struggling to stay afloat -- maxing out personal credit cards and mixing personal and business accounts to make ends meet. "My heart went out to them," she recalls. She began researching alternative financing options and discovered a hard truth: Women have a harder time getting financing for companies than men.

So Klein decided to do something about it. In 2010, she formed her own company, Cincinnati-based Bad Girl Ventures. BGV is a localized microfinance company that educates women and helps them successfully fund their companies.

Since 2010, more than 200 businesses have applied for Klein's program, of those 125 have been educated and 18 have been financed with a total of $310,000. "Our goal is to remove as many barriers to accessing financing as possible," says Klein.

Now Klein is bringing Bad Girl Ventures to Cleveland. This October, entrepreneurs will be able to enroll in Klein's eight-week program to learn the basics behind running and financing a successful business. The participants will have the opportunity to compete for $25,000 in funding after completing the program.

Bad Girl Ventures will have one full time employee in its Cleveland location, while Klein will divide her time between Cincinnati and Cleveland. She hopes to have 50 applicants for the first class.

"Significant jobs will be created from our investment in these businesses," she says, adding that 37 jobs have been created in Cincinnati from the 18 companies she's helped.

Klein has gotten support from the Cleveland Foundation, the Business of Good Foundation, KeyBank and the City of Cleveland.

Source: Candace Klein
Writer: Karin Connelly

Gateway Animal Clinic, a Tremont pet hospital that is known for accepting four-legged patients regardless of their owners' ability to pay, has relocated to a new, larger facility across the street from its original Abbey Road location.

Gateway's old home was torn down this year to make way for the Innerbelt bridge project, which is now under construction. Although Dr. Brian Forsgren, who founded the clinic 12 years ago, scoured the city for prime real estate, he ultimately decided to move across the street.

"He felt very strongly about staying in the neighborhood, so we made it work," says architect Bob Vayda, who designed the new facility at 1819 Abbey Road.

The new building is twice as large as the old one, says Vayda, and can better accommodate the clinic's growth and the needs of the neighborhood. "They'd outgrown the old building years ago," he says. The new facility, which Vayda describes as "the old building on steroids," is about 8,000 square feet.

The clinic's new location presented an interesting set of design challenges, says Vayda. For one thing, the site is largely fill dirt, which means that it had to be regraded and stabilized before a structure could be built on it.

"Back when Cleveland had street sweepers, the city apparently dumped all of its crud on that lot," he says. "When we excavated, we found evidence of old buildings with dirt floors."

Now that the move is finally complete, Gateway's staff is thrilled. "There's more room to move around, and they can see more patients," says Vayda.


Source: Bob Vayda
Writer: Lee Chilcote

With months-long waiting lists for many downtown apartments, it's clear that Cleveland is attracting plenty of new residents. But some aren't "new" at all. Boomerangs, native Clevelanders who've left and returned, claim a host of reasons for their homecoming. What they often find upon arrival is a city far different from the one they left behind.

For more than a year, advocates of multi-modal transportation have lobbied the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) to add bike and pedestrian lanes to the new Innerbelt bridge. They lost that fight, yet ODOT agreed to fund a $6 million renovation of the Lorain-Carnegie bridge.

That project, scheduled to be completed next fall, will add a broad, multi-use path on the north side and narrow intersections so they can be crossed more easily. It will also narrow driving lanes from 12 to 11 feet to allow room for bikers, add 'sharrows' that let drivers know they're sharing the road, and install new bike route signs from W. 20th to Abbey Avenue. This once-dicey link to Tremont will be improved with five-foot-wide bike lanes and new, historic-style lighting.

Does this high-profile victory indicate that the bike advocacy community is becoming a political force with which to be reckoned? Marc Lefkowitz, web editor for GreenCityBlueLake at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, thinks so. "When people ask why it's important to have a bike and pedestrian advocacy group, point them to sustainable transportation advocates 'Access for All,' who negotiated a $6 million commitment from ODOT," he blogged recently.

Now, cyclists are building on this victory by forming a new organization, Bike Cleveland, to amplify their voice in Northeast Ohio. "Cleveland needs a single, strong advocacy organization that will bring the cycling community together," explains Jacob Van Sickle, Active Living Coordinator for Slavic Village Development, a regular bike commuter and one of the the group's organizers. To get cyclists involved, Bike Cleveland will hold a kick-off summit on September 10th and 11th at Windows on the River in the Flats.

Yet despite having wind at their backs, cyclists in Cleveland still have a ways to go, as evidenced by Cleveland's recent approval of casino developers' plans to demolish the Columbia building on lower Prospect Ave. It will be replaced with parking, an overhead pedestrian walkway and valet parking for gamblers.

Until recently, this section of Prospect was envisioned as a prime spot for bike- and pedestrian-friendly redevelopment -- plans that opponents of the demolition say were hastily scrapped to satisfy casino developers' demands.


Source: Jacob Van Sickle, Marc Lefkowitz
Writer: Lee Chilcote

When asked why he decided to open his custom-engraved baseball bat store, Johnnyville Slugger, on W. 25th Street in Ohio City, owner Johnny Smatana naturally employed a sports metaphor.

"If you go to the Yankees and bat .280, they'll hate you," he says. "If you go to a little place where you can do some good, they'll still like you."

Smatana, whose career includes a stint playing football for the Miami Hurricanes and 27 years moving freight for Estes Forwarding Worldwide, says he spent a month looking at different locations, but felt most at home here.

"There's so much happening here; Ohio City is the most up-and-coming part of the city," he says. "Also, this part of the street was in dire need."

The new Johnnyville Slugger -- which will include a glass-partitioned workshop in the rear of the store where customers can watch the bats being made -- is slated to open this month near the corner of Bridge and W. 25th.

Smatana, who made bats in his Sagamore Hills barn for three years before venturing out to look at storefronts, specializes in making bats that people display in their offices or homes. "They're more art than anything," he says.

Some of his favorite bats include the pearl-white Elvis slugger, studded with seven rhinestones, and the Troy Polamalu bat. "The key is putting your signature on it," he says. "The guys flip out over this stuff. I call them 'man sticks.'"

Smatana will make almost every part of the bats in his W. 25th St. shop. "I'm a cradle to grave guy -- we sand the bats, dip them, stain them and engrave them," he says. "People tell me what they want on the bats, and I do it."

Smatana, who discovered Ohio City when he and his wife began frequenting the restaurants there, is looking forward to making it his home away from home. As evidence of his commitment, he cites his unusual 30-year lease agreement.

"It's like a bacon and eggs breakfast," he quips. "The chickens are involved but the pig's committed."


Source: Johnny Smatana
Writer: Lee Chilcote

Over the past year, more than $48,000 has been invested in energy audits and "green" retrofits for merchants along Buckeye Road on Cleveland's East Side.

According to Deepa Vedavyas, Associate Director for Development at Buckeye Area Development Corporation (BADC), this is just the beginning. She hopes to see Buckeye Road merchants become the first "green-certified retail district" in Cleveland.

"We're using this as a learning opportunity, and encouraging them not to stop after the audit and retrofit," she says. "Energy-efficient businesses save on utility bills, which gives them an extra dollar to use towards marketing or expansion."

In all, 20 Buckeye Road merchants received energy audits, which assess the energy-efficiency of storefronts and determine cost-effective ways to help them save on their energy bills. Ten of these also received a $3,000 retrofit grant and participated in the Green Plus educational program. Green Plus is a national organization that is based at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and provides technical assistance and certification for retailers that go green.

The energy audits and retrofits were supported by a partnership with the Council of Smaller Enterprises (COSE) and funding from the Ohio Department of Energy (ODE). The Generation Foundation provided funding for the Green Plus program.

Buckeye businesses that completed audits also received $150 energy saver kits that included such items as LED exit lights, spray-in foam insulation and water-saving faucet aerators. Those that did retrofits have completed such tasks as adding insulation and sealing up air leakages at windows and doors.

Vedavyas plans to work with merchants to monitor their progress, evaluate their energy usage and see how much they save on utility bills over the next year.


Source: Deepa Vedavyas
Writer: Lee Chilcote

January of last year, a natural gas explosion ripped through a vacant house on W. 83rd Street in Cleveland, destroying the home, damaging 57 others, and displacing at least 15 families.

Ultimately, investigators determined that the devastating eruption was caused by a gas main that hadn't been shut off at the street. This prompted neighbors and city officials to wonder if many of Cleveland's vacant and abandoned homes aren't ticking time bombs, waiting to explode under the right conditions.

In the weeks and months following the incident, the Detroit Shoreway Community Development Organization (DSCDO) found homes for the displaced families and co-hosted a benefit that raised over $30,000. Yet the hazard of potential gas explosions and arson continue to loom large in Cleveland's neighborhoods.

Next Thursday, July 28th, a new art and architecture installation will be unveiled that is intended to be a creative, healing response to the incident. Dubbing it "urban therapy," area residents Richey Piiparinen and Melissa Daubert will create an art installation at a vacant home on W. 83rd, then deconstruct it and reuse parts of it to create a nearby community park and reading garden.

Piiparinen and Daubert, who have volunteered their time on this project, spent the past year raising funds, gathering neighbors' ideas about what "home" means to them, and tracing residents' silhouettes. During the 10-day installation, these ideas and silhouettes will be projected onto the windows of the home at 2040 W. 83rd, just a few doors down from the lot where the explosion occurred.

"There's a therapy component and an intervention component," explains Piiparinen. "We're transforming the dead symbol of this house into a sign of rebirth, and we're also creating a neighborhood asset inspired by the explosion."

Piiparinen and Daubert led a team of volunteer residents that included designer Jim Fish, architect Robert Donaldson, contractor Chris Shimp and electrician Julie Lindstrom. The new community park was funded by the West End Urbanteers Block Club, DSCDO, the city of Cleveland and Neighborhood Connections.

A public reception for the West 83rd Street Project will be held on July 28 beginning at 7:30 p.m.


Source: Richey Piiparinen
Writer: Lee Chilcote

It's been several years since I relocated from Florida to Cleveland. And truth is, I was hesitant to claim myself a queer in the Midwest, especially in Ohio, which earned a reputation for its lack of acceptance. What I discovered, however, was a gay oasis on the North Coast. Here, I have the option of frequenting the large variety of LGBT-owned businesses exclusively -- but I don't have to. To me, that's the most accurate meaning of the phrase "queer-friendly."

Some 300 young professionals and interns from 26 local businesses and organizations volunteered their time at this year's Business Volunteers Unlimited's (BVU) Summer of Service event on July 20. The number is a large increase from last year, when 199 volunteered. The volunteers planted urban gardens, organized medical donations for humanitarian aid shipments, painted shelters, interacted with seniors and more at 17 local nonprofit organizations.

BVU's mission is to link businesses and nonprofits to foster excellence in the nonprofit sector. Since 1993, BVU has connected 228 businesses to 439 nonprofits to complete over 1,600 service projects.

The idea is to help out the non-profits while also providing a social event.

"The event is great in different ways," says Nick Borchers, an intern at BVU's Volunteer Center. "Some of the things we were hearing from businesses is interns and young professionals really want to get involved in the community. A lot of the volunteer projects are geared toward leadership functions and team building skills."

The 2011 Deloitte Volunteer IMPACT Survey reports that more than 60 percent of young professionals factor a company's commitment to the community in making a choice between similar jobs.

The summer of service also provides a great networking opportunity. "It's an opportunity to meet with other people," Borchers says. "It's another way to connect with more people -- the organizations are looking at the interns and the interns get to see what the organization is really about."


Source: Nick Borchers
Writer: Karin Connelly

Cleveland Kings and Girls, a six-year-old outfit that performs regularly at Bounce Nightclub, features an eclectic troupe of performers that includes drag kings, drag queens, trans kings and bio-boys and girls. Fresh Water photographer Bob Perkoski takes us on a risk-free sneak peek. Consider your two-drink minimum waived.

Students from St. Martin dePorres High School in Cleveland are sprucing up their neighborhood. Thirty three students created 11 murals based on the cultural background and institutions in the St. Clair Superior neighborhood.

The murals were installed on Tuesday into vacant storefronts between East 60^th and East 64^th Streets as a way to liven up that section of St. Clair Avenue near the school, eliminating blight and creating interest in the corridor.

"It really came together well because the students really learned about the culture of the area, and that is reflected in the art," says Jamar Doyle, project and commercial development director for the St. Clair Superior Development Corporation. "We wanted to brighten up the area so it wouldn't look so drab."

The project was organized by St. Martin dePorres service coordinator Mary Grasla and art teacher Michelle Brickner. Funding came from a Cleveland Cityworks grant and support from DayGlo Color, which is based in the neighborhood.

The murals are portable, so they can move from one storefront to another as the vacancies are filled. At least one vacant storefront in the project has already been filled by a sandwich shop. Placement of the murals is up to the building owners.

The project was such a hit, the school is considering making it a yearly thing. "We may continue the project as a learning piece," says Doyle. "It was a lot of fun."

Source: Jamar Doyle
Writer: Karin Connelly