Loving where you live: Volunteers pitch in to clean up east Plano neighborhood

Plano Mayor Phil Dyer wants residents to be proud of their neighborhood.

To show his support for the city's "Love Where You Live" program, the mayor recently grabbed a hedge trimmer and worked side-by-side with volunteers from Capital One in cleaning up a house in east Plano's Forman neighborhood. The house is just one of more than 100 that have received a facelift thanks to the program.

"The Love Where You Live initiative is a fantastic thing for our community," Dyer said Tuesday while taking a break from his yard work. "It is helping some people in our community that don't have the ability to maintain their own property."

Dyer said a neglected house can have an impact on an entire neighborhood, and many times neighbors will take better care of their homes after they see the work done by the Love Where You Live volunteers.

"We talk a lot about how we have to make sure our older neighborhoods don't deteriorate, and this is an example of how we can come together as a community," Dyer said. "This house didn't look good, but now it will look like the other houses in the neighborhood."

Christina Day, the city's community services manager, said the city works closely with local partners to ensure it has the volunteer hours renovation projects require. To date, the city has completed work on three neighborhoods, with work on Forman set to be completed later this year.

"Forman Elementary has been a critical partner in our work on this neighborhood," Day said. "We are having a neighborhood parade on Saturday to drum up support and have met with homeowners to get their feedback. There is both a physical and social component to the program. We try to connect people and make the neighborhood a safe and friendly place to live."

The work on the east Plano house included not only cleaning up bushes and flower beds, but also trimming trees and cleaning trash out of the backyard. The final piece of the project will be the removal of a dead maple tree that is threatening the roofs of both the homeowner as well as a neighbor. Professionals will be hired to do the tree-removal work because the tree has a 3-foot-diameter trunk and is located less than 20 feet from the house's back door.

The Love Where You Live program officially began three years ago, but its roots go back seven years when members of Chase Oaks Church began helping needy homeowners fix up properties that had received code violation tickets.

The church's congregation remains active in the program, and has been joined by members of more than a dozen other faith-based organizations, as well as volunteers from Habitat for Humanity and the local business community.

"We have a team of volunteers who go in and assess the homes and find out where the neediest homeowners live," said Jim McGuire, a lay leader at Chase Oaks who was involved in the initial stages of the project seven years ago. "We secure the volunteers and coordinate with the homeowner to do work on the house."

McGuire said while the houses look better after the work is done, the real impact of the program cannot be seen from the street.

"We are trying to build community," he said. "It is not about the event, it is about developing an attitude and a commitment to love your neighbor. To care about your house, the people living next door to you and your neighborhood. It is more than just painting houses; it is about having an impact on the attitudes of the people living in these neighborhoods."

For information on the program, visit the Planning Department homepage at plano.gov.

Current Rating: 2.7 of 3 votes!

Rate File: Select Rating: * ** *** ****

 Plano Apartments
 Plano Attorneys
 Plano Auto Dealers
 Plano Auto Parts
 Plano Auto Repair
 Plano Beauty Salons
 Plano Car Rental
 Plano Dentists
 Plano Doctors
 Plano Flowers
 Plano Hotels
 Plano Insurance
 Plano Loans
 Plano Mortgages
 Plano Movers
 Plano Pizza
 Plano Realtors
 Plano Restaurants
 Plano Storage
 Plano Tax Preparation
 Plano Travel
 Featured
 More...