Neighborhood cleanup and block party for University Park

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

Students from University Park Creative Arts Elementary School will craft a street mural April 5 at the intersection of Hildebrand Street and Maribel Avenue. The mural is part of a community cleanup and block party in the University Park neighborhood.

A long-neglected part of University Park is getting a makeover.

A neighborhood cleanup and block party will be held April 5 at 2400 Hildebrand St. as part of a placemaking initiative grant awarded to the Westside History Club by the city of Charlotte to beautify the traffic island next to Cedar Grove Cemetery. A $5,000 grant was approved in 2023 and the grants released in March.

The initiative starts at 9 a.m. with cleanup and street mural preparation followed by the block party from 12-4 p.m. The cleanup’s goal is to remove litter and debris from the area, which includes the elementary school as well as a bus stop for West Charlotte High School students.

“I’m pretty excited that it’s actually happening,” said club organizer Ché Abdullah, who runs an out-of-school arts program at University Park Creative Arts Elementary School. “The idea around the grant is to clear that right away and make it a safe school zone. There’s a lot of pedestrian traffic for the elementary school there in addition to being the bus stop for the West Charlotte High kids. Until we got sort of activated there, it was basically a trash dump.”

The mural will be conducted by UPCA students and supervised by alumnus Bunny Gregory, a Charlotte muralist.

“Bunny, in conjunction with the school, has worked with the kids in the art program to create, and they’re going to put the mural down,” Abdullah said. “Bunny’s worked with the art teacher and the kids to come up with a design that had to go through so many approval processes – it's been like a two-year process. … It’s a school-themed mural.”

Abdullah is looking to build collaborations between the club, “a youth group focused on exposing local history to children living in or interested in Charlotte’s West End” and community stakeholders as part of larger initiatives that include preservation and documentation of Cedar Grove Cemetery, a 1.8-acre burial site that borders UPCA.

The club partnered with local and national volunteers to refurbish the cemetery – founded in the 1880s, it’s one of Charlotte’s oldest Black burial grounds – and is looking to install a memorial to interred veterans.

“The proximity to Cedar Grove is significant here because the placemaking grant that we won is really kind of three parts,” Abdullah said. … “I hope that by getting this block party pulled off, people recognize what an incredible opportunity that’s for the community, and it doesn’t need to cost anyone in particular very much at all. Small contributions make this go a long, long way.”

To volunteer or donate, email [email protected].

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