Accomplishments
Lawrence CommunityWorks
Since its rebirth in 1999, Lawrence CommunityWorks has emerged as a powerful vehicle for community revitalization in Lawrence. Some of our key accomplishments include:
  • A growing network of almost 4,000 members committed to Lawrence’s revitalization, many of whom volunteer in everything from community outreach to youth development.
  • Completion of the Summer Street Project, an affordable home-ownership and playground development project that has substantially revitalized an entire one-block section of CommunityWorks’ primary target area, the North Common neighborhood.
  • Creation of the Family Asset Building programs: including the New Skills Academy and IDA Program, which provides skills development and incentivized savings programs which are helping hundreds of Lawrence families build tangible and intangible assets?
  • Creation of the Movement City Youth Network: a dynamic environment for Lawrence’s youth population, focused on performing arts, design technology and academic success. Today Movement City serves 200 young people every week in its new home at the Our House Center.
  • Completion of the Our House Campus - Center for Design and Technology and the Hennigan Center, a $4 Million community educational and economic development campus which now houses all of LCW’s programs and administrative offices
  • Completion of the Reviviendo Family Housing project, a 17-unit scattered site affordable rental project that is renovating four key historic and abandoned houses in the North Common.
  • Completion of the Union and Mechanic Homeownership Project; creating 5 new homeownership units for first time Lawrence homeowners.
  • Completion of Reviviendo Playground and the Scarito Park, together almost 3 acres of new parks, playgrounds and community gardens built with our partners Groundwork Lawrence, on formerly abandoned and contaminated land in the North Common Neighborhood.
  • Completion of Scarito Homes; 10 new homeownership units for first time homebuyers.
  • Creation of the Reviviendo Gateway Overlay District, the first major Zoning reform since the 1940’s in Lawrence that creates a framework for the revitalization of the Mill District using "Smart Growth Principals". 
  • Developing the NeighborCircles organizing strategy, a new tradition of community building in Lawrence which has seen neighbors meeting neighbors and taking on local improvement projects on over 40 streets and blocks in the City of Lawrence.
  • Initiating the Lawrence City Budget Reform Campaign, an on-going effort to fight for accountability and transparency in city fiscal planning which has led to the first ever Resident Services Satisfaction Survey.
  • Creating and launching the PODER Leadership Institute, providing rigorous training for residents in facilitative leadership and community-building skills.