City of Albany staff, volunteers begin blight fight

ALBANY — City officials dubbed their initiative a “fight” against blight, and around 100 warriors turned out Saturday morning to join the battle.

Armed with trash bags, gloves, rakes, trash picker-uppers and an indomitable collective spirit, the group of city officials, nonprofit activists and volunteers picked up truckloads of trash, weeded garden plots and improved the appearance of an area that spread southward from Engram Park, adjacent to the midtown Girls Inc. headquarters.

Despite oppressive heat and high humidity, the blight fighters soldiered on, striking the first blow in what is expected to be an ongoing battle.

“Today was a good day for Albany,” Ward III City Commissioner B.J. Fletcher said after the kickoff event for what is planned as an ongoing, systematic eradication of blight in the community. “When we got started (at 8 a.m.), about 80 percent of the people who came to work were city employees who had already put in a 50- to 60-hour work week. But as the day went on, more and more in the community got involved.

“This is how you build momentum with an initiative like this. You go out and show people that you’re serious. I think as we move forward, we’re going to see more and more citizens get involved. They have to. This is for them.”

Joining city of Albany staffers at Saturday’s event were volunteers from Turner Job Corps, Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital, Girls Inc., Keep Albany-Dougherty Beautiful and other individuals who stepped up to lend a hand. The kickoff is a first public step in an initiative endorsed by City Manager Sharon Subadan and devised primarily by city/county Planning Services Director Paul Forgey.

The Fight Albany Blight initiative calls for a concentrated volunteer/city agency effort in a specific district over a six-month period. At the end of the six months, the initiative moves to another sector of the city.

“I’d label today a success, definitely,” Forgey said Saturday. “There are a lot of ideas being tossed around today, and we’ll have a meeting next week to talk about the things we can do better. This initiative will evolve constantly, and I think we’ll be adding community partners and participants as we go.”

Krystal Pickett, who works in Human Resources with the area Waffle House restaurant chain, said she came to Saturday’s Fight the Blight kickoff both as a representative of the restaurant and as a concerned citizen.

“This is all about giving back to the community,” Pickett said. “I’m here to represent (Waffle House), but I’m here to represent our city, too. I think it’s wonderful when people of the community take the time to give back. It’s one thing to talk about doing something, but it’s a whole different thing to actually give.

“It’s a wonderful thing to see people out sweating for their city this morning. You always hear people complaining about the problems in the city. Well, events like this give those people an opportunity to do more than complain.”

When Pickett told area Waffle House Vice President Lisa Perry what she was doing Saturday morning, Perry decided to lend her support.

“We love to help our community in any way we can, but sometimes we don’t get the opportunity to get out and volunteer,” Perry said. “But when Krystal told me about this event, I wanted to give back, to be a part of it.”

So Perry sent out word to volunteers: Come on over to the Waffle House on Oglethorpe adjacent to the Hilton Garden Inn and have some food on the restaurant.

“I couldn’t be there physically, but I wanted to help out,” Perry said.

Albany Utility Board Director of Utility Operations Jimmy Norman said he and his staff get an up-close glimpse of the city’s blight issues as they carry out their daily duties. He lauded all those involved in Saturday’s kickoff event.

“It’s great to see everyone working together to fight a battle that we’ve been trying to fight for years,” Norman said. “I think if our different departments continue working together, people will start to see more and more improvements. And when they do, I believe the crowds of people volunteering will continue to get bigger and bigger.”

A large contingent of Turner Job Corps students came out to help with the cleanup effort Saturday. TJC Business Community Liaison Beth Brown said students at the educational facility are some of the city’s most ardent volunteers.

“This is just one of the many opportunities our students have taken to help our community,” Brown said. “Our community does a lot for us, and we encourage our students to give back by being highly engaged.”

Forgey said the Fight Albany Blight initiative would continue through the efforts of city departments, nonprofit volunteer work and on the legal front. He said more communitywide events would be planned, but that the initiative would continue indefinitely.

At the first of the year, the blight fight will move to the eastern sector of the city.