SUNBURY — SUNBURY — While the City Council works to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in state and federal grant money into several revitalization projects, two grassroots groups are doing their part to spruce up their own neighborhoods.
Old Towne Sunbury and Friends of Fort Augusta are the latest neighborhood groups to organize to bring added aesthetics and security to their communities.
Through their own fundraising efforts and a grant from the state Department of Community and Economic Development, Old Towne Sunbury, organized in 2005, recently hung 30 banners to designate their neighborhood, located between Front and Seventh streets and Chestnut and Race streets.
An additional 20 have been purchased to draw attention to the city’s historic Market Street district between Front and Fifth streets, Old Towne leader Whitney Anderson said.
For the Friends of Fort Augusta, headed up by Todd Snyder, the focus has been more on security.
“We have made a point to get communication out to neighbors regarding how to improve home safety and how to look out for neighbors and protect their properties and the properties around them,” Snyder said.
The group, active for about eight months, also has been working on a neighborhood improvement plan in conjunction with the Northumberland County Historical Society to identify their own projects for the coming year.
“Having neighborhood groups is an advantage,” Snyder said. “It certainly builds community pride on a neighborhood to neighborhood basis. It certainly can serve as an effective means to bring together volunteers and it can serve as another avenue to attract grants and funding into the city.”
Since its inception, Old Towne has raised money for its revitalization efforts through an annual chicken chili cookoff, the proceeds of which have been put toward the group’s latest fundraiser: a poster titled “Soffits and Peaks of Old Towne Sunbury,” which contains photos of unique architectural details of homes and other buildings throughout the neighborhood.
Anderson hopes her neighborhood group goes the way of the Hill Neighborhood, which was organized in 2003 and now has been designated an Elm Street Program, complete with manager and state funding to be used to install new sidewalks and trees from the 1000 block of Market Street west to Highland Avenue and a railing in the 1200 block of Market Street, Elm Street manager Kristin McLaughlin said.
Also in the works is a bulb-out planned for Market Street and Highland Avenue to slow traffic and improve pedestrian safety.
“I envision getting an Elm Street and getting improvements such as lighting and sidewalks and major things the streets need, more trees,” Anderson said. “I want to see us thrive just as much as other communities around us. We just have to put a little more work into it.”
Old Towne’s “Soffits and Peaks of Old Towne Sunbury” is available for purchase for $10 at the Cameron Park Cafe, or by calling Anderson at 286-5757.
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Groups hold fundraisers to revitalize city
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