At 25, Sara tried cocaine for the first time. “That was just the drug for me, and it was never enough,” she recalls. “It was very expensive, and I was spending all our money on drugs.” But thanks to Hitchcock Center for Women—the only treatment house in Cuyahoga County specifically focused on women and the only residential recovery center that allows women to bring their children with them during their stays—Sara is now nearly two years sober.

This Tuesday, April 17, LAND studio will kick off Inner City Hues, a public art project in Cleveland’s Buckeye-Shaker and Mt. Pleasant neighborhoods designed to unite the community and bring some vibrancy into forgotten parts of the city. The project will pair four established artists with "blank canvases" on existing surfaces, buildings, vacant walls, and abandoned properties—with the goal of enlivening the neighborhood’s commercial district.

Seven area high school students fed up with school shootings motivated as many as 20,000 people to descend upon Public Square on Saturday morning, March 24, to demand an end to gun violence at March for Our Lives.
 

When creativity, color, and conversation collide, the results can be unstoppable. Just ask community organizer Rachel Oscar, who is leading the quest to create an inclusive community conversation about race and build a mural celebrating all Clevelanders via the Bridge That Bridges campaign.

Alex Wittenberg loves a good cup of coffee. So much so, he envisions a world where Cleveland’s coffee shop patrons share their love by buying their neighbor—whether it’s a friend, the next guy in line, or even an unknown stranger—a cup of joe. To that end, Wittenberg, along with co-founders Sebastian Thimmig, Adam Fishburn, and Edward Liu, have created CoffeeQ, an online app that allows users to do just that.

Now entering its second year of operations, Bloom Bakery is looking to take things to the next level—adding wholesale and corporate catering to the business. To help raise the $25,000 necessary to kickstart their goals, Bloom Bakery is currently running a 40-day "Sweet Treats and Second Chances" crowdfunding campaign on Crowdrise. And that's where the pastry lovers of The Land come in: an anonymous donor has donated $1,000 and promised another $1,000 if it can be matched by the end of this week. Click here to help Bloom Bakery expand and continue to create job opportunities through Towards Employment.

About two or three years ago, Cleveland Heights resident Mary Kelsey and some friends began talking about the concept of cohousing—a community of homes that are clustered around shared spaces like a common house and outdoor areas. While there are fewer than 200 cohousing communities across the U.S., Kelsey says there are “quite a few” are in progress, including right here in Northeast Ohio.

Touted as “part play, part town hall meeting,” How to End Poverty in 90 minutes (with 119 people you may or may not know) explores the complex subject of poverty through the eyes of art. A collaboration between Cleveland Public Theatre, United Way of Greater Cleveland, and Sojourn Theatre, the 90-minute experimental play runs from January 24-28 at Gordon Square Theatre and is fully sold out.

When EDWINS founder Brandon Chrostowski told documentarian Thomas Lennon that he was "opening the greatest French restaurant in the country, in Cleveland,’” that alone was enough to pique Lennon’s interest—but then Chrostowski told him the restaurant would be staffed entirely by people just out of prison. “I knew in 10 seconds there was a film,” says Lennon.

Cleveland-based artist Loren Naji made waves at ArtPrize in 2016 with EMOH, a spherical sculpture and temporary living space made of found objects, garbage, and remnants of abandoned or demolished Ohio and Michigan homes. Now he's set to take it on the road this year in U.S. cities with large homeless populations—starting in New York in March during the Independent Air Fair.

Find out more about this socially conscious sphere here.

When gift-giving, why settle on a fruitcake when you can have a Bloom Bakery delight? The artisanal café-slash-social venture is hosting a Holiday Shop replete with assorted cookies, dinner rolls, and apple pies, plus seasonal items like pumpkin roll and pumpkin bread—as well as a showstopper that Executive Director Jill Rizika calls "to-die-for deep, deep chocolate brownies."

"We really hope instead of giving a gift certificate or a candle as corporate gifts, that [people] might think about ordering through Bloom and get the double whammy of getting a treat while also supporting a second chance," says Rizika.

‘Tis the season to feast with family, hit the malls, and surf the sales. It’s also time to open our hearts and support worthy causes and others who may not be as fortunate. Here are a few ways you can give back in the #CLE this “Giving Tuesday.”

Fresh Water scoured the city in search of public art. It didn't take us long to find five new public art installments that add a little character and color to the skyline. Check them out here.

Most children who come into Cuyahoga County's foster care program have been traumatized to some degree. But for kids who are LGBTQ or have intellectual developmental disabilities and are victims of violence, the trauma can be even greater. These programs aim to help those young people with special circumstances thrive in foster care and life. 

Last month, Cleveland Neighborhood Progress (CNP) hosted its third annual Vibrant City Awards Lunch. More than 500 city leaders, stakeholders and community development professionals gathered at Cleveland's Edgewater Park to celebrate leading neighborhood revitalization efforts.

Click here to see who received the honors.

Wall clocks that tell stories, but not time; TRUTH from Detroit; an embarrassment of pickles — it all adds up to a feast of color and content amid MOCA Cleveland's summer 2017 exhibition.

This series of stories, "Grassroots Success: Awakening the Power of Families and Neighborhoods," explores how meaningful impact on our communities grows from the ground up. Support for "Grassroots Success" is provided by Neighborhood Connections and NewBridge Cleveland Center for Arts & Technology.
 
This past Saturday at the Cleveland Masonic Auditorium, the NewBridge Cleveland Center for Art and Technology graduated 60 students from their Phlebotomy Technician, Pharmacy Technician and Hospital Nursing Assistant programs. While the event marked a promising new day for those students, Fresh Water took some time to meet former NewBridge student Tyeisha Long, whose story truly brings the organization's impact into sharp focus.

Mckinley Wiley took the photos included in this article during the May 20, 2017 NewBridge Cleveland graduation celebration.
 
Tyeisha Long was raising a small child alone, living with various relatives for short periods of time when she made a pivotal decision. She was going to move forward to a better position in life no matter how much sacrifice it involved. And then without looking back, she did.

Read her inspirational story here.