Want to help Detroit? Grab a paintbrush...

Visitors to Andrea Darnell's Northwest Detroit neighborhood are likely to see this: garbage stretching from dingy lawns to the street, graffiti marking gang territories, unemployed folk roaming the sidewalks and gathering outside liquor stores. It's not a pretty picture. But that's not what Darnell sees. She sees the future, and it looks a whole lot better.

The 52-year-old Darnell is launching a community turnaround project. Her goal? To rid the one-mile stretch of Puritan Street from Wyoming to Livernois of garbage, graffiti, and blight. Her tools of choice? Paintbrushes, garbage bags and rubber gloves.

For two years, Darnell has wooed local business owners, residents, and pastors to get everyone on board. With President Obama as her inspiration, she has walked up every doorstep on the stretch, asking for one simple thing: a commitment to clean up. “Our new President's campaign says ‘Yes, we can,'” she said. “And we can't forget about the ‘we'.” Darnell got many business and home owners along the 17 blocks to agree to a cleanup that started on April 1. On April 11, Darnell brought in volunteers from Summer in the City to paint a mural of bright shapes on one building near the west end of the mile. And on the same day, six teenagers from outside of the neighborhood helped her remove graffiti along the stretch.

But this Saturday, April 17, the initiative will really take off. With a crew of volunteers expected from eight local churches, Darnell will attack the neighborhood in earnest, using clean-up supplies provided by the Northwest District's Neighborhood City Hall. Wayne County Commissioner Keith D. Williams and members of the Alternative Workforce will join in on the efforts, equipped with trucks and tools to clean alleys too dilapidated for other volunteers.

Next steps after the clean-up include garnishing the stretch with inspiring banners of African-American leaders and hosting a celebration at the neighborhood's new Community Center on June 5. Darnell also hopes to collect enough funds from the community to hire a crew that can assist in removing graffiti and deterring illegal dumping over the next six months.

Darnell is a firm believer that improved aesthetics on the stretch will change the mentality of those who inhabit it. But others say much more is needed. “Cosmetics are one thing, but we have to clean up the hearts, too,” says Williams. “If you want to change the mentality, you have to assess the families from within.” And many of the community's leaders believe the neighborhood's problems root from the experience of youths growing up in poverty. “This was one of the strongest neighborhoods in Detroit,” says Ron Woolfork of the Commissioner's Office. When the area was at its peak, kids saw adults going to work each day. That's hardly what they see today.

Another challenge for Darnell is keeping the area clean after the clean-up. Most of the strip's 4 liquor stores and 14 churches have promised to help. “We have limited resources,” said Pastor Levert Shell. “But what we can do, is clean up our space.”

Thanks to Darnell's vision, people along Puritan are beginning to create some of their own. “My vision is that people in the community will walk to more than the liquor store and the party store,” says local church representative Octavia Wilson. “Kids will walk home from school, and be involved along the way.” The cleanup could make the area safer, according to Pastor Shell. “If kids can relate to you as owner of a store, they're less likely to rob you,” he said.

Darnell knows real success will take time. When the community can look around them and “see the vision,” says Darnell, she will know her project was a success. And success along this one-mile block could empower Detroit as a whole, she says. “If everyone continues to tackle their block, mile and square area, we can look forward to the neighborhoods connecting. We will replenish our city, and answer the question: ‘How do we move our city forward?'” By cleaning up, apparently.

For information on volunteering along the Puritan stretch, contact Andrea Darnell at andreadarnel@yahoo.com.