Charlotte Neighborhood Leadership Awards

At the end of October, the City of Charlotte hosted the first annual Neighborhood Leadership Awards with the Neighborhood Improvement Award going to Reid Park, a neighborhood partner of the Charlotte Action Research Project (CHARP). The award recognizes a neighborhood association that has shown a commitment to enhancing the aesthetics and safety of their neighborhood. In 2009, CHARP established a partnership with the West Charlotte neighborhood and has funded research assistants to partner with Reid Park residents for the past several years. These research assistants worked with residents to create a neighborhood planning document, apply for a KABOOM! playground and build the playground, develop an oral history program for the students at Reid Park Academy, implement the Campaign for Change directed at eliminating littering and illegal dumping in the neighborhood, and generate a vision for the forthcoming neighborhood park that has been funded by Mecklenburg County.

Housed in Metropolitan Studies and Extended Academic Programs and in concert with UNC Charlotte’s Department of Geography and Earth Sciences, CHARP forges partnerships between the university and marginalized communities in Charlotte. CHARP takes their starting point in recognizing a neighborhood’s assets as they seek to integrate teaching, research, and action that embraces democratic practices. The group of geography faculty and doctoral students work toward a larger agenda of social justice, empower neighborhoods to advocate for themselves, and facilitate the creation of sustainable neighborhood coalitions to implement structural change.

Several residents from the CHARP’s partner neighborhoods were nominated for individual awards. This includes Jeff Pharr of Graham Heights and Rickey Hall of Reid Park, as well as CHARP research assistant and geography doctoral student, Joe Howarth.