Current News from ROW - December 2021

ROW convenes community partners to enhance the quality of life through innovation, analysis, cultural advancement and investment along Indy waterways and in neighborhoods.

In the midst of the pandemic that started in Spring 2020 and continued throughout 2021, ROW worked with all its collective committees to recalibrate its workplans and creatively approach activities in ways that ensured safe gathering. Just as true in 2021 as last year, our waterway-adjacent spaces like parks, trails, and greenways became important to our community’s mental and physical health and ROW’s efforts proved more critical than ever in advancing those connections to nature for quality of life.

As a collective, we measure our successes together, and we are pleased to provide an overview of what was accomplished in an end-of-year review:

Thank you to all ROWs funders, partners, and collective volunteers who made these efforts possible! We look forward to continuing our work together in 2022!

Spirit & Place collaborated with community partners, including Reconnecting to Our Waterways, to offer Arts-Based Community Development (ABCD) training this year. The training was curated by international practitioner, Wendy Morris, to improve the quality and impact of arts-based community engagement and grow local capacity to leverage arts and artistic practices as effective tools for social change in many communities along waterways. ROW helped make this training possible through a 2 019 Flex Fund, which enabled five waterway representatives to attend the training.

Due to the pandemic, the training pivoted from an in-person training to a dynamic online program that engaged through reflection, creative activity, physical activity, music, small group activity, and more. This program included 16 hours of training for 40 participants representing multiple sectors, and 4 hours of open space session for the community with 20 participants. When a participant was asked to reflect on their experience, they said it was, "...a reaffirmation of our 'us-ness'...that creating a community for the work is essential to the long haul. No one of us can or should go at it alone. Together we can support and encourage each other, learn from one another, rest and let others take the lead when needed, and more."

This training was just the the first step to implementing Arts-Based Community Development in Indianapolis. Spirit & Place has continued to convene participants to explore lessons and next steps, during which the groups have decided they want to continue ABCD through a shared leadership and consensus model. They also want to expand the involvement of people in ABCD, and invite interested folks to explore their online collaboration space Qiqochat, which acts as a "lounge" for connecting, a document library where ABCD case studies and principles can be shared, a map of what skills members have, want to learn, and can teach, as well as recordings of all ABCD sessions, including word clouds and graphic recordings. Participants will continue to add material ,watch recordings, and make connections with each other. Make an account to join the group to see how you can get involved with Arts-Based Community Development!

Over the past month, ROW approved several subgrants supported by the Herbert Simon Family Foundation, that were submitted from its waterways committees and from waterway partnerships, including:

Fall Creek Waterway: Fall Creek Place Foundation was awarded $2000 to continue invasive removal and habitat restoration along the riparian corridor at the Fall Creek Orchard with partners Keep Indianapolis Beautiful and Marion County Soil and Water Conservation District.

Central Canal Waterway: An idea led by Rosezalynn Pinky Sanford, the Giving Tree Project provides $2050 to Groundwork Indy to partner with the waterway on a craft day with the senior center and create a warm clothing tree to provide coats, gloves and socks to neighbors struggling to keep warm this winter.

Fall Creek Waterway: Millersville Valley at Fall Creek was awarded $3,000 to support the Millersville Preserve Overlook to clear a viewshed of Fall Creek and provide a limestone seating area for respite for pedestrians to enjoy.

White River Waterway: has also has been working hard to make water quality information accessible. IUPUI Hydrology student intern Raenah Bailey has worked with the committee to secure $5000 for a water sensor that will continuously track important water quality parameters including pH, temperature, and turbidity, The information will be uploaded to an open-source database where the data can be used for education through the STEAM Hub at Belmont Beach.

Thank you, to the Herbert Simon Family Foundation, for their generous funding which enables our waterway committees visions to turn into community projects!

Left Photo: Volunteers work together to clear out invasive plants and open up a viewshed of Fall Creek. Right Photo: Caitlin and Robert Negron of Indy Convergence paint the STEAM Hub at Belmont Beach during ROWPort 2021.

On Sunday, December 19, from 11 AM - 2 PM, the Central Canal Waterway Committee is hosting a Giving Tree in the median across from Groundwork Indy to share winter jackets and accessories with neighbors to appropriately update their wardrobe for the coming cold.

Central Canal's Waterway Liaison, Rosezalynn 'Pinky' Sanford, is leading the committee's efforts working with Groundwork Indy youth who are learning technical skills, like wood laser cutting, to upcycle old tree limbs from habitat restoration projects into unique ornaments. Local artist Slim Avre, who runs an event-recycling company, Waste Not, will lead Emma O Johnson Homes seniors in an ornament-making workshop on December 16, making ornaments to encase mittens and hats to be hung on the tree and picked up by neighbors. Near Northwest is providing refreshments for both events. This project made possible by the Herbert Simon Family Foundation.

January 12: Little Eagle Creek Meeting

One great way to get involved with ROW is to participate in a Waterway or Element Committee! Find details on the ROW events page or contact andrea@ourwaterways.org for meeting locations and to get connected.

On November 17, Central Indiana Community Foundation, ROW, and many of our collective partners came together to celebrate and thank Alphons Van Adrichem for his many years of dedication, hard work, and support of our community, our neighborhoods, and our waterways. Together we celebrated 10 years of CICF walking alongside ROW, step-by-step, providing critical funding, expertise, leadership, and more. In 2011, Brian Payne made a bold commitment to Indianapolis' waterways and neighborhoods back in 2011, and Alphons served as the CICF liaison, facilitator, and friend to the collective. Alphons has had a profound impact on ROW, being involved from the start and serving as ROW's Steering Committee Co-Chair, as our Connectivity and Healthy Connections Co-Chair, and as Co-Chair for the Pleasant Run Waterway.

Alphons shared at his last Steering Committee Meeting on December 11, "It is so nice to be a part of an organization where everyone has asked themselves 'How they can serve their community?'. This creates a baseline of trust in our work, nothing can be done alone and none of us are here on our own; we are all here to help the community. Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

We sure are going to miss you, Alphons, and can't thank you enough for all your contributions, We wish you a wonderful retirement!

Photo: Central Indiana Community Foundation's Brian Payne and Alphons Van Adrichem were honored a Alphon's retirement party on November 17.

ROW 2021 Year in Review

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