Mott Park group trying new things

The Mott Park Neighborhood Association is trying new things to improve the neighborhood, according to President Marta Wyngaard-Tavakoli.

“Three years ago, when I became president of our group, it was like a friendly club holding yard sales and social activities. Today, we’re becoming a force in the community. We’re revitalizing our group so that people will start uniting to ‘weed and seed’ our neighborhood,” she said.

Weed and Seed is a U.S. Department of Justice crime prevention and restoration program. It is also a popular term among neighborhood groups that refer to weeding out criminal activities and slum landlord housing while seeding enriching activities like enhancing parks, human services and community activities.

On the weeding side the association is working on ways to deal with landlords who are not taking care of their property.

“While a group of dedicated neighbors are working diligently in programs to improve the neighborhood like the gardens, clubs and festivals, another group is working very hard to make everybody accountable and responsible. The crime watch and new initiatives to tackle absentee landlords and graffiti are in effect,” Wyngaard-Tavakoli said.

The group is using MySpace and Facebook web sites to collect money for playground equipment.

Other members worked on the Archive Project which published the Mott Park Chronicles a book about the Flint neighborhood written by freelance writer Cathy Snyder. The archival images tell the story of Mott Park from its beginning to the present.

The book opens with pioneer Jacob Smith building the first log cabin in the region and continues as thousands of people flood the Flint area looking for new jobs in the auto industry.

Mott Park was built as a result of General Motors creating the Modern Housing Corporation that built houses for GM workers.

Snyder captured the concept of the book when she wrote, “We can look with sweet memories of the years we lived in a charmed place. Don’t shake your head at what once was the mighty General Motors. Instead remember the ‘Miracle of 1920’ when GM gave us a world called Mott Park.”

The soft cover book sells for $20. It is available by calling Liz Smith at (810) 694-2531 or by e-mail at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

The group’s Facebook and My Space pages ignite ideas and act as a catalyst for the playground project, said association member Pat Seals.

“In the beginning, I wanted to clean up the playground, get rid of the weeds and dead trees, repair the equipment and paint everything,” Seals said. “I used the Facebook page to set up a meeting and asked for help. We now have a working committee,” she said.

“The committee identified equipment that should be removed, repaired and painted,” Seals continued. “If that is all we do, it can be accomplished by mid-summer 2010. If we buy new equipment it will take a lot of money and probably a couple of years to generate funds to buy it.

“What our committee can accomplish depends mostly on funding and getting nonprofit status to make us eligible for grants. We are trying to find an attorney that will do nonprofit paperwork pro-bono," Seals continued.