A green convene around HOPE.

Smoketown HOPEBOX — Re-imagining Community Centers as Engines of Transformation.

What if we re-imagined the traditional “community center” as a digitally connected cultural space, with sustainable designs and business models, where working poor, underserved and struggling middle class can fight poverty and improve health? That’s what more than 50 people began to do at the Smoketown HOPEBOX Green Convene on March 13 at Bates Memorial Church.

The Smoketown HOPEBOX Green Convene was organized by the Louisville Sustainability Council in partnership with IDEAS xLab, YouthBuild Louisville, Bates Memorial Baptist Church and Bates Community Development Corporation who are leading the co-creation process for Smoketown HOPEBOX.

Convening Event Sponsor: K. Norman Berry & Associates Architects
Bike Racks for Event Provided By: Bicycling 4 Louisville
Coffee for Event Provided By: Heine Brothers

SMOKETOWN HOPEBOX COMPONENTS INCLUDE:

•Laundromat supporting both community need and providing a sustainable revenue stream for HOPEBOX operations.

•Community Health Connect (CHC). The CHC is a 1-stop shop for residents to easily be connected with the healthcare and social services they may need.

•Freedom School to increase educational achievement.

•A Business Incubator wealth building program to increase income and equity as a result of participating in a worker-owned cooperative.

•A small number of low-income apartments for homeless youth who are attending the workforce development program at YouthBuild, a community anchor in Smoketown.

•An ecologically sustainable building with a digitally connected community space for neighborhood groups to gather in safely.

•An arts and cultural program which celebrates Black heritage, history year round.

The Smoketown HOPEBOX Green Convene focused on imagineering 3 areas:

1. HOPEBOX as a Hub of Environmental Justice,
2. Space / Energy Efficiency for HOPEBOX creation and sustainability,
3. HOPEBOX as a catalyst prototype for creating an environmentally sustainable neighborhood of excellence.

IMPACT

HOPEBOX is being designed by community organizations and families to operationalize the core neighborhood value of JUSTICE and to move the community toward supported autonomy. HOPEBOX is a new tool that community members can use to fight poverty and improve health on THEIR terms. This will benefit everyone. Bringing Smoketown residents (about 1500) at least up to the Louisville average will have significant impact as outlined below.

Highlights from the discussion included:

• Facilitating stronger, more robust digital connections across the community, and for expanding digital fluency and access for young people,
• Being intentional about efficient collaboration,
• Using geothermal and solar electricity for laundromat,
• Having cold only washers to minimize heating,
• Using the building of Smoketown HOPEBOX as a training experience for YouthBuild students and neighborhood young people to learn marketable sustainable building skills,
• Exploring a “Living Building” concept including water collection,
• Our community values justice — both economic, environmental and social,
• Neighborhood should explore codes and regulations that are already enforced — we don’t have to reinvent the wheel,
• Consider indoor air quality and childhood asthma when thinking about the laundromat,
• Utilize a cultural framing approach for environmental policy design.

“One of the geniuses of the HOPEBOX is the opportunity for conversations about these issues to happen organically, where community members are talking about what affects them and to prioritize what they want to work on... It can become a part of the culture in Smoketown.” — Pastor Bruce Williams, Bates Memorial Church

By the end of the Smoketown HOPEBOX Green Convene, community members and domain experts were already outlining next steps as the design of the space and programming continues in the coming months.

To learn more about the Smoketown HOPEBOX click here.

Our gratitude to The Gheens Foundation and Humana Foundation for supporting IDEAS xLab’s Project HEAL and our work in Smoketown including the co-creation of HOPEBOX.