A Yellowstone County coalition received a $100,000 grant to implement their plans to spruce up the low-income southside of Billings.
The Healthy By Design Coalition is working to make the southside of Billings the “Bright Side of the Tracks” using sidewalk poetry and community clean-up events funded by the Kresge Foundation, a Detroit-based philanthropic private foundation that funds community development projects.
Melissa Henderson is the community health improvement manager for the Healthy by Design Coalition, a partnership of over 50 organizations focused on improving public health.
"The pride in place effort is really around creating a new brand for the neighborhood. So that’s where the Bright Side of the Tracks brand comes from. And in addition to that it’s all about putting in public art so the neighborhood feels more walkable, safer, just more enjoyable," Henderson said.
The grant money will go toward two efforts: Brighten Up events and the South Sidewalks project.
Brighten Up events will be opportunities for local businesses and residents to collaborate on neighborhood cleanup.
The South Sidewalks project combines art and utility by using sidewalks to connect community members.
"The South Side has some of the oldest infrastructure in the city. It’s one of the first neighborhoods and there have been a lot of efforts to replace sidewalk squares," Henderson said.
The Coalition plans to take stock of sidewalks that need replacing while holding poetry workshops to collect poems from locals to stamp onto new squares.
The South Sidewalks project takes inspiration from sidewalk poetry in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Colleen Sheehy is the executive director of Public Art Saint Paul, a private nonprofit that worked with the city to develop the sidewalk poetry project. Sheehy says Billings is one of several cities to adopt sidewalk poetry and that public art can make people’s lives more joyful and meaningful.
"Public art helps people to feel connected to their places and that’s just really important today, to feel that the place you live is supportive," Sheehy said.
Marguerite Jodry, chairperson for the South Side Task Force, says projects like South Sidewalks give residents a sense of pride in their community.
"The people who live in the neighborhood want to celebrate the place that they live so the events planned by this project have really helped highlight the positive things going on on the southside over these are all the negative things that happen," Jodry said.
The Healthy by Design Coalition will meet in the next few weeks to finalize their timeline for completing the South Sidewalks project. They’re hoping to start stamping poems onto concrete this summer.
