Central Community House and TRANSIT ARTS appeared on Fox 28 and ABC 6 in a special video featuring our Open Mic and BHB's Hip Hop Dance Crew and interviews with Mosheh Clark, Jackie Calderone, Richard Duarte Brown, and Katerina Harris.
Community Working to Prevent Another Summer of Violence
COLUMBUS -- A local community center is doing its part to prevent another summer of violence.
The Central Community House on the Near East Side offers homework help, free art classes and even an open mic night for teens.
Jackie Calderone, who helps run the Transit Arts Program, told ABC6/FOX28 News' Meghan McCorkell, "The kids tell us that it's incredibly important to have a place to go to, to have a sanctuary, a place where they can feel safe and they can feel creative."
Mosheh Clark says he's been coming to the program for the past five years.
"It really turned my life around because I don't know where I would be if I didn't come here," he said.
Clark says he's getting ready to attend Ohio State University next year. There he says he'll major in accounting.
He says the violence in his community concerns him. "You've got to be concerned because it's your neighborhood. You don't know if it could happen to you."
Central Community House is reaching out in the community. In May, art students will help cover boarded up windows in vacant homes with artwork.
Richard Duarte Brown told McCorkell, "So, kids when they walk by abandoned houses, they can have a different outlook instead of seeing another abandoned, desolated house."
He says he hopes this can be the start of a new vision for this community.
"If you have a vision you can revitalize a neighborhood like the German Village, the Short North."
He says he hopes to, one day, see this community thrive like those before it.
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Reporter: Meghan McCorkell