May 26, 2011
Inter-Civic Exchange
New NCC group proposed for trade of ideas By KEVIN PARKS ThisWeek Community Newspapers
After stepping down as treasurer of the Northland Community Council in April 2010, Salem Area Civic Association member Brenda Baker expressed some concerns at the following monthly meeting.
“I don’t think that NCC is quite fully meeting our member expectations,” she said. Baker noted that meetings were increasingly being given over to presentations from outside groups and not enough time was devoted to member organizations sharing information about building community and resolving neigh-
borhood issues. Brandon L. Boos is now the Salem Area Civic Association representative to the community council. He also recently consented to head the new community outreach and relations committee. One of his first acts has been to create a subcommittee, the Inter-Civic Ex-
change. “It is part of the council’s strategic ‘in-reach’ efforts that are designed to support Columbus’ Northland community from the ground up by enabling and strengthening its many civic associations and neighborhood councils,” Boos wrote in announcing formation of the Exchange.
By KEVIN PARKS ThisWeek Community Newspapers
Chris Fleece grew up in Grove City and has since lived all over central Ohio, including in Gahanna, Pataskala and Dublin. Now 37, the Rev. Chris Fleece had not previously called the Northland area home until he became associate pastor at the Cooke Road Church of the Nazarene in March 2010. What struck him about his new surroundings, Fleece said last week, was the amazing amount of cultural diversity on display, compared with the other areas where he had resided. Diversity and divisiveness can sometimes go hand in hand, he said. “People can be afraid of one another just because of their cultural background or what they look like,” Fleece said. He is hoping to bridge those differences with a two-day conference, June 3-4 called “Honoring Bridges.” The gathering, which is intended to help dispel that fear of “otherness,” will be held in the sanctuary of the church, 1389 E. Cooke Road. It has the blessing of the church’s lead pastor, the Rev. West Frederick, according to Fleece. The first day, the conference will run from 7 to 9 p.m. and feature guest speaker Nathan Emmelhainz, who is preparing to depart for Pakistan on an assignment as a relief and development worker. (See related story By Lorrie Cecil/ThisWeek below.) The event will run from 8 a.m. to 3:30 The Rev. Chris Fleece, associate pastor at Cooke Road Church of the Nazarene, is holding a conference,
See JOINT BUSINESS, page A4
See FIRST ROUND, page A3
Guest speaker to discuss overcoming his ‘anti-Muslim bias’ ThisWeek Community Newspapers
The guest speaker for the opening night of the “Honoring Bridges” conference at Cooke Road Church of the Nazarene will be Columbus native Nathan Emmelhainz. Now a resident of Lawrenceville, Ga., Emmelhainz will address the gathering of Northland residents representing the various cultural groups in the area on Friday, June 3, beginning at 7 p.m.
Emmelhainz, who grew up on the West Side and graduated from West High School, is preparing to return this fall or early in 2012 to Pakistan on behalf of Millennium Relief and Development Services. The Houston-based charity, according to its website, “has served the poor in various parts of the world for over a decade.” A self-described devout Christian, Emmelhainz said he and his wife, Heather, made their first visit to Pakistan after he had a personal revelation about an “antiMuslim bias” he had developed in the wake of 9-11
and other terrorist attacks. “I didn’t even realize it was entirely there until somebody confronted me … about how Jesus said to treat enemies, and I didn’t want to treat them well,” Emmelhainz said. The first trip to Pakistan was a two-week vacation the couple took at the invitation of Millennium Relief and Development. “What I discovered was that all these Muslims that See GUEST SPEAKER, page A4
Joint business gathering brought ‘neighbors’ together Chuck Wolfe wore two figurative hats last week. As executive director of the Cat Welfare Association, he welcomed members of the Clintonville Area Chamber of Commerce to an event that he had helped put on as vice president of the Northland Area Business Association. NABA “Business After Hours” events are normally held at the establishments
of members. They’re intended to give attendees a greater understanding of the business where the gathering is held and to provide networking opportunities. With Wolfe having a foot both in Northland, where he lives, and Clintonville, where he works, it was inevitable that the two different business communities would eventually meet. The North YMCA was also a co-sponsor of the second Business After Hours of the year. About 30 people, pretty much equal-
ly divided between Northland and Clintonville business owners and managers, attended the event at Cat Welfare Association on Wetmore Road. Among those on hand, but not going into the shelter part of the operation due to being allergic to cats, was Clintonville Area Chamber of Commerce president Jenny Smith. “I think it’s always good to have combined chamber events,” Smith said. “It makes your contacts a little fresh, gives our businesses opportunities to develop
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new business relationships with, in this case, our neighbors. “They all share common threads,” she added. “A lot of networking went on between the people from Northland and Clintonville and also between people who had never been to Cat Welfare before,” Wolfe said. Along with tours of the shelter facility, Wolfe said attendees were able to shop in the Catique thrift shop that helps fund
“Honoring Bridges,” on June 3-4 with the goal of breaking down the walls that separate the different cultures
By KEVIN PARKS
By KEVIN PARKS Columbus Mayor Michael B. Coleman last week announced the first round of “seed” grants to community groups for projects and undertakings aimed at preventing violence in neighborhoods. Of the 26 applicants receiving more than $21,000, one is from the Clintonville area and two are Northland Community Council civic association members. The grant requests, out of a total of 56 received, were decided upon by the 25 members of the Coalition for a Nonviolent Columbus, which the mayor proposed last summer and formed in late January. He ordered $40,000 to be set aside for funding anti-violence initiatives proposed by citizen groups and organizations, at a maximum of $1,000 each. “We must keep our neighborhoods safe, not only through enforcement, but also through prevention,” Coleman said in announcing the grant recipients. “Through the Coalition for a Nonviolent Columbus, we are reaching out into the grassroots of our neighborhoods to address violence and crime at the street level.” The Strawberry Farms Civic Association and the Scotland Subdivision Block Watch in Forest Park in the Northland area each received the maximum $1,000 grants, as did Wild Goose Creative just south of Clintonville. The latter’s application states that the money is to be used “to purchase paint and supplies for graffiti cleanup,” but as befits a nonprofit organization that provides a venue for local artists of all stripes at the 2491 Summit St. headquarters, what’s planned is much more artistic in scope. It’s intended, according to Wild Goose Creative general manager Elizabeth “Beth” Dekker, to help fund a mural to cover a graffiti-covered wall at the intersection of Summit and Hudson streets. “Our goal for the mural is to create something beautiful out of layers and layers of paint that have already been put on there,” Dekker said. A web page created for the SoHud Community Mural Project, which is what the neighborhood is called, said the group is “going to need a lot of help with this project, both in volunteer hours, in-kind donation and financial support. The mural will be an incredible addition to our neighborhood as it will provide a welcoming gateway into our community.
See CONFERENCE, page A4 in the Northland area.
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See INTER-CIVIC, page A2
First round of grants awarded to check violence
Conference seeks to address differences by ‘Honoring Bridges’
By KEVIN PARKS
It won’t lengthen NCC monthly meetings. The subcommittee will meet separately. The first meeting has not been scheduled, but Boos indicated his plan is for monthly sessions for the first six months. After that, there will be a reevaluation