Klean Kensington

Our mission is to holistically empower local youth through stipended work to restore, beautify, and build up the neighborhood of Kensington.

Our organization’s current vision is to see all teens in our immediate vicinity (scope: H – D Streets, Allegheny – Thayer) engaged in productive activity, and part of a neighborhood fabric that takes a sense of pride in the cleanliness, beauty, safety, and connectedness of our community. Our goal in relation to beautification is 1) to turn all neglected lots (currently, dumping grounds + drug sales/use) within our current scope into green spaces for neighborly connection. Our goals in relation to teen empowerment are 1) to be known within our scope as the go-to organization for teens who are looking for extra work, volunteering opportunities, or neighborhood involvement, and 2) to connect 50-75 unique local teens in the 2024 year with paid local beautification work.

After George Floyd (2020), our neighborhood’s sidewalks were piled up with trash; rats were roaming the sidewalks. A collective of neighbors gathered together to clean the trash. In the process, we noticed how this inspired neighbors, gave us deeper connection to our community members, and motivated us to see local change. This process also connected us with other community activists and organizations. Since then, we have turned this initiative into a way of giving teens stipended work, lowering their attraction to the drug trade (or, providing alternatives for getting out of it) while providing inspiration to their neighbors about the possibility of taking pride in the cleanliness and beauty of their own neighborhood and about contributing to positive change locally. Besides cleaning a broader area of sidewalks, we have cleaned up and are now maintaining several large parcels of land as community gardens. We are also building partnerships with local organizations for collaboration in urban agriculture and community organizing.