Young Artists Design Overtown Greenway Logo (FL)

MIAMI, 8/9/02 — Precious Ferguson, a fifth grade artist from the Town Park Village Summer Camp won First Place in the Overtown Greenway Logo contest sponsored by The Trust for Public Land. Contest winners were announced Wednesday in a celebration at Lummus Park attended by 70 children.

Taking third place was Rennie Valius, a sixth grader from the Overtown YWMA Summer Camp and second place went to Sandra Moton, sixth grader from Town Park Village Summer Camp. The winning artwork will be used as the logo for the signage along the Greenway, a pedestrian corridor that will connect Overtown with Biscayne Bay and the Miami River where a 5.5 mile greenway plan has been created.

In addition to the Logo Contest 25 children from the summer camps participated in a Poetry Project working with local poets Adrian Castro and Geoffrey Philp. Four of the student poets read their poems at the Lummus Park celebration. They were: Dakirra Bivens and Quinecia Hall from Town Park Village and Shacoya Gatson and Rennie Valius from the Overtown YWCA. All of the poems will be used to inspire artwork, which will then be placed along the Miami River Greenway.

“It was great working with the children from both summer camps on the Overtown poetry and art projects.” said Lavinia Freeman, Program Manager in the Miami Office of the Trust for Public Land.

“It is important to instill a sense of ownership for the river and the greenway at an early age. Many of these children live near the river, but they had little to no knowledge of this tremendous resource . The poetry and art projects helped them understand that the river belongs to them. They learned a lot and their creativity and efforts will produce tangible, long lasting results,” she said.

The Overtown Greenway is an integrated network of landscaped, pedestrian friendly streets that link the community’s assets including schools, parks, cultural amenities, community services, transit, residential enclaves and Overtown’s rich history. The children’s poetry and logo projects were designed to give the children a sense of ownership and stewardship over the land and park resources in the community.

The project is sponsored by The Trust for Public Land with funding from the Dade Community Foundation. The Burger King Corporation in Miami provided Wednesday’s picnic.