It goes without saying our neighborhood is important to us. We have invested a great deal to create and maintain a quality of life that is hard to find within this city, let alone central Illinois. This investment covers many different areas but is really focused on the financial investment we all make to have and maintain our homes along with the investment of time to better the neighborhood, our community and the quality of life we all experience.
As an organization, the Moss Bradley Residential Association has been committed to forwarding this movement of investment. Some of this investment is very tangible. But a good portion of this commitment is behind the scenes. I’d like to use this message to convey to you two important programs and ask for you to assist the board with both of them.
To recognize individuals who have or are making a difference in our neighborhood, the MBRA board is introducing two annual awards which will be presented at the Annual Meeting & Potluck dinner held each May. The recognitions are for Volunteer of the Year and MBRA Beautification. The criteria and nominating process can be found here. The intent behind these awards is to formally recognize those individuals who really do make a difference for all of us through their time commitment or improvement of their property.
Please take a moment to read through the criteria and send in your nomination to recognize those people who make a difference. Deadline for accepting submissions is March 31st, 2016.Award recipients will be announced at the annual meeting on May 4th.
In addition to time and talent, the Moss Bradley Residential Association also make a financial commitment to the neighborhood. We have been very fortunate over the past years to have had ever-growing success with the Moss Avenue Antique Sale & Festival. What started out as a means of assisting with the financing of the Hanging of theGreens has grown into a very strong event, which now helps us reinvest in the neighborhood.
We have invested the funds wisely so that the Association remains strong and viable for a very long time. The MBRA board realized a number of years ago that it was the wise and right thing to do to reinvest funds generated through the annual sale back into the neighborhood.
Some of those projects have included the purchase and installation of period-specific sign posts along Moss Ave and the inner streets of the MBRA area (to be completed spring 2016), investment in the Greenway project along Western Avenue and the purchase of shares in the Moss Bradley Revolving Fund.
We have also provided financial gifts to organizations such as: Look. It’s My Book – an organization that provides books to each children in kindergarten through fourth grade to strengthen learning and instill a life-long love of reading; and The Penguin Project – a program to give children with special needs an opportunity to participate in the performing arts.
These are but a few of the projects and organizations we have invested in, but provide you an insight to our commitment to the betterment of our neighborhood and our community.
From this, there are two things I ask of you: Please take a moment to nominate an individual who you feel should be recognized for the volunteer commitment to MBRA and an individual who has made improvements to their property. You can do so online at www.mossbradley.org/annual-awards. I also ask you to provide us with some suggestions of projects or an organization, for our community reinvestment. You can do so by contacting any board member or submitting them to us via email at mossbradleynews@gmail.com. Please provide each of these to us no later than March 31, 2016
Brian
Significant safety issues for Whittier Elementary School students and residents have been reported to me, and I have asked Deputy Director of Public Works Scott Reeise to address them. We explored them at a recent MBRA meeting. I wish to thank City Manager Patrick Urich for immediately talking to the Principal of Whittier School after I brought these concerns to his attention. When you read this, we will already have conducted a colloquium with Cottage District residents to consider appropriate traffic calming measures for this great neighborhood.
Deb and Tom Dougherty had just finished remodeling and rehabbing an 1894 farm house in, Princeville, when Tom came home one day and said, “My favorite house on Moss Avenue is for sale. Let’s go take a look.” Deb was feeling the winter ice and isolation in Princeville where they were 45 minutes away from everything and had recently struggled to free their automobile from a monstrous snow bank. “OK,” she said, “let’s go look.”
