Victoria’s Thriving Neighborhoods Initiative got some real help this summer from a team of young people who led a visual parcel survey in the Fairmount neighborhood. They came through the Center for Community Planning, a nonprofit with a mission “to build the capacity of local residents, particularly young people, to create culturally relevant, collaborative, inclusive and stakeholder driven plans for their communities.”

The young people dived into an city-wide effort to document property conditions in neighborhoods through a shared software platform. Along with adult teams working in other neighborhoods, the youth walked the blocks and piloted the use of the software platform to help identify potential areas of opportunity for revitalization through the Newark Land Bank on behalf of Invest Newark. The result of their work is not only a clear map of parcel conditions in Fairmount. As one of the first users of the platform, the youth became troubleshooters and innovators, offering feedback to the software company and to Invest Newark about system improvements for future users. They will be featured at a community report-back on the project this fall. Here’s how some of them described their experience with the project:  

“I never looked at my neighborhood that closely before. I have lived on South 10th for years, and I never really noticed the community gardens and cute little spaces that are on this street. This program helped me open my eyes a little bit and look at my community in a different way.” – Aissatou Gomis, CPI Intern, 2026

“I honestly had such a good time. Maybe not in the beginning, because it was hot and I didn’t totally get it. But as the weeks went on and we started to see the map changing colors, and knowing that we did that, I was really proud. I felt like I was a part of something that was real and was actually going to help my community.” – Ruth Spratley, CPI intern 2026

“The work was working lol, but the part that I loved was building a family in my work team. After two weeks of working in the heat, dealing with long meetings, meeting on street corners at 8am, we all bonded in a way I didn’t expect. I cried when we finished our project. I didn’t know I had gotten so close to the people I was working with. Most of us are off to college in different states, but I will never forget that in the summer of 2026, we were a part of something pretty cool, and we did it together.” – Uriah Price, CPI intern, 2026

Deb Schultze, the Program Director for the Center for Community Planning, described a progression that she looks forward to seeing every summer: “One of my favorite parts about engaging young people in civic work is watching the transition in their confidence and passion from the beginning of the project until the end,” she said. “Somewhere around the 2-week mark, they light up. They start to realize how important their work is and how critical their voice is in the civic process….They become invested and curious in their communities, and passionate about making them better.”

Other groups that fielded (adult) parcel survey teams this summer included Clinton Hill Community Action, La Casa de Don Pedro, FOCUS, BRICK Network, Ironbound Community Corporation and Lincoln Park Coast Cultural District. Stay tuned for more on the community report-back and join us in cheering the youth who led the way on this important project.