Walking along Central Avenue’s “linear park” with its newly placed benches, fairy lights, and raised garden beds, Lori Appeldoorn stopped momentarily and stooped to pick up a rare piece of litter.
The neighborhood “park” was created by neighbors coming together in Eastcore. It stretches between 13th and 20th streets along Central Avenue.
It’s still just a street in Holland’s central city, but the numerous improvements created by neighbors and by neighborhood nonprofit 3Sixty give the stretch of Central Avenue a definite park-like feel that creates a sense of safety, well-being, and community.
This year Eastcore received the Neighborhoods USA’s “Neighborhood of the Year” award for physical revitalization and beautification in recognition of the improvements.
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Photo by Andrea GoodellJake Norris, executive director of 3Sixty, poses with the neighborhood nonprofit's award for neighborhood of the year.
Appeldoorn is a neighborhood connector with 3Sixty and co-director of the Tulip City Walls Mural Festival.
The festival began last year when five new murals highlighting the diversity of Eastcore were painted around Columbia Avenue over the course of the four-day event.
“We talked to people, and they wanted more art, more color, more beauty,” Appeldoorn says.
That is, in fact, how all the improvements in Eastcore began — neighbors talking to neighbors.
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Courtesy JazminGPhoto LLC.Muralists painted five new pieces of art during the 2023 Tulip City Walls Mural Festival.
Catalyst
In 2022, 3Sixty began with two murals on Central Avenue near 16th Street as a proof of concept. It became a catalyst for the corridor’s revitalization. In 2025, the festival will return to its origins at Central and 16th and add to the art already there. Eventually, organizers hope the neighborhood will become known as the city’s art center, organizers say.
This year, the
Tulip City Walls Mural Festival will run Sept. 6-8 with live music Friday and Saturday nights, food trucks, art vendors, and a car show and coffee on Sunday to round out the weekend.
Kids are joining in the effort by spray painting yard signs to advertise the event.
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Photo by Andrea GoodellA yard sign spray painted by neighborhood kids advertises last year's mural festival and hangs in the 3Sixty offices today.
International and local muralists will come together to create five more murals on the walls of Eastcore during the event. They will include a 3D muralist from the Netherlands and muralists from Toronto, Houston, Colorado and Holland, Mich.
“Art is a way to bridge the gap no matter where you stand,” says Lexi Rosado, 3Sixty administrative and communications assistant. “There is no language barrier with art.”
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Courtesy JazminGPhoto LLC.Muralists painted five new pieces of art during the 2023 Tulip City Walls Mural Festival.
Connection
In those early conversations neighbors said the heated sidewalks that lead from Holland’s downtown along Central Avenue to Evergreen Commons on State Street were among the neighborhood’s best and least well used assets.
Eastcore's boundaries run from 13th Street to 24th Street, between River and Lincoln avenues.
Since the pandemic, neighbors have felt more isolated, Appeldoorn says. Neighborhood nonprofit 3Sixty wanted to know what it could do to help foster connectivity.
“We are all about engagement and how we can get people to talk to each other,” Appeldoorn says.
The nonprofit is now working with the Montello Park neighborhood and is looking for other neighborhoods with which to partner.
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Photo by Andrea GoodellWith the addition of neighborhood flowers come neighborhood bees.
Along Central Avenue, benches, little free libraries, doggie bag stations, and yard games create stops along the linear park path where neighbors stop and chat.
Where there once was a liquor store at the corner of 16th Street and Central Avenue now sits 2J’s — a convenience store and soon-to-be restaurant and third space for community gatherings.
The store, now under new ownership, includes outdoor picnic tables, lit up at night by party lights, and there’s a rain barrel to collect water for the neighborhood gardens. Inside is a watering can, so anyone with a few minutes on their hands can use the rainwater collected there to water the nearby flowerbeds.
Those who might have felt marginalized in the neighborhood — those experiencing homelessness or kids, for example — have spoken up about their desire to help with the improvements.
“People who are marginalized in the community, so many times, those folks are isolated, and they don’t feel like they are a part of the community and we want them to be a part of the community,” Appeldoorn says.
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Photo by Andrea GoodellRaised beds make welcoming stops along Eastcore's Central Avenue "linear park."
One corner includes a fairy garden conceived and created by the neighborhood's children.
A free veggie garden sits in front of Cornerstone Youth Ministries.
People are starting to take better care of their own yards and to plant their own flowers.
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Photo by Andrea GoodellChildren in the Eastcore neighborhood asked to join in the revitalization efforts with their own fairy garden.
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Photo by Andrea GoodellEastcore neighborhood children recently completed their work on their fairy garden.
Whenever Appeldoorn spends time watering the plants or weeding along the linear park, she is greeted by honking cars and people greeting her.
“I’m sore, and I’m bent over weeding. This guy stops, gets out of his car and says, ‘I can’t believe the transformation of this corner. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It changes the whole vibe of the neighborhood,’” she recalls.
Partners
Community partners such as the city of Holland, Cornerstone Youth Ministries, and Evergreen Commons keep the neighborhood moving forward.
Walters Gardens donated hundreds of flowers now blooming along Central Avenue.
The Evergreen Commons garden at the intersection of State and 22nd streets is making a transition to a community garden with the help of a grant to study inter-generational cooperation.
The plants growing there this season are specially selected to draw toxins out of the soil in preparation for next year's efforts.
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Photo by Andrea GoodellNeighborhood Connector Lori Appeldoorn is nearly as tall as the plants at the corner garden near Central Avenue and State Street. The garden will become a community effort soon.
“That lot was overgrown and was a sore spot,” neighborhood volunteer and social media manager Sherri Griffin says. “It’s so much nicer and more inviting, especially at night when the lights are on.”
A study conducted by 3Sixty with the help of City Shapers out of Atlanta, Georgia, showed the neighborhood needed help in three ways: Economically, structurally, and socially.
The changes being installed by neighbors who see something that needs to be done and simply do it are addressing all of those at once.
“That’s exactly how communities thrive,” Appeldoorn says. “Block by block by block.”