Mary Danus remembers the silver maples covering every inch of Boulevard Park when she moved there 50 years ago. This section of the Pleasant Grove neighborhood in Youngstown was always known for its tall trees—an urban forest lining the 26 boulevards that wind through the area, free from overhead wires that could inhibit such growth.

By the early 2000s though, many of those trees, now over 100 years old, were dying or no longer safe. The Boulevard Park Block Watch, which had been inactive for a number of years, was reinvigorated in 2008 by John R. Swierz, the City Council Representative, in part to tackle the declining and unsafe tree population. Since then, the group has managed to plant 250 trees throughout the neighborhood.  

“That was our first project,” Danus said. From there, the group focused on developing two vacant adjoining properties on Erie Street into community space. Given some of the geographic constraints and the fact that part of the land sits on a busy street, the Block Watch decided to create a blueberry patch.   

Why blueberries?  

“Well, everybody loves blueberries,” Danus said. She added that among their considerations for use of the space was providing fresh fruits and vegetables to neighborhood children. They also wanted to plant something that didn’t require a lot of maintenance.  

“They take more maintenance than I thought,” she said. “We have one job to do but the job is huge because they love to grow weeds. … We work at it.” 

City Council has provided some discretionary funds to pay student workers to help maintain the blueberry bushes. They started with 140 bushes and have had to replace nearly 30 of them. But otherwise, they’ve had few problems with the patch.  

When the blueberries are in season, they open the patch to the public to come pick. “We’re not picky about who it is as long as they are responsible,” Danus said. “We’ve had no problems.” 

From there, the group developed plans for a pocket park—Pleasant Grove Peace Park—for area residents.  

The space, shaded by a huge old ginkgo tree, now has picnic tables, benches and porch swings. The group added a few dwarf apple trees as well. Later, the group installed two pieces of natural playground equipment. One is a tree, preserved and engineered with deep cement bases filled with playground mulch. Kids can crawl and climb on the tree. The other is an embankment slide that rests on a natural slope in the property. Phase 3 of the pocket park is now under development.  

“We are trying to do it in serious consultation with neighbors,” Danus said. “The point is we want people to come together there. We have so many parks in the area, but they are destination parks. You need transportation to get there. We want this to be a neighborhood park.” 

She credits the Wean Foundation as instrumental in bringing the Block Watch’s early projects to life. 

“The Wean Foundation has been our go-to since day one and really got us started,” Danus said. “Once we had that seed money to get moving, we were able to look at bigger projects.” 

The Block Watch has been able to raise almost $100,000 in additional funds, on top of the Wean Foundation’s initial investment.  

Danus attributes the Block Watch’s success to collaboration. “It doesn’t happen without a whole bunch of people behind you, from city officials to neighbors,” she said, adding: “I want the kids growing up here to have the experience my kids had growing up here. They loved it.”