Collaborative volunteer James Curry, MetEast senior Angelo Drummond and Angelo's adviser Keinan Thompson discuss the Cramer Hill project.

Every Community Design Collaborative service grant begins with a kickoff meeting to present the volunteers with background on the project, the site, the neighborhood and the client and their mission.  Last week Angelo Drummond’s vision for a teen lounge in the Cramer Hill neighborhood of Camden, NJ moved one step further when the Community Design Collaborative held a kickoff for a project with the Cramer Hill Community Development Corporation to create a conceptual design for a community center based on Angelo’s ideas.  At the meeting, the volunteers heard about Angelo’s research while project manager Heidi Levy showed them photos and maps of the site and surrounding area.

Angelo, a senior at MetEast High School, decided to focus his senior thesis on researching and developing a community teen lounge after looking around his neighborhood and seeing that teenagers did not have a safe place to hang out after school.  MetEast is a public school established by the nonprofit Big Picture Learning and encourages students to pursue their passions through internships and a senior project that benefits the community.  Angelo wanted to help reduce violence in the community by creating a space for teenagers to spend time and participate in events and activities.

After interning at the Collaborative last summer as part of preparations for his senior thesis, the Collaborative helped connect Angelo with the Cramer Hill CDC who was interested in building community amenities, like a teen lounge, and developing vacant properties.  Angelo’s idea fit with the neighborhood plan recently completed by the Cramer Hill CDC that found a need for extracurricular activities to serve the nearly 4,000 kids in the community.  The Cramer Hill CDC then applied for a service grant from the Collaborative to work with volunteer design professionals to generate a plan for the teen center on a vacant plot and begin the development process.

Architects Maarten Pesch and Marguerite Anglin from Wallace Roberts & Todd and cost estimator James Curry from Owners Rep Inc. are volunteering through the Collaborative to work with Angelo and the Cramer Hill CDC to create a conceptual plan for the teen lounge.  They will assess the site, develop a conceptual design and provide an estimate of the construction costs.

The volunteer team’s next step is to conduct a site visit with Cramer Hill CDC and then attend a community task force meeting to get input on the needs and interests of local residents.

Stay tuned to the blog as we follow this project.

Collaborative intern Ben York and volunteers Maarten Pesch, Marguerite Anglin and James Curry review maps of the proposed site.