We are a new neighborhood group, called the Hermosa Neighborhood Association, which is located in the Hermosa community area. Our goal is to help make our working class community a brighter and safer place for all. Hermosa means "beautiful" in Spanish and our slogan for our group is "Making our Hermosa hermosa."

Many neighbors have complained of a lack of vision in our community, and we're trying to combat that apathy through direct action and engagement. Our group is relatively new, only 4 months old, but we already have 25 members and we continue to grow. We've conducted several neighborhood cleanups, mostly around our neighborhood CPS school, Nixon Elementary.

We want to go further this summer by conducting ongoing block cleanups and school ground cleanups. While this is meant to be the job of Streets and Sanitation and janitors at the school, neither institution is aiding us, so with your help we want to take matters into their own hands.

We would like to purchase mostly native perennial flowers, grasses and shrubs and beautify some area roundabouts, as well as plant wildflower seeds to help beautify the metra track embankment near our homes. This would help brighten up these locations as well as attract insects and birds to the area.

We would also purchased clean & green tools, such as trash pinchers, large trash bags, rakes and shovels to help aid in our cleanups.

We regularly help neighbors clean the following blocks and locations:
2100 N. Keystone
2300 N. Keystone
2300 N. Karlov
2100 N. Kedvale
2300 N. Keeler
2200 N. Keeler
2300 N. Tripp
2200 N. Tripp
4300 W. Belden
2300 N. Kilpatrick
Nixon Elementary

Furthermore, we'd use some of the proceeds to produce "don't litter" signs which we have already designed.