Loyola students and community partners came together for the fall semester’s first York Road Community Day. This one-time service opportunity is sponsored by the Center for Community, Service, and Justice (CCSJ) and York Road Initiative (YRI). Students gathered bright and early at 9:30 a.m. at the CCSJ hub at 5104 York Road. Before assigning projects, York Road Commercial Corridor Intern Jace Blehar ’25 shared more about York Road’s history with the volunteers.
“As Loyola students, all of you live in Baltimore right now and spend months on this campus. You guys are a part of this York Road community, and yet a lot of us don’t know that much about it,” Blehar said.
The York Road has historically been impacted by redlining which is a predatory banking practice that divided York Road into two sides. The West Side was labeled as high risk and low value, while the East Side was deemed as high value and low risk. Financial institutions used this valuation to deny individuals and businesses the capital needed to grow. On the East Side of York Road, where Loyola, Roland Park, and Homeland neighborhoods are located, businesses were granted financial support and were able to flourish economically.
This discriminatory practice was part of systemic racism which used racist covenants to ensure African-Americans and religious minorities were kept out of the East Side of York Road and that it remained white Catholic or Protestant. The YRI is Loyola’s collaborative organization which was created to help improve education and youth development, build civic capacity, and strengthen the York Road Corridor. Blehar says these community days play a large role in Loyola’s efforts to address these effects.
“Part of these [community] days is about trying to combat that [discrimination]. York Road was used as a dividing line, and as people who are part of this community, we are now trying to turn it into a line of unity,” Blehar said.
After the introduction to York Road’s history, CCSJ interns and community partners split student volunteers into small working groups to tackle different beautification projects. These projects include gardening, trash pickup, and invasive species removal in the Govans Urban Forest to help ensure a clean and safe York Road for residents and visitors alike.
Executive Director of the York Corridor Business Improvement District Samuel Storey led a group of student volunteers to weed a garden and plant native flowers at the base of the Curran Memorial Clock Tower. This Govans community landmark is located at the corner of York Road and Woodbourne Avenue and will be at the center of the Improvement District’s Inaugural York Road Free Music and Arts Festival on Saturday, Oct. 19.
“This is just part of an effort to spruce things up in the area. We’ll be blocking off this block of Woodbourne Avenue, having over 30 [food and craft] vendors, and having a stage in the parking lot [of the Family Dollar] for musical acts. It’s going to be a big blowout, and we want it to look a little bit nicer,” Storey said.
Other groups of volunteers were armed with gloves, plastic bags, and plastic grabbers as they focused on trash pickup to help clean up the surrounding area. They focused on both the main corridor past the CVS and side streets like Woodbourne Avenue and Sheridan Avenue. Office Manager and CCSJ Intern Will Sears ’25, who led one of the trash pickup groups, agreed that the simple act of trash removal makes a noticeable impact on the area.
“It just makes the overall environment more inviting. I am from Baltimore, so I know this area. I love seeing the work that we’re doing to influence and help my neighborhood look better,” Sears said.
Service Coordinator and CCSJ Intern Kendyl Archer ’25 emphasized the need for volunteers for this activity, sharing that volunteers could pick up trash for a few years and still not get all of it. While trash pickup might not seem like the most exciting activity, Archer says this simple act allows volunteers to interact with members of the local community, which is the most impactful part of these community days.
“As we’re going down the road, community members talk to us, and they thank us, and they ask us where we’re from. There’s a lot of negative ideas about York Road and the community right outside Loyola, [which] is kind of a bubble. When [students] come out and see community members and see that they’re appreciative of us, I think that kind of breaks down all those barriers and ideas that York Road is a scary place,” Archer said.
Additionally, York Road Community Day can also be a fun time between fellow volunteers as camaraderie grows throughout the day. First-time volunteer Ava Kusmierz ’27 says she would definitely recommend this experience to other students.
“I really liked planting the flowers. The wind would carry in this area because it was shady, so it was nice and peaceful,” Kusmierz said.
Loyola often encourages students to get involved in the York Road community, whether through attending this weekend’s music and arts festival, the Student Government Association’s upcoming “I Heart York Road Sweepstakes,” or volunteering through CCSJ. Upcoming York Road Community Days are on Oct. 26, Nov. 9, and Nov. 26 and more information can be found on CCSJ’s Instagram page @loyolaccsj.
