VanHyning Historical Neighborhood Community

Welcome

The VanHying Historical Neighborhood Community, consists of a residents who own residential property and/or rental property owners and/or their tenants residing in the neighborhood.

The organizer, Brenda Askew is a resident and property owner in the neighborhood. On or about September 3, 2007 Brenda prepared a flyer for a public meeting hoping that other residents in the neighborhood would join her in her efforts.

Brenda?’s neighbor Joyce Anderson, a tenant who resides at the opposite end of the street as Brenda, was ironically working on organizing a neighborhood meeting too, which neither knew the other was doing.

Brenda was making regular calls to the Police w/criminal activity information. Brenda?’s 20+ years of efforts did not seem to be as effective as she had wanted, which was the reason for organizing a neighborhood meeting. At this time Brenda had not notified residents of the meeting until after she met Joyce.

Joyce was also making the same type of calls to the City, but to specific City officials and/or directly to the Chief of Police. The difference between Brenda and Joyce?’s methods was that Joyce was politically connected and knew how to effectively work the system by contacting Department Directors, inclusive of 911 calls. Joyce?’s method seemed to be more effective than Brenda?’s was, at Joyce's end of the street.

That was until one day when Joyce asked a Barberton Police Officer James Dawson who was regularly assigned to the neighborhood, if he knew someone in the neighborhood that he could refer her to that would assist her in her efforts of organizing a public meeting.

James referred Joyce to Brenda. Unknowingly to Brenda or Joyce, James had been working separately w/both of them on reducing the criminal activity in the neighborhood. James believed that if Brenda and Joyce worked together that they would be able to obtain their goals much more quickly and effectively, verses trying to do it alone.

At Brenda and Joyce's first meeting, Brenda gave Joyce a copy of her meeting notice and Joyce volunteered to re-write it, at which time Brenda and Joyce also agreed to work together on organizing the first neighborhood meeting in hopes that other neighbors would want to join forces w/them. Therefore, Brenda and Joyce went 'door to door' passing out the meeting notices.

The first meeting was on September 12, 2007 at City Hall and consisted of nearly 30 residents and several key City Officials.

Prior to the second meeting Brenda and Joyce came up w/an idea of writing a letter to City Council asking them to assist the VanHyning residents in ?‘Taking Back Our Neighborhood?’. It was agreed that Joyce would write the letter and walk the neighborhood asking residents to sign it so that she could present it to Council.

The contents of the 3-page letter identified every residence that had ongoing criminal activity, including identification of the criminal activity and/or participants of such.

Residents joined Joyce when she presented the letter to City Council and w/in 4 days, the criminal activity dramatically lessened. To date, the criminal activity has literally disappeared.

The VanHyning residents continue to meet monthly regardless of the criminal activity having disappeared, as a means of maintaining our goal.
We're a much safer neighborhood because of our strength in the number of residents and/or property owners who have taken the time to get involved and stay involved.