Adopt-a-Block comes to Carpentersville

Tim Speller has lived in Lincolnwood Manor for 20 years. In that time his kids have grown and moved away, neighboring families have come and gone and he has watched as trees decayed, roads cracked and the entrance sign faded.

Now Speller is working with the Carpentersville Improvement Committee to launch the area's first Adopt-a-Block program in Lincolnwood Manor.

"Once I started looking at the program itself and the benefits it had for the neighborhoods and the people in the neighborhood, I knew it was a program we needed to get started," Speller said.

The goal of the Adopt-a-Block program is to have neighbors work together to improve their own community. There are beautification benefits as people clean up their blocks, but potential deterrence of neighborhood crime as well, according to Pat Schultz, a village trustee and member of the Carpentersville Improvement Committee.

"Typically if you're not doing what you should be doing, you don't want anyone watching," Schultz said. "When you have neighbors out in their neighborhood picking up and cleaning, it makes them nervous and they tend to take off."

Schultz did initial research when the committee was first formed in 2008, but it wasn't until late 2009 when Susan Gotschewski started an Adopt-a-Block subcommittee that the idea really took off.

The Carpentersville Improvement Committee got a grant from Kane County for $15,000 to implement the program, which it plans to use for communications materials to get more blocks involved.

Gotschewski hopes there will be many more to come - at least two to three more blocks in 2011.

The grant will help coordinate the launching of individual Adopt-a-Blocks, but from that point the committee's role will be one of guidance.

"The idea is once we get the project off the ground, it has to sustain itself going forward," Schultz said. "It will be up to the neighbors to continue to participate."

Speller thinks there will be no problem keeping people involved. In preparation for the launching of the first block, the public works department cleaned up the entranceway to Lincolnwood Manor. The wooden sign was re-stained and repainted, old pine trees were removed and a line of 14 maple trees were added, the blacktop was refinished and a flower bed was laid out. Volunteers have already offered to plant and care for flowers next season.

"I believe there will be a variety of everybody involved," Speller said. "Kids, parents and families coming together."