Trevelle Harp interview, 09 September 2025

Abstract

In this 2025 interview, community organizer Mr. Trevelle Harp discusses his life in East Cleveland. He describes the contrasts between the vibrant community he remembered from childhood and the disinvestment he encountered in his college years. Harp explains his transition from a technical career to community organizing and outlines his work with the Northeast Ohio Alliance for Hope, including campaigns addressing vacant properties and partnerships with internal and external organizations. He also reflects on efforts to improve Patterson Park, community engagement around the Huron Hospital closure, and broader initiatives related to resident leadership.

Interviewee

Harp, Trevelle (interviewee)

Interviewer

Mays, Nicholas S. (interviewer)

Project

East Cleveland

Date

9-9-2025

Document Type

Oral History

Duration

81 minutes

Recommended Citation

"Trevelle Harp interview, 09 September 2025" (2025). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 757004.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/1408

Related Resources

East Cleveland @ Cleveland Voices

Transcript

Nick Mays [00:00:00] My name is Dr. Nicholas Mays and today is September 22, 2025. We are at the East Cleveland Public Library conducting an official oral history interview for the East Cleveland Oral History Project. I’m joined by Mr. Trevelle Harp, an East Cleveland native, longtime community organizer and civic leader whose work includes leading neighborhood based organizing around responsible development and advancing civic participation. [00:00:30] Mr. Harp also helped reshape the organization known as NOAH into an East Cleveland focused civic effort, later integrated into the Neighborhood Leadership Institute.

Trevelle Harp [00:00:42] Thank you. Okay.

Nick Mays [00:00:46] Mr. Harp, thank you for being here today. Can you start by giving us your name, age and date of birth?

Trevelle Harp [00:00:55] Oh, wow. So my name is Trevelle Harp. I’m 48 years old. I had to think about that because time just flies. I was born […] 1977.

Nick Mays [00:01:07] What city were you born in? And what city do you reside in today?

Trevelle Harp [00:01:12] Okay, so my early beginnings begin right here in East Cleveland. I grew up on Caledonia, which is a street right across the street from, like, if you take that street out, it goes right into NELA Park. And so I’ve got a lot of memories of the Christmas lights that GE used to put on every year. [00:01:31] And I currently reside in East Cleveland.

Nick Mays [00:01:35] Our first topic today is going to be early Life and education. Can you talk about growing up in East Cleveland from grade school through high school?

Trevelle Harp [00:01:47] Okay, so that’s a bit tricky because it kind of skipped out. But my earlier days, I went to two preschools. I can’t even tell you what they were called and everything, but I can tell you where they were. So it was a church right across the street from the Caledonia Branch Library that had preschool there. [00:02:03] And then First Church Presbyterian, I believe, which is now New Life Cathedral. They had a preschool in there that I went to preschool as well. And so I had a lot of early memories running around the community, having my dad come pick me up. He’ll literally ride his bike down to come pick me up, up. [00:02:18] And I thought he was a superhero because he rode his bike up Noble Road, Noble Hill. Then matriculated up to Caledonia Elementary School, where I spent a lot of my earlier elementary years. And so my parents, you know, they were renting a house in East Cleveland at the time on Caledonia. And my dad was able to, you know, I guess grow our. [00:02:45] I gotta say it over. So my dad was able to, you know, we were able to make money, enough money as a family to actually buy a house. And they bought a house not too far from Caledonia, but in Cleveland Heights. And so that’s where I spent. I Went to Noble there, then Monticello, Cleveland Heights High.

Nick Mays [00:03:04] Can you share a little bit about your parents? What work they did or education background, work background, and then also to your family background, including the origins of your ancestors.

Trevelle Harp [00:03:22] Okay, so don’t too much like a couple of generations back, but I know my mom, she was born and raised in Alabama. [00:03:33] I guess Eutaw, Alabama. And so they lived on a farm that had farmland, they had cows, pigs, they raised vegetation, so they grew corn and that kind of stuff. And so that was her upbringing. She came to Cleveland so I could have opportunity at that time. And then my dad, he was born in North Carolina, I believe it was a small town called (inaudible), North Carolina. [00:03:59] And long story short, he came up here for opportunity, he and his brothers. At that particular time, there was a lot of like, tension around, like just young black men growing up. And my grandparents wanted to make sure they had opportunity and make sure they didn’t get caught up in some of the, some of the racist racial things that were happening at that time. [00:04:20] I think the Klan was real heavy in North Carolina at that time. And so they came up here and they were able to. My dad and his brothers were able to come up here and find good jobs and everything. So my dad worked for Chrysler Corporation, which is a union job. You know, they paid. [00:04:39] A good salary, that kind of stuff. So we were able to sort of like build wealth from that. But one of the things I would like to take from that, my dad graduated from high school not knowing how to read. And I can remember when I was in elementary school going to Caledonia, that he literally worked. [00:04:55] He worked full time and everything. And he actually went back to the, the Caledonia branch library up there and basically taught himself how to read and everything. And so now he’s fluent, he’s reading, he’s the pastor of a church and you know, and doing his thing. But what it really showed me, because I know how difficult it is to, you know, especially as an adult. [00:05:16] With everything going on in life to actually take the time to do something as like, you know, like learning how to read and everything. So it took a lot of determination for him and a lot of consistency and proud of him for it. [00:05:30] But I do also think it speaks to. [00:05:34] The notion of at that particular time, you know, in this country. [00:05:39] He was able to come to the north, get a union paying job, you know, he had a high school diploma, but without knowing how to read and everything. But he was able to get something, a job that was enough to be able to Pay and, you know, take care of her family. And so I think that was something that you don’t see too. [00:05:56] I don’t think we see that today. I don’t think you could do that today.

Nick Mays [00:05:59] So can you recall the decade or the year or if not the decade that your father migrated to the North?

Trevelle Harp [00:06:10] I would say. [00:06:13] Probably in the 70s. I mean, I was born in 77. I’m not the oldest. I’m the middle child, but. But I know he at least met my mom probably, like in the 70s, and got married, and they both came up here around the same time.

Nick Mays [00:06:28] Did your parents meet in Cleveland?

Trevelle Harp [00:06:30] They met in Cleveland, yep.

Nick Mays [00:06:38] How would one describe young Mr. Hart as. As a child or a teenager? How would you describe yourself?

Trevelle Harp [00:06:49] Young Mr. Hart was probably very gullible. [00:06:54] Very hopeful. I believed and, you know, the good in people, and. [00:07:04] I still do. But I think that’s one of the things that I would say that kind of drove me. I really wanted to help people, even from a young age. [00:07:15] You know, coming up, I guess, matriculating up through school and that kind of stuff. I mean, I was, like, bullied and that kind of stuff. So I knew the other side of, like, being accepted. And so I didn’t want anybody else to feel that way. And so I think that kind of, like, is my. [00:07:28] Why that I’m in this type of service work that I’m doing now, because I really have a heart for people who are the underdog, people who are rejected and everything. And so. And it kind of led me back to East Cleveland. The real. I guess the quick story is I was going to John Carroll at the time, spending way too much money for school, right. [00:07:50] And I was poor, and I had a roommate. I had a friend who was going to CSU at the time. And we were both, like, you know, kind of struggling and everything. And so we decided to share on rent during the summer. And so that put us on a street called Hower, which is now in a targeted area in East Cleveland, real close to the University side off of Euclid. [00:08:12] But long story short, it wasn’t in East Cleveland that I remembered when I was younger, because back in the 70s, I mean, I guess East Cleveland probably had his issues. But I remembered a very vibrant community. I didn’t see a lot of the abandoned, vacant properties. Didn’t really even understand what happened. Understand what happened in, like, I guess the drug epidemic that kind of, like, ran through East Cleveland, along with, like, the change of government and instability in government in general. [00:08:42] And just a lot of things happened and one of the things that kind of, like, moved my heart was that we stayed in a two family house on a street that was like. I mean, it looked bad, right? But there was a little girl that was there. She was taking care of her grandmother, and she was very. [00:09:01] I mean, she had a lot of personality, and she would get on my roommate’s nerve all the time and everything, because she would say something smart to them all the time and everything. But I just really. I really felt like she had a lot of opportunity. I mean, I felt that she had a lot of potential. [00:09:15] But I always sort of, like, struggled with the fact that, like, she was right here in East Cleveland, less than a mile away from University Circle. And I wondered was, were the amenities and the opportunity that’s right down the street of University Circle, is that attainable for her? You know, and, you know, living on the street where 90% of the houses are abandoned vacant-property properties, there are a lot of blight, a lot of legal dumping, and she’s brought up in this particular situation. [00:09:43] And so what that led me to was my roommate, he basically went to CSU, graduated, and moved as far away from East Cleveland as he possibly could. As a matter of fact, I think he stays in Miami right now. [00:09:56] But I decided, against. [00:09:59] The advice of a lot of people who were close to me, decided to buy a house in East Cleveland. [00:10:06] And dig my roots in and kind of make a difference.

Nick Mays [00:10:09] I want to expand on one of the points you made. How would you contrast the East Cleveland you grew up with the East Cleveland of today, but also the East Cleveland during your college years?

Trevelle Harp [00:10:29] All right, so the East Cleveland I grew up with. [00:10:34] From the standpoint of the quality of people that are here, I don’t think there’s a lot of difference, because, I mean, the East Cleveland I grew up with, I mean, every family, I mean, there were kids, there’s a lot of young people. There are families that are represented on the streets and everything, and people generally knew each other and they were nice and respectable. [00:10:53] And if I did something, they came and told my parents and that kind of stuff. It was that kind of, like, social glue that’s there, you know? And as I began to get involved in the community, I guess post that experience that summer, I kind of see the same thing, because there’s still a lot of passion in East Cleveland. [00:11:13] The issue is the stability of government. [00:11:18] And I guess the amount of vacant abandoned-properties that we see and how the city struggles to just provide basic city services. [00:11:27] Definitely seen a lot of decline within the expectation within our schools, you know, prior, I know people who are just slightly older than me and everything. And, you know, and most of them are professionals that graduated from East Cleveland that are doing fantastic things. And not to say that we don’t have professionals that come out now, but, like, you know, there’s definitely a significant decline within, you know, I guess the reputation within the schools. [00:11:55] So going from being one of the top rated schools to being at one point the lowest rated school in the state. [00:12:04] But like I said, all that being said. [00:12:09] The quality of people, I think, is what’s keeping hope alive in East Cleveland.

Nick Mays [00:12:13] What about the quality of infrastructure? [00:12:17] You mentioned a couple. You mentioned blight. [00:12:22] Infrastructure and homes, abandoned property. Do you remember seeing a lot of that growing up?

Trevelle Harp [00:12:32] Not me. Beginning at Forest Hill Parks. You know, I can remember our school having events there, having picnics there. I can remember the vibrancy. I could remember all the activity that went on at NELA park, at GE NELA park with the lights. And it was just a lot of. A lot of things to be proud of and I believe I remember, like, the businesses that were rampant throughout the community, that, you know. [00:13:01] The businesses took care of their grounds very well. Everything was properly manicured. I mean, people wanted to be in the community of East Cleveland at that particular time. And I think, I mean, arguably they do now. Maybe a different reason, but now, I mean, I think that a lot of people, you know, are fueled by the hope of what it used to be and everything and looking at the opportunity of what it could be now. [00:13:28] And that’s why I’m still here, you know, because I kind of like hope. I have a lot of hope in this community being revitalized. I think that, like, especially in light of, like, the housing market and the increase in housing, I think East Cleveland is probably the best kept secret as far as, like, the housing stock. [00:13:44] The historical character a lot of these homes have still have in the midst of, like, some of the devastation that took place, I think that we just have to build vehicles that allows capital and resources to flow for us to restore this community.

Nick Mays [00:14:00] For us who don’t know what is NELA park?

Trevelle Harp [00:14:02] NELA park is the first suburban industrial park in the country, I believe, actually in the world, but definitely in the country. GE at the time was one of the largest companies in the world. They did a lot of different things. And they had a campus that was here that housed a lot of executives. [00:14:22] And, you know, they did a lot of research around lighting. And then, of course, they became One of the biggest companies, so they had to break up the different divisions and everything. So they had a lighting division. They had, like, don’t give me. I think they did appliances. They did some of everything over there. [00:14:40] And consequently, like in my other life, right out of high school, I was a machinist for about 12 years, and I worked in a. What do you call, a machine shop that did a lot of prototyping for a lot of, like, you know, engineers that were designing new things. And we actually did a lot of work for their research department over there at GE. [00:14:58] And so if you actually even go over there. [00:15:02] There’S a lot of, like, you know, just. I mean, just the way they designed it in general, you know, just to be embedded right in the suburban community. I mean, it’s pretty amazing.

Nick Mays [00:15:14] Thank you for that. Can you. Can you tell us about your college experience, what you majored in, and how you use the time to prepare to navigate the world?

Trevelle Harp [00:15:27] Yeah. So went to Sri C, got an associate degree, then decided I wanted to be a math major. I had a. [00:15:36] One of the things. So coming right out of high school, I took a vocational program in draft and commuted, drafting, that kind of stuff. So I did. I dabbled in a lot of architecture stuff, but mostly mechanical. And so when I got out of high school, I basically did CNC programming and CAD work and CAD design and machining for about 12 years. [00:15:59] Got really good at it. It got kind of boring, though, because we kind of were doing the same. I mean, it’s interesting to see prototypes come in and what people are working on and everything. And my job was kind of like, to so, like, redo the drawings, make it. Make it so that the prototypes are a little bit more. [00:16:16] That you could. You can fashion the design of the prototype. So it was easier to make prototypes of and everything because, you know, you can cut a lot of costs by just how you design it and then make it so as it could be manufactured. Easy. And then I did a lot of CNC programming. [00:16:31] We actually. I don’t know if you remember those little floppy disks and everything we had those little. All that kind of stuff. And so I think the CNC machines that I worked on, I worked on something called a wire EDM machine, which I’m not going to go in because I could talk about that forever. [00:16:48] But basically it’s a glorified band saw that basically shoots electricity through with a median of like a brass wire. Or you can use anything that connects electricity and it sends it through. [00:17:02] Two cones, one at the top One at the bottom that has, like, a diamond in the middle. And basically they move independently. So it’s four axis. And so we were able to make a lot of stuff like that, and it would do it all underwater and everything. And so it was like a couple of, I mean, maybe four decimal points as far as, like, how accurate it was and everything. [00:17:20] And so that’s the kind of background I came from. So real technical. [00:17:26] Spent a lot of money at John Carroll and everything, but didn’t finish. [00:17:31] And I had, like, a. When I bought my home in East Cleveland, I kind of, like, had, like. [00:17:38] A moment where, I mean, I love technology, I love math, I love all those types of things. But I realized that the world I live in is not going to realize the benefit of technology if we can’t get this thing around with this social thing, this social experiment together around, like, really figuring out how to, you know, invest in everybody so that we can, you know, experience the fullness of society. [00:18:02] And so that’s what I transitioned over to. I got proposition. I actually came through Neighborhood Leadership Institute. I took one of their classes, and they connected me to organization. I was doing community organizing in East Cleveland, and I went to a meeting, and I saw, like, this whole dialogue going on where there’s a lot of trust because the organizer at that time, he was a white guy. [00:18:24] The community didn’t trust them, and they was like, why would she trust you? That kind of stuff. But I stood up and basically said, it’s not about trust. If he’s able to teach us how to use community organizing principles to organize around issues and do this, this is a skill set that, like, if he leaves, we still have. [00:18:41] And so we need to take advantage of the investment that he’s put in us to be able to, like, address these issues. And so, long story short, his name was Jason Lehrer, and he basically. He basically said, hey, man, we got this community organizing position open. I think you should apply. And he saw me a couple times after that. [00:18:59] I think he threatened me if I didn’t apply and everything. So I kind of, like, had to think about. [00:19:06] Was I going to transition from this completely technical background to do this community work, or was I going to just stay safe? And so, of course, I decided to do the community organizing thing. And I would say that. [00:19:21] It was the most. I guess going into that line of work has been the most transformational experience I’ve ever had, because it pushed me. If you knew me before, I was never that type of person to get in front of people. And Talk or give presentations or even try to motivate because I was an introvert. [00:19:40] I joke around because, like, where I came from in the machine shop, would talk with other people that work in the machine shop. We would all get together, look at our feet, and talk about Star Trek. And that was just completely introverted, you know, And I was not that person. So I really had to push to actually, you know, have not. [00:20:00] Not just the bravery to go and really approach people and engage people. Right. But I had to build up the skill set. One of the things I had to get over was just public speaking in general because people thought I was having a heart attack when I would try to get up and talk, because I literally sweat and stutter so badly that I would have people who are so called, my friends, they would be laughing and everything. [00:20:28] But I was having an event, but I had to push through that. And I think what really helped with that is just the passion of just knowing that this is good work that we’re doing.

Nick Mays [00:20:39] Wow, thank you for that. Just a couple of clarifying questions. What high school did you attend and what year did you graduate? High school.

Trevelle Harp [00:20:48] So for East Cleveland residents who graduated from Shaw, don’t hate me for this, but I graduated from Cleveland heights high in 95.

Nick Mays [00:20:58] What year did you buy your home?

Trevelle Harp [00:21:02] 2007. Right before. So. So. And it’s interesting because, like, when I bought my house, it was right at the. The pinnacle of the housing market, you know, before the housing market bust. And so I probably paid way too much for it.

Nick Mays [00:21:16] Right.

Trevelle Harp [00:21:18] But. But yeah, I bought it back in 2007. And. And. And I always joke around because I say, although this is probably one of the most transformational experience, me deciding to buy the house changed my whole trajectory of my whole life as far as, like, for the better. I became a better human being put in this environment and being thrust into this type of work. [00:21:39] But it was also probably the worst financial decision ever made in my life, too. So it was a little irony there. So you. So you. So you pay for your experiences, Right?

Nick Mays [00:21:47] Well, thank you for. For that. For that honesty and peace and humanity. Did you foresee. Your. Today’s journey, your existing journey in high school or growing up? Did you foresee yourself being in this field?

Trevelle Harp [00:22:09] No. No, I didn’t. To be honest, I guess if I had to be one thing growing up, I wanted to be a father. I knew I wanted that. But, like, I never thought I’d be doing this type of work. But I think that, like, all these experiences sort of like, shape you within. [00:22:27] You know, like I said, I grew up. You know, there’s portions of my life where, you know, I wasn’t part of, like, the accepted crowd and was bullied a little bit and that kind of thing. And so really understanding humility and understanding the value and just investing in people, you know. And so. [00:22:45] When I made this transition within this. This particular field, I was at a point in my life where I really was trying to, you know, there’s some things I was feeling inside, you know, you know, just me personally. Issues that I was dealing with, that I kind of felt that if I would polarize those issues and deal with it on a, you know, a broader sense, then it can help heal me as well. [00:23:09] And so, you know, you know, just like myself at the time, I felt like East Cleveland was a lot of times looked down upon, that people felt that there was no hope for this community, no hope for the people that are here. [00:23:26] And I saw myself in that. And so me doing this type of work kind of helps me so I can even heal and develop myself.

Nick Mays [00:23:38] In keeping up with the topic of Why you returned to East Cleveland. I want to reference a couple of quotes, some. Some quotes that I gathered in doing some research. Some quotes that came out of a presentation that you did. And I’m wondering if you can unpack. Or shed some light on these quotes for us. The first quote is, quote, a lot of us choose to be here. That’s East Cleveland. And we choose to be here not necessarily because of the amenities that we have right now, because, let’s just be real. We face a lot of challenges. In fact, in a lot of ways, we subsidize those challenges with our own pocket, unquote. Would you like me to give you the second one, or do you want to.

Trevelle Harp [00:24:38] Yeah, I can talk about that one. Yeah. So, I mean, to the outside world, I guess people look at East Cleveland as being like this terrible place, right? With nothing good in it. But there’s people like myself, and I’m sure that I’m joined by many others who believe that there’s a lot of opportunity here. [00:24:56] And, you know, like, if you’re an investor. [00:25:01] I guess the skill set that you build is to see value when nobody else sees it, right? And so East Cleveland is like this tabula rasa, which is Latin for blank slate. I think that has so much opportunity. We have the shell. We have good bones for a lot of different things. We have. [00:25:21] You know, a large park in Forrest Hill Park. I can’t remember how many acres it is, but it’s a large part, one of the largest suburban parks that I know of, especially in this region. Right. There’s a lot of opportunity there. We got historical homes, we got about 84 Rockefeller homes that are built that span between East Cleveland and Cleveland. [00:25:44] That are like phenomenal architecture. You can’t find these type of homes anywhere. The house that I have has stained glass windows, you know, throughout the house, woodworking throughout the whole house. There’s just so much opportunity, you know, and then the location that we have, being so close to like a University Circle or downtown or, you know, a good drive from downtown Cleveland or the main sort of like things like the Cleveland Clinic or Case Western Reserve or Cleveland State University, you know, I mean, it has so many good amenities. [00:26:18] And then, you know, I guess there’s also a lot of pride around it being predominantly African American, because, I mean, if we look through our history, there’s been so many, in so many ways. [00:26:31] A lot of failure around, like really just building vibrant, predominantly African American communities. Not to say that anybody else can’t be here, but like, it would be nice to be able to see a community that works well for our interest. And so just looking at those different amenities that this community has and the hope that I share with a lot of residents around, like, what this community could be. [00:26:56] I think this is a no brainer now. Yeah, we do. One of the things that I thought about when I bought my home, in retrospect, I said I could buy this house and everything, and, you know, I paid for it. And I thought I was impervious to structural racism, well, structural poverty and everything. [00:27:12] And I found out very quickly that I’m not right. And so the way that we end up subsidizing a lot of the capacity issues that the city has, I mean, all the way from like cutting grass that don’t belong to you because, you know, it’s vacant and nobody’s managing that property, to the potholes that you run over that destroys your front end on your car, and it causes you a little extraordinary thing to you having to go like a little bit further to get like healthy foods or. [00:27:38] Or like, I mean, I have to take my kids, you know, on the west side to go to school, because, I mean, although I’m down for the cause, I can’t sacrifice their livelihood, their education, because I want to be down with, you know, what’s going on here. So there’s a lot of, you know, things that you have to subsidize to do that in fact, even the work that we started with Patterson Park, I would volunteer. [00:28:00] I mean, I volunteered my time going out there cutting initially. You know, my dad gave me a truck to be able to tow around the equipment, burnt my own gas and everything, renting equipment and that kind of stuff to keep the park, you know, together and that kind of stuff. And so, yeah, there’s a lot of that. [00:28:18] And I’m not the only one. I mean, there’s other residents who pick up trash that they didn’t put down, who, you know, have to do other different things, you know, to address, you know, the lack of city services that we kind of experience because of our fiscal constraints is the city as a whole.

Nick Mays [00:28:36] You, you responded to the second quote. Okay, guess we don’t have to. And the second quote just dealt with, I guess East Cleveland is as, as a whole. [00:28:47] And being proud to be East Cleveland residents. And, and, and then also too, this, this, this, you know, what I see as not a phenomenon, but, but something that is special in my engagement with East Clevelanders and getting to know residents and interviewing residents. And there are many people who’ve had the means and opportunities to leave East Cleveland, but have been resolved and adamant to stay. Yeah, I just think that’s fascinating. Have you figured that out? Have you thought about that?

Trevelle Harp [00:29:26] Yeah, we think about, I mean, certainly think about it often. I mean, depending on what day of the week that you ask me the question. [00:29:35] But this thing just lingering in the back of my mind is like, what if the time I decide to leave that this renaissance that we’re talking about begins to happen? And then on that. But I mean, I literally spent almost 20 years of my life really working for the betterment of this community. [00:29:50] I would like to be able to see the fruits of that, you know, be mature, you know. [00:30:01] I’m going to pivot here. Transition and talk about NOAH and the community work that you’ve done. First of all, what is NOAH?

Trevelle Harp [00:30:16] Ah, that’s a good question. So NOAH was, it started off as a faith based organization that organized congregations to address, well, not just congregations, but like faith based institutions to address, you know, I guess, community challenges. And they did a lot of work around a lot of issues, especially around like the housing crisis, I think before I got there, in order to become more relevant. [00:30:45] They wanted, because I guess what happened with the organizing cycle that you kind of see a lot of faith based institutional organizing was that they would have, like, they organize people around, they have discussions around particular issues and then they would, you know, Organize the congregations around it. And then they’ll have like a big meeting and they’ll have like somebody coming and they’ll talk about the issue. [00:31:08] It could be a decision maker around the issue. It could be somebody just to bring more awareness around the issue. And so they’ll come together and they’ll pontificate around like, you know, this particular issue, and then that’ll be the meeting. And then maybe they want something, maybe they don’t, but then they start that cycle over like again, like for the next cycle. [00:31:26] And one of the things that they, I guess Noah wanted to do at the time, they wanted to be more relevant. They wanted to see, you know, larger impact in the work that they did. And so they decided to target a community, and that community was East Cleveland, and. [00:31:42] Try to do community work. And when they went at it the first time, and I’m probably giving way too much information, y’ all can definitely cut some of this stuff if you want to. But when they went to kind of do the issue and everything, the churches came up with an issue around a circulator. [00:31:59] They felt like East Cleveland needed a circulator. The challenge was that though, is that even though the churches were like really ingrained within that type of work, I mean, committed to that work, there was not necessarily a lot of community connection. And so after that particular strategy, and there was definitely a need for a circulator. [00:32:19] They’re trying to proposition RTA to get a circulator in East Cleveland. And we know that we’ll don’t even have to go about like state funding and regional transits and how like where Ohio sits on like the level of funding compared to other states and everything. But they weren’t successful in getting into circulator, but they felt like they had to be a little bit more connected to the community. [00:32:42] And so that’s how I got hired. And when I got hired, I was hired to specifically start organizing in East Cleveland. And that’s what I did. But it’s a like, transition from being a faith, you know, a faith institutional, institutional faith organization that organizes. [00:33:02] The faith based institutions to basically organizing sort of like initiative in East Cleveland. Because the faith community kind of stepped to the side and it just became. It just morphed into this neighborhood based organization that basically focused on East Cleveland. And so that’s what became. So NOAH stands for the Northeast Ohio Lines for Hope. [00:33:24] But like, we kind of like, you know, dwindle down to not necessarily live up to that name per se, because we end up exclusively like organizing East Cleveland. Now, we were, like, connected to other organizing projects because I got trained through the Gamilia foundation and then through. And then we became a founding member of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, which allowed us to be able to, like, more specifically focus on Ohio issues. [00:33:49] But, you know, Noah definitely became, like, an organization that, for the most part, did organizing in East Cleveland. And then, you know, after a bunch of successful, like, organizing initiatives that we’d done, we saw the opportunity to actually evolve into a community development corporation. Because one of the main things that we really wanted to organize around after we addressed it, Vacant abandoned properties, was to. [00:34:17] Was to. What’s the word? Is to really help advocate for and facilitate responsible economic development in East Cleveland.

Nick Mays [00:34:24] Can I interrupt there? And. We’Re gonna go there. We’re gonna transition here in a second, but I want to stay to community organizing. One, what is community organizing to you, and what did that entail when you were doing that work?

Trevelle Harp [00:34:45] Yeah, community organizing is a skill set that, like, I think that every person, especially, like, if you’re doing community work, even if it’s, like, if you’re doing community health or any type of thing, should understand community organizing. Utilize it. So community organizing, if I can, there’s a bunch of definitions for it, right? [00:35:04] Like, say, tell me, what is love? Right? You can say a lot of things about that, right? But community organizing basically is the process or the way that you organize power that’s defined by organized people and organize money to address or address issues. So you utilize that, you build power, and then utilize that power to be able to, like, change things within your surroundings.

Nick Mays [00:35:27] Can you give us an example of one of the projects.

Trevelle Harp [00:35:32] One of the campaigns.

Nick Mays [00:35:32] One of the campaigns, yeah.

Trevelle Harp [00:35:34] So the beginning of any community organizing strategy is always a listening campaign. And so we doorknock, we talk to people, kind of figure out, okay, so what are the issues. [00:35:46] That you’re interested in? And the reason why that’s important, because the way that you motivate people is you connect their self interest to the work, right? And so if we’re talking about, well, we want a pizza shop in East Cleveland, but everybody’s allergic to cheese and they’re lactose intolerant, right? It’s probably not the best campaign. [00:36:02] So you got to think about, okay, so what gets people engaged? So what do they care about? And everything. And so the top three issues that came up was, and I’m trying to remember them, our schools, safety, and vacant abandoned properties. And the biggest out of those three at that time was vacant abandoned properties. [00:36:20] And so we began to, I mean, so it’s true that East Cleveland had a number of vacant abandoned properties that basically added a lot of cost to the community and a lot of distress because the properties weren’t being maintained. And so, I mean, just a good example of that, I mean, just, just to, just to the bare minimum, just keeping the grass cut. [00:36:43] No municipality is set up to be able to cut, you know, a thousand lots, you know, every other week, properties that don’t belong to them. Right. And so that’s extra expense on the community and they can’t really deal with it. And then of course, you got other issues as well. Everything. And so we’re looking at the time, okay, we’re researching, trying to figure out, so how do we address that. [00:37:01] And we realized the same city in itself did not have the capacity to do, to address vacant abandoned properties in itself. But we also understood it was in the self interest of the county. At that time, the county sheriff general caucus was looking at the tax receipts, that he was looking at property values going down. [00:37:18] He was looking at unrecovered property taxes because of vacancies. And he realized that structurally there had to be something done county wide to address that issue, to repurpose properties so they can put them back in good position so they can start producing tax revenue again. Right. And so he actually looked to. [00:37:39] Get the state to, okay, created a county wide land bank. And East Cleveland was like one of the first, well, Cuyahoga county was the first one in Cuyahoga County. I guess it was used as kind of like a pilot to kind of like figure out how we do this across the state. [00:37:55] And long story short, we saw that as an opportunity because when we saw the county land bank, we saw the county land bank. It’s like the Federal Reserve, right? It’s a quasi government organization that has superpowers because it can do land acquisition better, I mean, you know, through tax foreclosures, better than any other entity within the county. [00:38:17] Which means that it could secure and eliminate blight through, you know, getting rid of vacant properties faster than any other entity within the county. And they will work with municipalities with those superpowers because, you know, because, you know, because it’s in their interest to do so. And so we felt like it was a good thing for the city of East Cleveland to have a formalized relationship with the county land bank so that they could actually do this activity in East Cleveland to help position our city to be able to like, address vacant demanded properties. [00:38:50] At the time. [00:38:53] We were a Direct entitlement city, which means we get HUD allocations directly from the federal government to address anything dealing with housing, that kind of stuff in the form of CDBG allocation. And I think at the time home fund, NSP neighborhood stabilization dollars. [00:39:13] But we were always running the risk of like having them sent back because we didn’t really have the capacity to spend all the money or obligate all the money or whatever the parameter was. We ended up sending money back and with the issues that we had, it wasn’t enough. And so we began to educate the community on the issue and build the relationships. [00:39:32] And the one thing that we didn’t have was the political will locally for our city to actually have a formalized relationship with it. And so we had to educate people. And it became a deciding issue that decided a mayoral election. And so I can’t even remember, it was a February of maybe 2009, 2010. [00:39:55] We did a ceremonial signing right next door at that time it was called Windermere United Methodist Church. It was a blizzard, had about 200 people there. But we got Gus Frankos, who was the late Gus Frankos, who was the president of the county Land bank at the time, to come and sign a formalized memorandum of understanding of between the city of East Cleveland and the Land bank to address vacant properties. [00:40:19] And since that time, the Land bank has been working with the city to eliminate blight in a strategic way. So we organized street clubs to basically identify. So it’s streets in the city where people generally keep their properties up really good. But there’s like one or two properties or maybe three or four on the street that are neglected for like 20, 30 years and we need to get rid of them. [00:40:44] So they stabilize those streets by eliminating those vacant rental properties. But then the other part of that strategy is looking at areas of the city that’s most opportune for redevelopment and do a mass demolition, because when you have aggregates of cleared land, you can market up for development better. And the Land bank is actually working on that project right now in a targeted area.

Nick Mays [00:41:05] You describe NOAH as cdc. Cdc, like or you and you pivoted to pursue CDC work in NOAH. I’m interested. Why did you make that transition or why did you pivot to act as a cdc?

Trevelle Harp [00:41:31] Yeah, so we’re moving along those lines. [00:41:35] And I guess arguably we did a lot of slight quasi development type activity. Like we participated in the targeted area plan. We did the community engagement strategy for that, which is a plan that I can’t remember the year that was completed. We did, we contributed.

Nick Mays [00:41:51] Is that what is now Circle East?

Trevelle Harp [00:41:53] Yep. We also contributed to. We did a property survey report, which is a document that’s found to. Basically we led. I was able to train and lead a team of East Cleveland residents to take iPads and go and survey every parcel of East Cleveland, roughly about 7,000 parcels in East Cleveland, to basically identify property conditions. [00:42:16] We were able to do. There’s other types of strategies, of course. We took over the property management of Patterson park. [00:42:25] Which is a quasi development type thing. [00:42:29] More lately, we participated and did community engagement work around the visioning project, the East Cleveland Visioning project, which was a partnership between Cleveland State University and State of East Cleveland. And basically it gave us a report that basically assessed where we were at in this situation around development and how do we make it responsible. [00:42:52] And so one of the. The recommendations that they had up there is to be transparent and to do a citywide master plan and everything. And that’s kind of like where we left off with that. We also did work around. [00:43:06] Really trying to leverage county resources to address East Cleveland being a food desert. And so we did a whole campaign around responsible grocery stores. And so the proposition for the county was, you know, understanding that East Cleveland is a food desert. And. And there’s this whole disparity based on zip code and food access and just zip code in general. [00:43:26] The life expenditures report done by the Roberts Wood Johnson foundation that basically says your life expectancy could be. [00:43:34] Predicted with accuracy by just knowing your zip code and everything. And so we know that the reason why we have going back to the class that took in urban school, you know, that the reason for government, the reason for laws that we create and everything is one reason for government. There’s many reasons, right? [00:43:53] Is of course, to protect personal property, but also to correct market failures. And so there’s a reason why in East Cleveland, a grocery store won’t survive here, right? People, they look at the money, they do the feasibility study, they see, okay, this is the demographic here, this is the amount of money that this community is able to do that kind of stuff. [00:44:12] But that doesn’t mean that we don’t need a grocery store. And so what we proposition the county on is to create. [00:44:19] A policy or some type of legislation that subsidizes the cost of implementing a high quality grocery store in underserved communities. Because it’s a government’s job to create market failures. And it’s a matter of life and death and everything. And so we did that campaign and we were able to Leverage resources. But it got to a point where we couldn’t get the local, our local city, our local city governments actually to buy in enough for us to be able to continue the process.

Nick Mays [00:44:47] What year did you start working for NOAH? And then what year did you begin to think about or to start or what year did you transition and started doing the CDC like work?

Trevelle Harp [00:45:02] All right, so I started working for NOAH right after the Obama election in 08. So. So he got elected in November. Later that month, in November, I think the 15th, I started working for NOAH and had been there. And I would say this type of work. [00:45:21] I don’t think people just come out, out of school say, okay, I could do this type of work and everything. You kind of like learn as you go. And as we begin to do the work, we begin to see need. And so how can we expand ourselves so that we can accommodate those needs? [00:45:36] And one of the things I’ve always said, and I’d say it a lot of time when I’m talking about even reimagining Neighborhood Leadership Institute, who absorbed NOAH, the entity NOAH, you know, as we think about leadership development, you know, leadership development or community building is more than just a sociopolitical aspect of community, you know, interacting in that public sector with those different areas, right, the social and the civic, that kind of stuff. [00:46:04] And just thinking of along those lines, one is half of the power equation. And you really produce like a sterile leader. The real, the extra component that lies in it to fully equipped a leader to actually do be transformational in the community is adding that economic pathway as well. And so, you know, yeah, we want to be able to speak and articulate a message and a narrative that sort of like, you know, meets the needs of the goals that we have in community. [00:46:29] And we want to be able to influence the politics as well. But if you don’t control the economics, then you’re not going to be able to control either one. Right. And so we saw East Cleveland. You know, there’s a lot of opportunity here. There’s a lot of vacant land. There’s a lot of opportunity to tap into different strong markets within or just around us in general. [00:46:51] But like, everybody wants to see it revitalized, but the question is, how do we provide entryway, entryway or pathways for the indigenous population that’s here right now to tap into that. And so that’s why we felt that it was important to not only organize around responsible economic development, but have an institution that can help create those pathways in a way that not only just creates the pathways in general, but transcends municipal boundaries in a sense of who knows where East Cleveland’s going to be as a city in itself, you know, 10 years from now, 15 years from now. [00:47:27] But if you set up an institution much like how you see University Circle, who set up, they basically had an idea of what the University Circle was going to look like 100 years ago, and they institutionalized that within University Circle Inc. And the institutions that make up University Inc. Like the Cleveland Clinic, like Case West Reserve, like University Hospital, like the arts districts with the Cleveland Arts Center. [00:47:55] And my brain is freezing with all those different amenities. But long story short, they already do that. They don’t care if they’re part of the city of Cleveland. They get Cleveland money. They don’t care if they’re part of Calgary county, they get county money. They don’t care how you designate them as far as. [00:48:06] And if they want their own police, they still got their own police that they can get their own police, but they still have Cleveland police. They still have the county police. It’s got RTA police, it’s got Cleveland Clinic police and everything. But they’re able to so, like, shape and create the institutional framework so that economic development meets their needs. [00:48:21] And I felt like, you know, Noah could be that organization that could meet the needs of the community that’s here now, if we can create that institution.

Nick Mays [00:48:30] In your response, I heard you explain responsible economic development, but I wanted to give you opportunity. What is, you know, responsible economic development? Is that your term? Did you come up with that? Can you define it?

Trevelle Harp [00:48:46] Yeah, it can be redefined. Anybody can define it. What it means to you. Right? So this whole question about, like, gentrification, Right. I’m not completely against gentrification because, I mean, gentrification clearly means that people with means and money and resources and capital come and invest in places that don’t have that. And so you kind of need gentrification to make any movement, any type of community. [00:49:08] But the part that, like, scares people the most, especially in communities like East Cleveland, is the displacement that typically happens because we don’t properly prepare the community for revitalization. And so when I look at responsible economic development is one definitely that. That. That meets the need and has community benefit. Right. But also creates economic pathways for people who have a, you know, desire to. [00:49:34] And have the ability to. To connect to the economy that it creates. And so. [00:49:42] I think that type of participation, to me, is a key element in responsible economic development.

Nick Mays [00:49:50] So. Currently there’s revitalization Efforts going on, development going on in East Cleveland in the targeted area and what Cuyahoga Land bank is calling the Circle East Project, or Circle East Community or neighborhood. Do you. Do you support, just in general, do you support revitalization and development programs going on today?

Trevelle Harp [00:50:23] Yeah, so that’s a very tricky question. And so, I mean, especially. [00:50:29] Knowing that, like, part of the work that I’ve done is the reason why the Land bank is here in the beginning. And so generally, yeah, I would love to be able to see, and I definitely fully support development happening in the community of East Cleveland. [00:50:43] One of the things that we were hoping when I was director of NOAH as a CDC in East Cleveland is that NOAH will have an opportunity to have equity stake within development, meaning owning property and everything, so that we can basically give the community opportunity to be the active participants within its own deliverance and everything, so have a pathway for economic development and everything. [00:51:05] And so the challenge now is, I mean, well, a lot of things happen politically within the communities Cleveland that, you know. You know, NOAH’s. Not that we’re not at that particular position now to be able, like, to do that, but. But the question would be for Noah now if it would. So we don’t want to stifle development, but, like, the question would be, how do we create pathways for residents to be a part of the renaissance that’s about to happen? [00:51:33] How do they become a part of that economy besides consumers?

Nick Mays [00:51:36] What does that mean, active participants?

Trevelle Harp [00:51:41] Well, the active piece right there, that’s the agitation for the community itself to get involved. And so it’s one thing. And that’s why just only having this, the social and political aspect of, you know, building power and community is not enough. Because participating in the economy, I think, is so important. And so it’s one thing, like, to go and pontificate, hey, we need you to do this for us. [00:52:03] We need this, we need this, we need that. And there’s no stake that the community has within that. But with that, there’s no benefit that the community necessarily gets. We’re only at a consumer, particularly. We’re only at a consumer position within that relationship. And so whether it’s, okay, we need a grocery store, and we want you to shape a policy to bring a grocery store in East Cleveland. [00:52:23] But the next question should be asking, how do we activate people who have the ability to actually, you know, manage or governor or create or whatever? How do we give them the opportunity to do that in the community that they say they want? And how do we give Them to help, you know, leverage resources so they can do that and everything. [00:52:39] And so. [00:52:41] I don’t want. I mean, I don’t think the community should be saying, okay, well, we need a pond so that we can go fishing, so you can give us fishing. But they don’t teach us how to fish within that pond and everything. And so everybody else benefits from that development. [00:52:55] And then it becomes. Then it becomes a situation. Okay, so why are you still here? And then that kind of perpetuates displacement because, you know, if this whole economy is built around a certain thing and residents get. It’s beautiful and it looks nice and the amenities are great. We got the metroparks going, we got this entity going, we got this development, we got these new homes here at this price mark everything. [00:53:19] But nobody who’s here now can afford to live in them, and there’s no pathway for them to do so. Then to me, I think we fail. I see. [00:53:31] Yeah, I probably should have thought that through. That’s a lot of rambling just to get to one point, but go ahead. I’m sorry.

Nick Mays [00:53:36] No, no, no. That’s a thorough and informative response. So thank you. [00:53:49] Another question I have with respect to your work with Noah in the East Cleveland, in the city of East Cleveland was the early work with the Cleveland Clinic and the Huron Road initiative. [00:54:13] Before we transition. Can you discuss that?

Trevelle Harp [00:54:16] Yeah. So that work was really interesting because it was so. Long story. Heron Road Hospital, been here for ages. It was a community based hospital. [00:54:26] That had a full trauma center. [00:54:29] And you know, to be honest, it was a difficult part of our tax base within the city because we generated tax revenue for the people who made money, who had salaries within that particular establishment. And I guess what transpired was we start hearing that they were going to close, first close the trauma center, then that they were going to close a whole hospital. [00:54:51] And of course, that has a significant impact in a community like East Cleveland, who depends on the tax revenue that’s coming in. And like, it’s not like we have, you know, the tax basis is great. You know, and so that, that would be like another shot into our, you know, our ability to be able to like, raise revenue, to be able to provide basic city services. [00:55:08] And then of course, the whole issue around, like, you know, where do you go if a trauma, like a trauma one incident happens? Basically you’re going all the way down to Metro Hospital or, you know, I think now, I don’t know if they. I think University Hospital now has a level, a level one trauma unit, but that Particular time, I think they only had, like, a level two or three. [00:55:31] So what we did was, Noah, this is one thing that I think that’s really important within the organizing process is to do research. And so what we began to see, and this is not the first time that Cleveland Clinic was trying to back out of, like, having her on the hospital and everything. [00:55:50] I think back when Stephanie Tubb Jones was alive. [00:55:54] They tried it as well. But she had a lot of power at the congressional level to kind of like, stop that and everything. [00:56:01] But long story short, what we were looking at is that community hospitals, like Hierarchy Hospital across the country were closing, and they were creating these little outpatient patient sites. Like what we got the Stephanie Tubb Jones center now. [00:56:15] And the reason why is basically it was just a matter of, like, you know, money. And so if you have a bunch of people coming and they need service but they’re uninsured and everything, the hospital loses money and everything. And so they’re literally trying to downsize and kind of do that. And so. [00:56:35] We started a campaign, and we looked at it, and basically we said, okay, well, we see the inevitable, but if you’re going to try to, you know, shut down this hospital, you have to be a good corporate citizen within our community and help subsidize that impact in our community. And so with that campaign, we were able to eventually get them to the table to negotiate, you know, what we call payment of lieu of taxes for the city, which basically, I think, kept the city from bellying up at that particular time. [00:57:09] Just these private conversations with the administration at the time that they were having trouble even meeting payroll at that time. But I think it was like $4 million payment in lieu of taxes, and then they would do $2 million worth of demolition of the hospital and a site around it and prep it for. [00:57:27] And hand that land back over to the cities to do development. And the reason why that was important is because we saw when we did our research in other areas where they abandoned hospitals, they just left the building there, and it was on the city to kind of, like, tear it down and that kind of stuff. [00:57:42] But, like. But just thinking forward, you know, it definitely was a loss to lose the hospital, but, like, having a deal like that, you know, could potentially put East Cleveland in a better position to further down the line to not only have that payment in lieu of taxes to get us through that. [00:58:01] That bridge, to kind of like, readjust to figure out how we’re going to rebuild our task base, but actually give us the ability to be Able to, like, secure that property for future development projects.

Nick Mays [00:58:11] And. One more question before I transition. I only have a couple more questions anyways, but I’m wondering where you able to. In your early decade or your early years with NOAH, especially when you’re doing the community development or neighborhood organizing. Were you able to create a pipeline, in other words, mentor kind of young people coming up to kind of prepare that pipeline and. And prepare them to do some of the work that you was doing at the time or even doing the work today?

Trevelle Harp [00:58:52] So I would say this. Until my latter years, East Cleveland was so difficult to raise money for. [00:59:02] And I would hear from when we go to foundations and talk to philanthropic people, they said, wow, you do more with a shoestring budget than what we give these other organizations. You give them millions to do. You’ve done more, that kind of thing. And I think so. One, it wasn’t necessarily. [00:59:20] A vocation that was financially rewarding, especially in the beginning stages. But I would say that as an organizer, what I was given to do, the test I was given is like, you know, basically the things that we undertook, it took a team, at least maybe 20 to 50 people to do and everything. [00:59:39] But when I looked at it, it was like, all on me, right? But what I had to learn to do was really invest and really identify and develop leadership, develop leadership and other people within the community to be able to carry those things out. So we were able to accomplish all those type of initiatives, whether it be the land bank, whether it be Hero Road Hospital, whether it be the grocery store campaign, whether it be Patterson Park. [01:00:03] We was able to do the work of about 100 people because it forced me to be able to go and identify and energize and invest in the leadership of other people to actually help do. [01:00:17] In my, I guess, the latter years of my tenure with NOAH, I was privileged to be able to work with three young individuals that basically got jobs doing work. I think maybe two out of the three are doing community work as we speak right now. But, like, what I think is sort of like a really good segue for me is so the organization that actually got me involved in this type of work in the beginning, Neighborhood Leadership Institute. [01:00:44] That’s what we do. We’re a pipeline for leaders. [01:00:49] I could say our mission, but I could say our slogan, too, is probably easier for people to sort of, like, internalize. And our value statement, our mission statement, our theory of change, could be summed up in this. Invest in people, develop leaders, transform community. And so basically, when you invest in community, you invest in people, you get the best that community has to offer. [01:01:09] Right. And everything. And then when you develop leaders, you’re able to sort of, like, manage that and focus that power so people can have, like, single, you know, can focus on, you know, all that attention on one issue at a time so that we can actually make some progress. And that leads to transformation in community. [01:01:25] And so that’s now my life’s work.

Nick Mays [01:01:29] Wow, thank you for that. Really brief. In my research. I saw that you’Ve had events at Patterson Park. Can you briefly just talk about what kind of events?

Trevelle Harp [01:01:43] Yes. So Patterson park is a part that as long as I’ve been back in East Cleveland, probably like 20 years, there’s probably one other time that somebody may as well started, you know, they’d at least cut the grass there. But literally. So we have Forest Hill park, which is on. [01:01:58] The south side. I guess the, you know, the south side is up the hill, basically. And, you know, and it’s surrounded by, like, the affluent part of East Cleveland. And then. And then the second largest park, which is Patterson park, is like, on the lower. Over there by, you know, by. On the lower half of Euclid, over by Superior, Thornhill, Eddie Road, Hayden area, that kind of. [01:02:19] And in that particular area, there’s a lot of, like. At that particular time, there was a lot of instances of, like, violence. I’ve seen. I’ve experienced young people getting shot and killed, and just a lot of, like, negative things happen. You know, and me having children myself, you know, there’s always this, you know, this nervousness about, like, you know, let your kids go out and play. [01:02:42] And so it became an issue of how do we identify an asset in the community so that we can help create a space for safe outdoor recreation? It’s not just for young people, too. Grown folks want to be able to go out and be able to have outdoor fun as well. And we have the amenities for it. [01:03:00] It’s just due to fiscal constraints, the city was not able to maintain it. And so, literally, we’d be lucky to get the grass cut over there once a year if that. And a lot of times it wasn’t. And so we began a campaign called Reimagine Patterson Park. It was at a time when NOAH didn’t have a lot of money. [01:03:17] As a matter of fact, I went. I started going back to Cleveland State because NOAH wasn’t able to. They wouldn’t afford to give me a salary. I wasn’t getting paid. So I basically lived off student loans. But still did the work with NOAH and everything. And we were able to. We started off with just getting people to come out and volunteer. [01:03:34] We were able to leverage a relationship with Kent State School of Architecture and Landscape Design to kind of like do charrettes, to kind of reimagine what that park could look like. And then we could begin to go out there. And the worst thing you do if you want to live a short life is go out there with a push mower and try to cut that whole thing. [01:03:51] You know, you’ll die of thirst. It’s like being on oasis, like in the desert anyway. But especially with all that grass and pollen, you learn a lot about that kind of stuff. But long story short. [01:04:04] One particular instance, we was out there, and it was this wooded area with all these trees that we began to pull out. And we noticed that it was a. Back there. It was a paddleball stage. And so. And the people who lived behind that particular park, in the park, didn’t even. Never. They lived there for like, 20, 30 years. [01:04:20] Never knew it was there. It was literally overgrown with trees and everything. So we found all these different assets there that allowed us to do things like. So now. Well, we haven’t had it the last year or so, but we would have every year Gospel Fest in the park and use that stage and everything. [01:04:36] We got the Patterson family, who’s the namesake of the park, park just so happened to be coming around trying to find out information about their lineage. Like, I guess their great grandfather used to be the first. So the park is named after W.L. patterson, who’s, like the first, the president, the first commission for city for East Cleveland. [01:04:57] So East Cleveland used to be city manager, commission, and they had a president of the commission, and that was W.L. patterson. And his great, great grandson was trying to find some history, and he came and we connected. And their family donated some, you know, some modest resources so we can put basketball hoops up. [01:05:19] And literally, until Mr. Patterson passed away, he would literally hand me a check to go support towards the upkeep of the park, and he’ll get on the lawn tractor and cut grass and everything. But we were able to keep the grass cut even to this day, keep the grass cut, keep trash picked up. [01:05:39] And then we were able. The Cleveland foundation graced us with some resources to buy movie equipment, about $30,000 worth. And we were able to do outdoor movies. We had, you know, game night, family night out for the kids, especially around this time during Halloween time. And, you know, like I said, we did concerts there we actually make the space available for other groups who want to have events up there as well and keep it, you know, maintained. [01:06:06] And, you know, the desire I have for expansion is to actually provide summer programming out there for our young people. And actually to get that place redone, it would be nice to be able to have like, have the whole park redone, have like a walking path around the whole park, well lit. [01:06:24] Maybe redo the basketball hoops and the goals, do a better stage with run electricity, you know, revitalize the bathrooms over there and you know, just make it a space that, that’s amenable to like just the growth of our community and amenities I know that we deserve as a community.

Nick Mays [01:06:42] Okay, pivoting again. Thank you for that. Thinking about East Cleveland residents who have volunteered and joined in, in your. Your journey. [01:06:54] Meaning the work that you’ve done in East Cleveland with Noah Community, Community development, or, excuse me, neighborhood. What is it? Where Obama used to be. Community organizing. And so, you know, folks who have volunteered and joined you and, and followed you as well, what do you believe informed their service, their, you know, their dedication, their passion.

Trevelle Harp [01:07:31] Yeah. Yeah. So. [01:07:34] I guess maybe the problem, maybe the proper service, maybe motivate them. So one, I mean, the main thing to overcoming east, because there’s a lot of passion. People, you know, people want to help this community, help our community. They want to be a part of that revitalization. The biggest thing is really is getting over that spirit of apathy, you know, to believe that there’s something that can be done. [01:08:01] Like we can do it, like if we get involved, if we become active participants in our deliverance, if we get up and we actually do the work, that we can actually make a difference in the community. So the, so just the feeling and the knowledge and the faith to know that, hey, I can make a difference. [01:08:17] The other piece, I think is really connecting to their self interest. And so like I said, use the analogy before. I think I’ll talk about the pizza shop, but I guess deal with lactose intolerance. Maybe ice cream shop is better analogy. Right? Everything. If I say, okay, I want to do an ice cream shop and I want everybody to help me. [01:08:34] Well, if you’re lactose intolerant, are you going to come out to a meeting and help me build an ice cream shop? Probably not and everything, but understanding what actually moves people and everything. And you don’t really get that until you actually sit down and talk with people. And for the most part, what I learned is a lot of people don’t really Understand they have not really realized what they wanted they actually want. [01:08:56] And I guess the way that I explain that is that. So when we live through experiences in life, a lot of times we live through those experiences. Experiences. And we just go to the next thing because it’s kind of like we’re in survival mode. There’s very rarely a time where people actually digest their experiences to understand, okay, so what makes me really. [01:09:12] What really motivates me, and the only way to really uncover that is to sit down and actually talk with people, you know, to get them to understand why they do what they do is whether it be like, hey, I want something for the young people, or, you know, I want to retire here, or, you know, or. [01:09:29] There’s one. [01:09:31] There’s one Community leader that I had the opportunity to watch grow as a leader. I couldn’t. His name is Hank Smith. I hope you forgive me for saying his name out there. But I couldn’t get him to get involved with nothing else because all he wanted to do was, like, there was. I think he wanted to do. [01:09:46] It was either a pothole that was on the street, or he wanted to get the young people to do some type of cleanup on the street. And that’s all he wanted to talk about. He wouldn’t participate in anything else. And so I really had to meet him where he was. And once we began to sort of, like, explore, okay, what the opportunities. [01:10:02] How can we help you fix the problem that you have right here? Everything, how can you be a part of that and everything, but begin to expose him to, like, you know, how do you polarize that pothole issue or that issue around getting young people activated in your street to a citywide thing? [01:10:18] The same thing with me as far as, like, you know, the insecurities that I had when I first came in East Cleveland, you know. You know, if I would have just relied on that internally, what I felt internally as far as, like, you know, the things that I struggle with, I would have never sort of, like, you know, translated into me, you know, being a part of a whole community and everything. [01:10:41] And so getting people to understand their interests and how that connects to the community as a whole, to the village, I think is key in really motivating people to get actively involved.

Nick Mays [01:10:53] Yeah, I think it’s. I think it’s very. It’s interesting and in a ways, fascinating for me as an outsider and someone who’s, you know, been in East Cleveland for. In research in East Cleveland for a couple of months now, and it’s. And it’s. The question is Aligned or. Or associated with the. With also that question of, you know, you know, about folks who have the opportunity and the means to leave. But, you know, it just. You know, it’s just resolve or adamant about staying in East Cleveland and seeing it through and just wondering, you know, what various crises. You know, pick one, you know, or. What is deemed as crises, Whether it’s poverty or politics. Or the blight situation. You know, one would think that folks would kind of give up, take their ball and go home and say nothing is going well. Nevertheless, you continue to see people out there. You know, one of an example you gave today, right? You said it was a blizzard, it was 200 people at the church. I guess I’m. You know. I’m trying to understand that.

Trevelle Harp [01:12:23] Yeah, yeah, people. You know, you connect people’s interests. And I guess that when they believe that what I do matters because it makes a difference and I can make a difference, I think that plays a lot. And like I told you, beginning, you asked me early. I mean, one of the first questions you asked me is like, what kind of child was I? [01:12:42] Well, I was a very naive child. So I guess that kind of, like, plays through to right now. So I’m so crazy to still believe that there’s a chance for East Cleveland.

Nick Mays [01:12:54] Okay, last two questions. One, and I understand today that you’re not. That you. That you didn’t graduate from. From Shaw High School, so you’re not an alum.

Trevelle Harp [01:13:06] Don’t hold that. Don’t hold it again. Right, right.

Nick Mays [01:13:08] But can you talk about the Shaw reunion? In fact, I went this year. It was fascinating. Right. I’ve never seen anything like that. What is the significance of the Shaw reunion for in your view, from your perspective of the Shaw reunion for East Clevelanders, and why has it become one of those important events for the city?

Trevelle Harp [01:13:35] Yeah, I think it represents a legacy of excellence. I mean, there’s definitely a lot of pride for Shaw and for East Cleveland that transcends, like, the municipal boundaries. I mean, people come from all over who have went through that school, school to actually come and celebrate one another. And I think the added things that they do as far as, like, part of what they do is they have a scholarship program that they do for people who graduate from Shaw, the young people now. [01:14:09] So they’re kind of reaching back and really helping people. And even when I hear. And I don’t know if this is supposed to be formally said or anything like that, but, like, there’s been even talks about, like, how do they reach back even more to really help, you know, benefit this community. But. [01:14:22] But. But it just goes to show that, like, you know, excellence. I mean. I mean, good people have come through this city, and it’s just what it is. And, you know, and that’s what’s being celebrated, you know, when the alumni come through.

Nick Mays [01:14:40] How often do you attend? Or the Shaw Reunion. No, because even non Shah people attend.

Trevelle Harp [01:14:47] Right, right, right. So besides. Besides, I tell you what. So it was one. It was. I don’t go often, but there was this one instance where the Shaw alumni weekend so, like, overlapped the Gospel fest that we’re doing. And so we did a partnership with the Shaw Alumni association and the Gospel fest. [01:15:08] And that experience was, I mean, on both sides. I think that people. People were really amazed about, like, what was happening in East Cleveland and then the fact that they were able to come be a part of that and so, like, contribute to that process and be a sponsor.

Nick Mays [01:15:23] And then finally, looking forward, are you hopeful or optimistic about the future of East Cleveland?

Trevelle Harp [01:15:33] Yeah, I think it can only get better. And here’s the thing. I think we have to be creative about what that looks like, because it may not look like what people will want it to be, but I think that there’s definitely an opportunity. The key is, you know, how much we participate within that renaissance in East Cleveland.

Nick Mays [01:15:53] And then finally, b. In closing, I’d like to revisit something you said in a past presentation. You said, quote, I’m also a proud East Cleveland resident, unquote. [01:16:12] You. You respond to the. Responded today in this question in a lot of way. But I want you to engage and unpack that quote directly that I am also a proud East Cleveland resident. Can you unpack that directly and what does it mean to you today?

Trevelle Harp [01:16:33] Yeah. [01:16:38] So I think greatness. [01:16:41] Is hard to be defined in a situation, whereas, like. [01:16:47] There’S no pressure, there’s no opposing force. Right. And so, like, you know, like, not to disparage like, Beechwood or like a more affluent community where there’s no problems and everything. Like, you know, we could be proud of those amenities and everything. But one of the things I wanted to do in life was make a difference. [01:17:07] You know, when I die, I want to be able to say, okay, I left something better than what I left something better than when it came to me. And understanding, like, I mean, East Cleveland, there is struggle, but there’s just so much potential. And just also understanding the notion around, like, value. [01:17:30] Is subjective. Right. So value basically is perceived when people deem it to be valuable.

Nick Mays [01:17:38] Right.

Trevelle Harp [01:17:39] And one of the Things I guess I’m proud about with East Cleveland is I do see value even when other people don’t see it. But when it’s revealed, right, when it becomes obvious through, I guess, the revival of revitalization efforts and some other things, that people can casually see East Cleveland being a jewel. [01:17:58] I’m just proud of this community because I can see its potential. I can see, you know, what can be done here. I mean, that’s just the bottom line. [01:18:11] You know, like I said. [01:18:16] If I was. Like I said, if I was an investor and. [01:18:20] You don’t become an investor and make it big, if everybody sees. If everybody sees it up front. Right. And everything. But I know that it’s here, you know, And I think that it’s the same thing with everybody else that loves this community and is proud to be here, because, I mean, it shows that, like, where we’re struggling as a community together to make things better. [01:18:37] And that, by itself, I think, is admirable and makes a community I want to be a part of. [01:18:44] And then I believe that we’re gonna make it.

Nick Mays [01:18:48] Well, Mr. Trevelle Harp, thank you for your passion, your work, the legacy that you build and you’re still building today. And thank you for being a part of this oral history project.

Trevelle Harp [01:19:03] Okay.

Nick Mays [01:19:03] All right.

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