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

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