In May 2022, Storefront for Community Design announced a bold, new vision and a three-year strategic plan. We will firmly focus on transforming our low-cost design and planning assistance programs and expanding our design education programs to inspire community-driven design in the built environment.
This is a living, breathing plan that we will continue revisiting over the months and years ahead. Since kickstarting our plan in July, we've been building an intentional roadmap that prioritizes actions and creates measurable goals. We are excited to share it and begin collaborating with you as we continue to realize our vision.
Each year, Valentine’s Day reminds us to purposefully demonstrate love, care, and support for our families, friends, and communities. This year’s holiday also marks Storefront for Community Design’s 10th anniversary and we want to shout a huge THANK YOU for your support in making our first ten years a success.
Since the beginning, we set out to make design accessible to all “for the love of our city.” Through partnerships and community collaborations, we continue to discover new ways of seeking Richmond's physical and social transformation through design and community voice. After an incredible ten years, we remain humble, yet excited for the possibilities that lie ahead for our organization, partners, and neighbors.
Our Board of Directors, staff, and partners are excited to celebrate this milestone anniversary throughout the year, so stay tuned for ways to get involved. To kickstart our celebration, here’s a few ways you can show your support today.
Donate to Storefront to support our next ten years
Volunteer as a Session Designer
Share our story with your network
Whether you’ve been with Storefront from the beginning or just a short time, we wanted to celebrate our anniversary with a look back over the last ten years. Enjoy the memories and accomplishments of our community and we look forward to making many more with you in the coming years. Now, it’s time to celebrate!
Storefront for Community Design is excited to announce the selection of Shawn Balon as its new Executive Director.
Shawn brings a wealth of experience in design, non-profit, and educational environments with expanded knowledge of organizational management and strategic planning. He has the strategic vision necessary to elevate Storefront for Community Design and its programs in the years to come and will bring a creative, innovative, and collaborative approach when working with staff, board members, donors, partners, volunteers, and the community-at-large.
“I appreciate the board’s confidence in me, and I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to lead such a great organization. It will take innovative and purposeful solutions to create a path for Storefront for Community Design to continue addressing the challenges in our communities, and I look forward to advancing my efforts to focus on the importance of participatory design to honor differences, challenge injustices, and create vibrant neighborhoods,” said Balon.
We recently got to share a few projects at mOb studio + Storefront for Community Design with Richmond Magazine and how it all got started. Read the full interview by Taylor Peterson published on Feb 7, 2020.
“Design provides a vision rather than a … volatile position.” —Camden Whitehead, co-founder, Mob Studio
Friends of Forest Hill Park
Forest Hill Park contains a couple historic buildings in need of roof repairs. These are the Old Stone House and stables in the the park. Storefront will help direct the conversation within the community to make sure that all facets of these historic sites are told.
The Old Stone House in Forest Hill Park.
If you think you might be interested in these projects, give us a shout at hello@storefrontrichmond.org
On Saturday April 29th, Highland Park residents joined us for the Highland Park Spring Break Event. The event featured 8 different non-profit organizations working within the community. The goal was to engage with community members about how they might envision the growth of their neighborhood, to describe the resources these organizations offered, and most importantly to eat, dance, and perform in the talent show.
At least 100 people showed up to dance, hear about the Storefront for Community Design, Groundwork RVA, Saving Our Youth, the CPDC, LISC, and Tricycle Gardens. On display in the 6PIC space were plans for architectural plans for local business improvements that community members voted on. The day was unusually hot but that didn't stop the talent show from continuing!
Storefront is seeking volunteers to propose a redesign the storefront of Miracles store in Church Hill. Do you have an idea for new signage, a color scheme or something to make this shop stand out?
Contact Adele (adele@storefrontrichmond.org) if you are a designer interested in this storefront improvement project.
Our neighbor in Highland Park, Ms Minor Young is in need of your landscaping and erosion engineering advice. This house has been in her family since the 1970s and is situated just at the edges of Richmond City and Henrico County. In the past year, the ravine in the backyard has begun encroaching on the house.
Storefront is seeking an architect or engineer to assist the property owner in developing a plan of action for her yard. She is also seeking a landscape architect who may aid her in identifying and replacing invasive species with new and native trees and shrubs.
This Design Session is still available
A national meal-providing non-profit has $4000 to spend to update a community kitchen. They need to transition an existing space in a warehouse into a legal commercial kitchen as well as make the space versatile for cooking demonstrations, mass canning and fermentation projects, long term bulk food storage, collective food prep space for this non-profit organization with easy clean up.
They would like to complete this project as quickly as possible but with no specific timeline.
**VOLUNTEER ASSIGNED**
The Richmond Trails Foundation is an organization that is dedicated to planning, developing, and maintaining Richmond's trails and greenways with the belief that "a robust trail network has been proven to improve the economic vitality of an area as well as the the health and well-being of the community." They are stewards of both natural and paved trail in the Richmond region. The RTF works with regional Parks and Rec Departments as well as other local organizations and hopes to fill in the gaps in support that these organizations need.
They are looking for a new identity: something simple, powerful, that communicates a love for trails and the access to fun, relaxation, and adventure that they provide. The design should consider a range of applications from web, print, apparel, stickers, etc.
For those designers interested, Storefront asks for 2 to 6 hours of your time to dedicate to this identity project. Help this trail stewardship organization develop a finalized design before May 2017!
Please contact Adele (adele@storefrontrichmond.org) with your interest.
The VCU Department of Physical Therapy is working on developing an innovative rehabilitation device that could be used in the home, therapy clinics and even daycares, to encourage infants to work on their prone motor abilities. However, there is a need to re-design the center to be more family friendly and portable.
This project is so important because the development of gross motor skills is vital to an infants development. The Department of Physical Therapy's new design encourages infants to participate in tummy time longer than current market play centers.
If you are a designer that would like to engage in the re-design please contact us at hello@storefrontrichmond.org!
A year and a half ago in her Jackson Ward apartment, Jourdan James began dreaming about how to access more green garden space in her neighborhood. Now she is applying for non-profit status and furthering her plans for turning the triangular plot of land at 620 Chamberlayne Parkway into a community garden and educational space.
The plot is uniquely situated at a major gateway to the neighborhood, which sets it up to be a verdant usher into the neighborhood.
She is seeking assistance with a landscape plan of the 8,200 sq. ft. space, using approximately 4,000 sq. ft. for 12 raised bed gardens and the remaining space for storage, education, bee-keeping and leisure. The Jackson Ward Community Garden will be a space to learn about native flowers and vegetables as well as sustainable gardening practices. Some concerns she faces already include water access, fencing, and accessibility to all neighborhood residents. She also has plans for an updatable mural site for the dreary winter months.
For those who are interested, the scope of this work requires about 2 to 6 hours of your time. The deliverables are a site-plan and elevation rendering due by the end of October to help this forming non-profit raise funds and share their ideas for community green space and sustainability education.
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Note: to sign up to volunteer, follow this link to complete the form.
