High school students at Northwest Academy of Law and Social Justice, as part of their 'There ARE Children Here' campaign, have been reclaiming vacant properties and reimagining their neighborhood - infusing art into derelict properties as a reminder that there ARE, in fact, children here.

The Walnut Park East neighborhood has one of the highest rates of vacancy in St. Louis: 36% of all land is vacant, with more than 400 vacant buildings and almost 600 vacant lots. In May 2018, students in the Artivism and Social Justice clubs, along with local artist Cbabi Bayoc, painted the board-ups for 11 vacant buildings that face the school. (Similar projects in St. Louis City and others have found that art on vacant buildings results in less building use and vandalism.) 

As the next step, this group of student artivists would like to create and install an outdoor sculpture installation on the vacant lots surrounding the school grounds. In early 2018, six hazardous vacant buildings were demolished, leaving almost an entire block of vacant lots. This area is consistently used for illegally dumping, where it is easy to hide debris among overgrown weeds and old fence lines. The City's Forestry department recently cleared the lots of all but mature trees, preparing the canvas for this project. 

The students and Cbabi would now like to develop an installation along the theme of 'There ARE Children Here' - sculptures demonstrating children playing outside and enjoying the outdoors. In combination with improved vacant property maintenance through the Green City Coalition, this project will transform what was once a block of vacant buildings and lots and debris into an artful, accessible community open space that encourages us all to reimagine vacancy in St. Louis and to remember that there ARE children here.