News Release

June 1, 2012

Contacts: Douglas Robinson, drobinson@nw.org, 202 220-2360

NeighborWorks America Kicks Off NeighborWorks Week

WASHINGTON, D.C. – June 2 is the kick-off of the 29th annual NeighborWorks Week – a week-long celebration of community where thousands of volunteers come together to help make their neighborhoods healthy, sustainable places to work, play and call home. From June 2 through June 8, from Orlando, FL to Anchorage, AK and more than 160 points in between, individuals and families are working and learning side by side to enhance their lives during NeighborWorks Week.

NeighborWorks week is sponsored by NeighborWorks America, the preeminent leader in affordable housing and community development, and showcases the work of the NeighborWorks network, a group of more than 235 high-performing nonprofit companies from 50 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia.

“NeighborWorks Week is when NeighborWorks organizations showcase what they do best – work with residents, volunteers, civic and business leaders to promote strong, stable, and healthy communities,” said Eileen Fitzgerald, CEO of NeighborWorks America.


This year’s NeighborWorks Week events provide a range of options for volunteers to make a difference. A few examples include:


In Anchorage, more than 150 volunteers organized by NeighborWorks Anchorage will participate in a “paint the town” project expected to help 20 families not only make their houses more beautiful, but keep their exteriors strong.


Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago is working with Lowe’s and other partners to improve “curb appeal” in a neighborhood, while also going door-to-door to distribute home safety equipment such as smoke and carbon monoxide detectors and fire extinguishers.
In Arkansas, Argenta CDC is getting a hand from Bike and Build, Inc., for its NeighborWorks Week project that fixes up homes owned by low-income and senior citizens from the community’s Baring Cross neighborhood.


The NeighborWorks Alliance of Vermont – a group of five NeighborWorks organizations – is coming together Friday, June 8th 2012 to work on reconstruction, rehab, clean-up, and beautification projects in the hard-hit Windsor/Windham counties area from Tropical Storm Irene.


Home repair has long been a big part of NeighborWorks Week activities, but in recent years events created to help homeowners learn how to save their homes from foreclosure have grown. In Arizona, the Neighborhood Housing Services of Phoenix is transforming the iconic summer lemonade stand into a “Home Aide” stand in partnership with a local grocer. Volunteers and professional housing counselors will pass out information about mortgage help programs in one of the cities hardest hit by the foreclosure crisis.


And in New York City, where going big is the best way to get noticed, the NeighborWorks affiliate Neighborhood Housing Services of New York is creating a mobile NeighborWorks HomeOwnership Center inside a 600 square foot tent in the middle of Times Square.


“From community gardens being built in Oakland and Sacramento, to multi-cultural food fairs in Fort Wayne, IN, and an art project in Kalamazoo, MI, to information sessions that build and sustain the dream of homeownership in dozens of places, NeighborWorks organizations coast-to-coast are working with people everywhere to build strong communities,” added Fitzgerald.

For more information about NeighborWorks Week in your community and videos of past exciting NeighborWorks Week events, please visit www.nw.org/neighborworksweek.


About NeighborWorks America
NeighborWorks America creates opportunities for people to improve their lives and strengthen their communities by providing access to homeownership and to safe and affordable rental housing. In the last five years, NeighborWorks organizations have generated more than $19.5 billion in reinvestment in these communities. NeighborWorks America is the nation’s leading trainer of community development and affordable housing professionals.

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