Tag Archives: Ileana Collazo

Getting Good Done Miami

The January 30 Getting Good Done Miami conversation at the Miami Green Lab was an exciting event. More than 60 of you came out on a rainy night to share practical skills and challenges in doing positive community-based work in Miami.

A full podcast from the event will be available soon. Until then, you can read the storify here.

We were really grateful to have several members of Miami city and Miami-Dade county staff at the event to work with community activists on expediting their great ideas for Miami. Special thanks to Nichole Hefty and Susannah Troner from the Miami-Dade County Office of Sustainability, for initiating this partnership with ioby that is now one year in the making.

We also wanted to recognize Christian Guerrero, the Chief of the Environmental Plan Review at the county, Carlos Hernandez from the County Wastewater Division, and Patrice Gillespie Smith, from the County Community Image Manager for bringing their great ideas to the table. Thanks also to Glen Hadwen from the City of Miami Sustainability for hosting the event at the Miami Green Lab.

Our speakers, Marta Viciedo, Eric Katz, Ileana Collazo and Gayle Zalduondo shared fascinating presentations with us about their projects (all found on ioby.org/miami).

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Notable among the practical skills shared to Get Good Done were a focus on taking small steps initially to build support and work within a limited budget at first. The speakers shared that using a light, tactical intervention at first, like a pop-up park, pop-up parklet, or even a pop-up train station, can be great ways to introduce new ideas to a community. Many speakers talked about building creative partnerships and working in neighborhoods where they don’t live and building community, person to person. Marta mentioned that it’s really important to “be nice” when you’re asking people to help you with your ideas. Ileana noted that creative alliances, like hers between artists and developers, can be long lasting. Eric shared his passion for transit-oriented development and said that it is a useful skill he’s acquired in articulating his vision for bringing ecological commodities to all Miami-Dade residents. He emphasized the importance of bringing other people into his network by connecting to them to a shared vision, similar to how one might do so in a grant proposal. Gayle described her surprise when an informal conversation with a new friend about her idea to install a public chalkboard in Wynwood ended up landing her a partnership with a women and girls organization at Miami Dade College.

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The Office of Sustainability at Miami-Dade County offered to create a resource guide to try to help ioby leaders and community groups figure out how to get different types of permitting. Miami-Dade County will share this resource guide with all ioby project leaders once finalized. The Office of Sustainability also offered to assist in making connections with other County staff members (and municipal staff when possible). Office of Sustainability staff can be reached at 305-375-5593 or green@miamidade.gov. It’s a good idea to contact ioby first so we can help you prepare for your meeting with the county. All ioby staff are notified when you email miami@ioby.org. If you have an idea for an ioby campaign visit ioby.org/idea or email projects@ioby.org.

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Thanks to Luis Munoz for these great photos!