By Ray Robinson
For the past few years, Green Movement Glenville has become a central meeting place for neighborhood resource fairs, community arts exhibits, birthday parties, gardening explorations, political gatherings and a host of other fun and fact-finding events. In all, everything is coming up roses…and peaches, and cucumbers and watermelon and peppers and much, much more.
Located at the corner of E.114th and St. Clair Avenue, it is thee perfect place for education, music and urban farming since it sits directly across the street from Glenville High School and a throng of young thirsty minds. These are the individuals that Green Movement Glenville was created to attract. And they come like a moth to a flame.
At the controls of this modern day Garden of Eden is Vicky Trotter and a small handful of volunteers and earth lovers who have made this space extra special to the many people that it serves on a daily and year-round basis. They too come in droves to soak in the wonderfulness of nature right here just a few blocks from where they live.
There will soon be a community radio station run out of the former Trotter’s Cleaners, space that has always been a spot for thinkers, movers, shakers and entrepreneurs. The radio station will be a place for residents of Glenville to have their voice heard by people all around the globe. Not just in Glenville. And the community has a lot to say.
There are also plans in the works for a community newspaper solely written about Glenville’s residents, events and community services that are available. The publication will be distributed throughout the Glenville neighborhood in free stacks at stores, restaurants, gas stations, churches, recreation centers and other places where people eat, play and work.
Victoria Trotter has lived in the Glenville area for nearly 50 years. The former CEO of Trotters Dry Cleaners, a family-owned business operating in the Glenville community since 1969, she is an alum of Cuyahoga Community College, Kent State University and University of Akron Law School.
Trotter spearheaded the Green Movement in Glenville (GMG) by being the first to implement an eco-friendly, safe dry-cleaning process in the city of Cleveland. And she is a voracious advocate for community involvement in the eco-environmental movement.
She has a number of community partners including Perry Williams of ROMA Construction, the Central State University Extension Ag Program, the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service and a myriad of others both large and small. Together with Williams, she has built 2 hoop houses (Hi-Tunnels) that provide fresh farm-to-table produce for the residents of Glenville and for her future healthy cafe. In turn, the cafe will serve as a hub/networking site for residents, provide healthy food alternatives and function as an additional funding mechanism for a forthcoming youth entrepreneurship incubator.
Her passion for youth entrepreneurship and community advocacy led her to convene street and block clubs in the Glenville community and in the city of East Cleveland and create programs like the Young Entrepreneurs for Global Change (YE4GC). These initiatives connect residents to needed services, provide youth with opportunities to create, invest and grow capital in their own businesses, and help youth develop a worldview through travel.
A popular motivational speaker, Trotter is the recipient of numerous community and entrepreneurship awards and a local radio personality.