Cheryl Leontina Joins BNA from PSU for Alleyway Project

The Boise Neighborhood Association recently welcomed Cheryl Leontina, a student intern from Portland State University studying architecture. Cheryl’s architecture vision includes “designing spaces that support community and promote human connectedness, ensuring that dwellings are conduits to nature and the everything, and transforming city blight by repurposing abandoned structures and vacant lots into activated centers and urban parks.” Cheryl brings a wealth of experience and excitement to the Boise Neighborhood Association-- she is a current architecture student, an accomplished artist, and in 2007 she designed and built a primitive earthen home using found materials on site where she lived until moving to Portland in 2011.

Cheryl has joined us to coordinate the Alleyway Project in the Boise and Concordia neighborhoods-- a months long project to restore, revitalize, and repurpose our communities’ alley spaces. As a part of this work, Cheryl will:

• Conduct surveys of neighbors along each new alley.

• Perform outreach and work with neighbors to establish a vision for each alley.

• Create a process for outreach to engage our community in the process to beautify and activate alleyways.

• Engage our community in an Alleyway Naming Contest.

• Organize alleyway events like lawn games, BBQs, wine parties, art walks, dog walks, native plant walks, and bike rides.

• Draft a neighborhood sustainability template and present it to neighborhood associations and business organizations.

• Write grant applications to provide funding for art, plants, and other materials.

Cheryl has already started on this exciting work by surveying neighbors at the Boise Neighborhood Annual Spring Cleanup! If you’d like to get involved, provide input, or just welcome Cheryl to our neighborhood, please email her at leontina@pdx.edu.