Student-sponsored block party celebrates West Grove, website

Children with the painted-on faces of princesses and superheroes twirled in Hula-hoops and squirted each other with water guns as others tossed Frisbees and skateboarded through Virrick Park Saturday at a block party designed for West Coconut Grove.

Organized by a University of Miami public relations campaign class, the four-hour event offered local residents an afternoon of music, food and prizes as well as a chance to learn about a new community news website that focuses on Coconut Groves’ historic African-American and Bahamian community.

The online venture, Grand Avenue News, was launched in October through a UM effort involving School of Communication faculty and students. Through the project, professors assign their students stories, videos and photographs related to Coconut Grove. The work is edited by students and faculty and published on the website, grandavenews.com.

“It’s something that the Grove has been wanting for a long time,” said Ken Knight, who won a $20 gift card to Chili’s restaurant at the block party’s raffle. “In the absence of the newspaper, this is awesome right here.”

Knight, who has lived between Liberty City and Coconut Grove for the past five years, said he helps with many outreach programs in the community. But he had not heard about the website before the block party.

Neither had Yolanda Henderson, who came to the party with her two sons and won a $25 gift card to Splitsville Bowling Alley.

“The website would be good for me to know what’s going on in the community and for me to get involved,” said Henderson, who moved to the Grove three months ago from North Miami.

Many of the estimated 125 people who came out to the park, 3255 Plaza St., could log on to the website using any of the three Macintosh computers that were set up for community use. Stories and colorful photos published on the website also were posted throughout the park.

“The students realized that to help Grand Avenue News raise awareness of its efforts, they needed to do some kind of event, the kind that could bring people together and make good memories while showing what the website was all about,” said Colee Splichal, whose class put on the block party.

Splichal’s students spent weeks preparing the public relations campaign, including soliciting donations for the 40-prize raffle that gave away a variety of items, from gift cards and bicycles to a dwarf hamster that came with its own cage and food. On Saturday, the students arrived early to set up the “Kid Zone” for face painting and to put out the food and display the raffle prizes.

“Watching the smiles on people’s faces, I knew that Grand Avenue News accomplished bringing a sense of community back to Coconut Grove,” said Andrew Boysen, one of the public relations students.

“I feel the block party was a great opportunity for Grand Ave News to connect with the community,” said the website’s director and founder Kim Grinfeder, an assistant professor in visual communication.

“It’s a great teaching tool because it gives students an opportunity to go into real communities and interview real people about real issues,” said Sam Terilli, one of several faculty members who attended the event. “It provides a source of intensely local news for the community.”

Community leaders, including Charles Byrd, board chairman of the Coconut Grove Collaborative, and Ron Nelson, chief of staff for Miami City Commissioner Marc Sarnoff, also were on hand to support the project.

Coconut Grove Village Council members Renita Samuels-Dixon and Stephen Murray, a UM student who lives in West Coconut Grove, helped to wrap up the day by emceeing the raffle.

“Grand Avenue News is the only organization that has provided a website in reference to West Coconut Grove,” said Samuels-Dixon, “and we want to thank you for that.”

In turn, Sam Grogg, dean of the School of Communication, thanked the residents for allowing grandavenews.com into their homes, businesses, meetings and churches to report on the community.

“Your stories are now a part of the human conversation going on around the planet,” Grogg said, referring to how the Internet makes news coverage both local and global.

Grinfeder said the block party was not organized to celebrate the end of the school year nor the culmination of the project. The website will continue – and so will the block party, he said: “It was fun and I hope to do it again next year.”