A resident of Peoria’s North Valley neighborhood and young volunteers have turned a home into a symbol of healing for the community, in an effort to reclaim and redefine a struggling block.
Molly Rice grew up two blocks away from her current home on Glendale Avenue.
“In recent years, it’s gotten a little bit worse,” Rice said. “We’ve had some things happen that affected us personally and it’s kind of rough. We want to show people that we are not going to let that make us move or get really down on the neighborhood or anything like that.”
With the help of volunteers from the Dream Center’s Mission Peoria, Rice spent to spent the week giving her community garden a face lift — building raised beds to protect plants from lead-contaminated soil, revealing historic brick sidewalks and painting a mural to painting a mural to make a statement against gun violence.
“I want my neighbors to know that my family cares about them, the larger community cares about them,” Rice said. I think a lot of times, people feel like our neighborhood is forgotten and ignored and neglected — and it is.”
One of those volunteers was Levi Patacsil, a 19-year-old life-long resident of Peoria.
“Obviously every area of Peoria needs a lot of love,” Patacsil said. “But there are some areas that you can see a more obvious need in. And the North Valley area is one of those.”
The mural, painted on the back of Rice’s garage, faces a now-vacant home with a history of violence. Michaela Isabelle, a 14 year old from Marquette Heights, helped paint it.
“Basically, the mural on the left hand side is representing what the neighborhood either currently or used to look like,” she said. “So it’s dull and it’s not lively and it’s kind of dying.Then, as we transition and rebuild the neighborhood, it becomes colorful again.”
The painting also has echoing hearts meant to illustrate a quote Rice choose to exemplify her neighborhood: “Love is quieter than gunshots, but there’s more of it.”
Rice said she hopes the piece helps the neighborhood heal.
“We do hear gunshots periodically, and sometimes we later find out that shot that we heard hit somebody that we know and love,” she said.
“We think that the more positivity and the more love that there is in the neighborhood, the more people will move in and continue to spread that.”
It’s Rice’s positivity that attracted volunteers, like Levi Patacsil.
“They’re just trying to be a light in here, which is what we need more of in the Peoria area,” he said. “There are too many people who see Peoria for what it is now and then they want to get out of here."
Patascil says Rice is one of the few people he has encountered that see Peoria for what it can become — and the rebuilding starts in her own neighborhood.
