The Doe Fund’s Gramercy cleaning crew

In July 2013, the Gramercy Park Block Association shared a report about The Doe Fund’s Ready, Willing & Able street-cleaning crew, which had worked in the neighborhood since 2011. Residents credited the crew with a visible improvement in the streets around them.

Arlene Harrison, who had welcomed the team to Gramercy, learned that the crew was being reassigned temporarily. Neighbors wrote to The Doe Fund to express their appreciation and ask for its return.

The Block Association’s board member Kathleen Scupp organized a luncheon for the workers. The gathering recognized the people whose daily effort had become part of the neighborhood’s life.

The report connected the work with Ready, Willing & Able’s wider purpose of helping people prepare for employment and independent living.

Read about today’s Clean Streets program.

December 2011

The crew’s first weeks

The Block Association’s December 19 service letter reported that the Ready, Willing & Able crew had been cleaning around the Park five days a week for the previous month. It asked neighbors to thank the workers in their bright blue uniforms.

The notice gives an earlier view of the relationship described in the 2013 report: appreciation for a regular presence on the streets, alongside recognition of The Doe Fund’s employment and housing mission.