After 50 years of reclaiming vacant lots and blighted structures, creating safe places for kids to grow, and empowering residents to lead, The Center for Great Neighborhoods has established a proven track record of resident-led community development.
The Center for Great Neighborhoods, a community development nonprofit serving Covington, is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, marking five decades of work rooted in the belief that lasting neighborhood change starts with the people who live there.
Since 1976, The Center has worked from a simple premise: a healthy neighborhood is more than a collection of well-kept buildings. It is a place where people feel safe, connected, and able to shape their community’s future. That belief has guided everything from clearing blight and creating affordable housing to opening doors for kids and supporting residents as they organize and lead projects, programs, and initiatives that bring residents together to create the neighborhoods that they want to live in.
“For 50 years, The Center has believed that the people who live in a neighborhood are the ones best equipped to shape its future,” said Shannon Ratterman, Executive Director of The Center for Great Neighborhoods. “Our role has always been to listen first, build trust, and work alongside residents as they turn ideas into action. This anniversary is a celebration of what Covington neighbors have made possible together—and a commitment to keep investing in resident-led change for the next 50 years.”
Over five decades, The Center for Great Neighborhoods has learned that real estate development, youth investment, resident leadership, and creative placemaking are not separate programs. These are four parts of one strategy for building stronger neighborhoods from the ground up.
Reclaiming the physical landscape. Through initiatives that address blighted and vacant buildings, organized litter cleanups, real estate development, and Keep Covington Beautiful, The Center tackles the visible signs of disinvestment that can erode a neighborhood’s sense of safety and pride. A vacant building is not just an eyesore; left unaddressed, it becomes a barrier to the everyday community life that makes a neighborhood feel like home. The Center has rehabbed, built, or improved more than 80 residential and commercial units in Covington, including more than 40 affordable homes, and community-serving commercial hubs like the Hellmann Creative Center, Olla Taqueria, and Art Markit.
Investing in the next generation. Covington Sparks and Sparks in the Park is our newest youth program and grew out of conversations with residents about the need for more safe spaces for Covington youth outside of school hours. In partnership with 6th District Elementary School and Covington Parks and Recreation, the program offers Saturday youth activities, including art, sports, and enrichment. Where physical development removes barriers, youth programming builds the human foundation for a neighborhood’s future. Sparks is the newest youth program for The Center but follows more than 50 years of experience building programs that offer our youngest residents the opportunity to be in community, grow, and express themselves in a safe, supportive environment.
Putting residents in the lead. The Center does not just work for neighborhoods; it works with them. It provides direct support to Covington’s neighborhood associations and resident-led groups, including Ride the Cov, Covington Street Hockey League, and Redden Gardens. That support can be long term, such as serving as a group’s fiscal agent, or project-specific, such as helping with new playground equipment, a mural, painted crosswalks to encourage pedestrian safety, or a neighborhood litter cleanup. The Center helps these groups so the people closest to a community’s challenges have tools, resources, and organizing capacity to drive solutions themselves.
Listening first, through engagement and art. Before The Center can help solve a neighborhood’s challenges, it has to understand them — and residents are the experts on their own community. The Center uses community engagement and art to open that conversation, creating accessible and welcoming ways for residents to share the issues that matter most in their neighborhood. These creative, participatory approaches do more than gather information; they build trust and give residents a genuine stake in shaping the solutions that follow. The Center’s community-based art projects have resulted in dozens of pieces of public art pieces sprinkled throughout Covington, including the neighborhood gateway mosaic signs, the Lewisburg peace mosaic, the Orchard Street apple tree, the Glenn O Swing Elementary ‘Try Together, Fly Together’ mural, and soon, CAIRN, a sculpture installation and celebration of Covington’s history and future that will live in the Covington Central Riverfront neighborhood.
Fifty years, one throughline
The same core belief has connected The Center’s work since 1976: real community development happens when physical investment and human investment move together, led by the residents who call the neighborhood home. It starts with listening — using creative engagement strategies to learn directly from residents what their neighborhood needs. Clean, safe streets create the conditions for kids to play outside. Engaged, supported youth grow into invested neighbors. Organized, empowered residents make all of it sustainable for the next 50 years.
To mark the milestone, The Center for Great Neighborhoods will host its 50th Anniversary Celebration on Thursday, October 15, at the Madison Event Center.
In honor of its 50th anniversary, The Center will recognize several Covingtonians who have long supported their community and strengthened it through their contributions. The 2026 Legacy Award winners are Tom DiBello, Emily Wolff and Paul Weckman, Mae Rice, Katie Meyer and Bonnie Meyer, the Gutierrez family, and the Carol Ann & Ralph V. Haile, Jr. Foundation.
The event will include food from vendors of the Covington Farmers Market – a program of The Center for Great Neighborhoods, and remarks from Mayor Ron Washington and Executive Director, Shannon Ratterman; and a celebration of the many past Heart of the Community Award winners who define what resident leadership can do to create a vibrant, active community that people want to call home.
Tickets are available at www.greatneighborhoods.org
Center for Great Neighborhoods