Grant Applicant: Blueprint58

The feature below is brought to you by Blueprint58 an organization that is in the running to receive a See Beautiful Grant. For more information about all of our giving initiatives, please click here. 

To learn more about Blueprint58, please visit their website page: here.

Blueprint 58 is a mentoring and community development program in Southwest Atlanta. Deeply rooted in Isaiah 58:12, our organization believes that communities can be restored through building mutually transformative relationships. This approach keeps the individuals that make up the community at the center of what we do. Through spending time, sharing laughs, and engaging culture, we open ourselves up to opportunities to partner and connect with the community we love.

Our vision is to empower youth to grow into community leaders, and that they might then transform a neighborhood from the inside out rather than the outside in. We accomplish this through mentoring, sports, and personal development programming in the Pittsburgh and Adair Park communities in Atlanta.

In 2018, we purchased a building in the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Atlanta for Blueprint 58. With this building, we hope to provide our community with a space where students and neighbors will feel like they have reached a safe and welcoming place that allows them to grow and build lasting relationships.

We hope to create a warm and welcoming environment for students to play games, gather for prayer, and study. Our vision for the building is an innovative, beautiful space that remains true to the heart of the Pittsburgh neighborhood and restores the beauty of a building which has been in disrepair for so long.

As we begin to build out this space, we want to listen more than we speak. To ask our neighbors what they desire and need, rather than assuming we know. One of our most important hopes for this space is that it will be created and grown through the input and innovation of the people who are already living in this beautiful Pittsburgh neighborhood.

Here at Blueprint 58, we believe lasting transformation of a community will come through relationship. That the acknowledgment of existing assets, and building new partnerships will best honor the history and future of a community. We hope that through canvassing, neighborhood meetings, community involvement, and even a block party, we will be able to both share our vision for the space while inviting our new neighbors into it. Mutuality of relationships being played out on neighborhood and systemic levels is the dream of our hearts, and we are honored to play a role in that.

Purchasing a building in the historic Pittsburgh neighborhood has ignited a fire in our hearts for restoration, and has been a sign post for Blueprint 58, reminding us to listen and learn from our neighbors each step of the way. We want to invite friends across the oceans and around the corner, to be a part of our vision - to build something beautiful alongside us. To build community and relationships. To build hope and grace and a deep belief in second chances. And third chances and forth ones.

Together, let’s build a movement of neighbors and friends who believe the creation of a place more beautiful and hopeful is not only possible, but something we can all play a role in creating.