MEMPHIS, Tenn. —
A longtime Orange Mound resident is calling on leaders to revive a task force created to revitalize and beautify the neighborhood.
Hazell Glover-Jones has called Orange Mound home for decades and loves the community.
"It was just the best life to me. I thoroughly enjoyed growing up in Orange Mound,” said Glover-Jones.
Glover-Jones said blight is getting out of control in Orange Mound. She was a committee member on the Orange Mound Task Force and hoped this group would solve the problem.
"We had a lot of ideas. We had this master plan that we were going to revitalize Orange Mound,” said Glover Jones.
The Orange Mound Task Force was created in 2019 and met consistently throughout the pandemic. But in 2022, the meetings stopped.
"We never took it back up. Nobody ever said anything. Nobody ever said if it's dissolved,” said Glover Jones.
The task force was made up of prominent businesspeople, government officials and community members.
Although they haven’t met, District 10 Shelby County Commissioner Britney Thornton said more work can still be done within the community.
"It's difficult to be able to get people to commit to joining meetings. I think that this information has to be shared in more intuitive spaces. So, imagine if we pushed this information into our school system,” said Thornton.
Thornton said crime is an ongoing challenge in Orange Mound, which she believes is directly correlated to blight.
"There haven't been private or public dollars that are flowing into the community, and it's at a cost,” said Thornton.
Despite the unclear future of the task force, Commissioner Thornton is pushing for initiatives to save Orange Mound. She said teaching asset management in schools could be a potential solution.
"If we equip our students, our middle schoolers, our high schoolers with that information so that they can go in and ground their families and better understanding while also learning for themselves. Because we know that it might not be their turn now to talk about managing assets but that's where they're going in the future,” said Thornton.
Commissioner Thornton said in the spring, she will bring back the "Shine Blight" campaign aimed at finding blight across District 10 and figure out how to support the owners of those blighted properties.