West End Revitalization

Logo with a stylized letter 'R' shaped like a location pin, featuring purple, light blue, teal, and lime green colors.

Making the West End of Rock Island a preferred place to live and thrive.

We envision a West End of Rock Island that is a preferred place to live and thrive. This requires building the West End community’s wealth, power, and livability. No single person, organization, or sector can do this on its own. We all must work together to achieve it. The Martin Luther King Center is bringing together the West End community and its supporters to make overdue, positive, lasting, transformational change.

After a community-informed West End assessment completed in 2021, we’re moving to action on five impact areas, using a Collective Impact approach. We are building a network of West End community members and supporters to envision the future we want for our families and community, to align activities, to implement innovative solutions, to evaluate our progress, to and learn and improve together.

Here is the 3-Year Implementation Plan (March 2024).

For more information, contact one of our West End Revitalization Coordinators:

  • Thurgood Brooks: brooks.thurgood@rigov.org
    309 732 2978

  • Avery Pearl: pearl.avery@rigov.org
    309 732 2984

  • Virginia Jarrett: jarrett.virginia@rigov.org
    309 732 2976

Our Focus Areas

  • Community Engagement

    The relationships, networks and skills that communities use to make decisions and solve problems are essential to a community’s long-term success. The assessment found opportunities to strengthen participation, collaboration, equity, and communication – for and by both citizens and organizations. Also known as “civic capital.”

  • Personal Assets & Income

    West End residents earn significantly lower incomes, experience higher unemployment and poverty rates, and have high rates of disconnected youth compared to the rest of Rock Island and the entire Quad Cities. It is vital to increase the assets and income of West End households.

  • Housing & Land

    Housing in the West End presents serious challenges, currently. We envision stable housing that builds assets and wealth, and neighborhoods that are safe and supportive of upward mobility. We also envision increasing West End community control over land and housing.

  • Community Economic Vitality

    There must be more (and more targeted) investment to support, grow, and attract businesses and entrepreneurs, and to provide much-needed services and amenities to all community members.

  • Infrastructure & Visual Appeal

    Infrastructure – sidewalks, streets, broadband access, etc – impacts everything from transportation and business attraction to recreation and educational achievement. We envision a community that is both functional and beautiful.

How it all started

  • In early 2022, Rock Island City Council approved and John Deere provided funding for a one-year phase to prioritize West End Community Assessment recommendations.

  • In the summer of 2022, a Task Force of community representatives appointed a Steering Committee for the West End Revitalization.

  • The Steering Committee began meeting in late 2022. In 2023, it created Working Groups in five impact areas and one cross-cutting areas: Community Engagement, Personal Assets & Income, Housing & Land, Community Economic Vitality, Infrastructure & Visual Appeal, and Communications. Names of Steering Committee and Working Group members are below.

  • In March 2024, based on efforts by the Working Groups and guidance by the Steering Committee, a 3-Year Implementation Plan was unveiled.

The Martin Luther King Jr Community Center is providing backbone support to the West End Revitalization. That includes mobilizing, coordinating and facilitating the Steering Committee, Working Groups, and collective impact process.

Progress Reports

Information

Real Money, Real Power: Participatory Budgeting

News

Steering Committee

  • Person with long curly hair sitting indoors, wearing a light pink jacket over a black top and smiling at the camera.

    Marisa Cantu

  • Man wearing black suit with orange tie

    Isaac Carr

  • Person smiling, wearing a black top and silver necklace.

    Rita Jett

  • Person wearing glasses and a suit, hand on chin, purple lighting

    Tee LeShoure

  • Smiling person with braided hair, wearing a suit jacket in front of a brick wall.

    Avery Pearl

  • Smiling woman wearing a red top and cross necklace

    Lynda Sargent

  • Person with curly hair and glasses looking at the camera

    Venessa Taylor

Working Groups & Members

Assets & Income

  • Alisha Haynes

  • Georgina Hicks

  • Damon Colvin

  • David Vanlandeghan

  • Tad Birditt

  • Tamkea Toney

  • Rasheda Jamison

Civic Capital

  • Carlos Jimenez

  • Mikael Gibson

  • Daisy Moran

  • Gregg Hampton

Economic Vitality

  • Paulette Risden-Rice

  • Tracy Singleton

  • Deb Shivers

  • Tarah Sipes

  • Ashley Harris

  • David Levin

Housing & Land

  • Ametra Carrol Casteneda

  • Quincy Davis

  • Shellie Guy

  • James Jones

  • Miles Brainard

  • Gaye Burnett

  • Dy Robinson

Infrastructure & Visual Design

  • Moses Robinson

  • Justin Johnson

  • Terry Brooks

Communications

  • Aimee Bland

  • Teresa Babers

  • Ririka Gaylord

  • Jeremiah Jamison

  • Lamarcus Williams

  • George Henderson

  • Damon Robinson

  • Mollie Owens

The community assessment and start-up phase has been funded by the City of Rock Island and Deere & Company, with technical support from Enterprise Community Partners.

To everyone who has supported the West End Revitalization, whether by giving, volunteering, sharing ideas, or simply believing in the vision, we are truly grateful.