Building Art from Trash in Homewood.

By: Sara Innamorato

It was a cloudy, drizzly, predawn Sunday morning when the ReClaim team arrived on a vacant parcel located on the corner of Frankstown Avenue and North Lang,which adjoins the Marathon route. While nearly 30,000 individuals lined up Downtown to start their 26.2 mile trek to the finish line, we prepared for a marathon of reuse – using found, donated, and recycled materials from Pittsburgh Center for Creative Reuse and the streets of Homewood to build a collage with the neighborhood of Homewood.

First we built the frame...

..that had an outline of our mural.

We sorted the trash by color.

Even the runners were intrigued by what was going on.

Piece by piece volunteers added to the mural.

We even incorporated discarded cups from the runners into the mural.

Occasionally we did stop for a few high fives.

Almost there!

The proud artists show of their work.

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Special thanks to Dick’s Sporting Goods Pittsburgh Marathon, Operation Better Block and their Junior Green Corp. members, Pittsburgh Center for Creative Reuse, the race participants and the citizens of Homewood, who made this all possible.