For Stockyards resident Betty Jo Palmer, the $350,000 renovation of Storer Park, once a neglected baseball field on her street, is personal. 

Palmer, 74, has spent the last five years working with her neighbors, Cleveland City Council Member Jasmin Santana and local nonprofits to raise funds to restore the park. On Saturday, they came together to celebrate the revived Storer Park, which features a new playground, walking path, pavilion and lights. 

Palmer, who moved to Stockyards 10 years ago, got the idea to restore the park because she often walked there to relax. She would climb up on the old rusted-out playground and look out at the roughly one-acre field from the top of the slide.

“I used to sit here and look at the trees, and it was empty,” Palmer said. “It was like the trees were saying, ‘I got leaves, but I’m empty. I need something here.’ So, you know, I just kept on pushing.”

With a grant from a local nonprofit called Building Hope in the City, Palmer started hosting an annual family fun day event at Storer Park called “Light Up the Park” in 2021. The name Light Up the Park is both literal and metaphorical. She wanted to bring a bright energy back into the park, she said, but she was also calling for permanent lighting and other infrastructure improvements. 

Palmer started getting the word out about the event to her neighbors. She spent days knocking on doors and putting up flyers, she said, trying to rally support for her vision for Storer Park. She started filling in potholes on her street after she tripped on them and hurt herself a couple times. 

Lighting up Storer Park

Palmer and DaQuavion Roston, her contact at Building Hope in the City, then started talking with Santana, the Cleveland City Council member who represents the Stockyards neighborhood, during her re-election campaign in 2021. 

“Jasmin made a promise to us, specifically to Betty Jo, and said, ‘Hey, if I get in office again, I’m gonna focus in on Stockyards, I’m gonna focus in on this park, and we’re gonna get these renovations in there,” Roston said.

Santana won her election and kept her promise. In 2023, she got $200,000 from Cleveland’s American Rescue Plan Act money to tear down Storer Park’s old playground and build a new one. She directed an additional $150,000 from her council’s discretionary funds, money earmarked for projects in each ward, to complete Storer Park’s restoration. 

The permanent lights Palmer had been asking for finally went up last Friday. Palmer stayed up late to make sure they stayed on at night, she said. 

“I wish I had a deeper vocabulary to really just speak to the feelings that I have, not just for the work, but honestly for Betty Jo and how much she cares for, not just this community, but so many parts of Cleveland,” Roston said. “Knowing that there’s so many people still alive and present to celebrate with her, and she’s still alive and present to see this is just a dream come true.”

The first step in a bigger vision for Cleveland’s Stockyards neighborhood

Building Storer Park back up is the beginning of a larger project on Storer Avenue, Santana said. She sees a lot of memes online at the expense of Stockyards. And she wants to change those narratives by investing money in Storer Avenue, one of the main roads in the neighborhood.

The next step is redoing Storer Avenue’s sidewalks, planting trees along the road, cleaning up alleyways and installing cameras for safety, Santana said. She already has money allocated for these projects, she said, along with some money set aside for homeowners to use on house repairs.

“What makes me feel excited about this is every time I talk about Storer Avenue or Stockyards, everybody’s like, ‘Oh, honey, that’s like a lost case,’” she said. “But if you continue to ignore it, it just gets worse and worse. There has to be a time where you have to do the work.”

One of Santana’s longer-term goals is to work with Metro West Community Development Organization to buy and clean up empty storefronts on Storer Avenue, said Maria Agosto, Santana’s aide. That way, businesses can move into the neighborhood without having to foot the bill to get buildings up to code.  

City Council approved a $2.3 million loan to Metro West to start that project last month. Now, Santana and Metro West have to figure out which buildings and businesses to spend the money on. 

For Palmer, Storer Park is more than a piece of land. Its transformation sparked a change in her — and in the future of the community.

“It gave me a chance to just sit and visualize, you know, and have an imaginary mind of what could be,” Palmer said. “And to know that I’m powerful, and I had the power within me to make change. If I can make change, and I have a voice, then other people in the community, it’ll help them want to invest in the community.”