Many other neighborhoods have dedicated cleanup crews, but there’s not a formal group working downtown, they said.
Kidd said the idea of a cleanup was inspired by his younger brother, Cody, who works at Fretboard Brewing & Public House. He is also a visual artist.
“He lives in Artspace, and he walks to work every day. He’d see trash everywhere, and he started picking it up as he was walking, and his co-workers started taking notice of it, and other people downtown started taking notice of it,” Kidd said.
Then, Jay and their friends started picking up trash, too.
“That wasn’t too difficult for us, and I’ve been a part of many clean-up events, but what we noticed is there’s no dedicated downtown cleanup group,” they said.
The first event on April 13 is one of three beautification events planned for 2025. In case of rain, a rain date has been set for April 17, the following Thursday, from 2-5 p.m.
Assisted by 17Strong and their mobile cleanup Cube, “Un-Junk the Block” will also feature outdoor games and a grill out at Rotary Park.
“We, as Wraith Games, have more of a civic-minded goal. So, what we are going to do is we are going to lead the charge,” Kidd said. “Over the course of three hours, we are going to clean as much of the downtown area as we can.”
The cleanup event comes on the heels of Wraith Games’ relocation to the Rentschler Building earlier this year, and it serves as an opportunity for the nonprofit organization to give back to the community and raise awareness of the artists’ collective. Wraith Games was formerly based in the Municipal Building.
Founded in 2005 and headquartered in Hamilton, Wraith Games is an artist-owned worker cooperative dedicated to creating independent video games and promoting game design as an art form. It is the second largest game development studio in Ohio.
“All of us knew very early on that this is the thing we are going to do — we’re going to make these games. Then we just happened to find each other at different times along the path,” Kidd said.
We set out to make games that inspire players to challenge themselves, think outside of the box, and most importantly, have fun, they said.
“I was in high school when we started. I was just a kid, and it’s something that I have wanted to do since I was 8 years old. So, I put a lot into making this happen, and the whole team has. There have been a lot of sacrifices. When we started out, all we were doing was eating pizza and Ramen,” Kidd said. “This is the thing I’ve wanted to do my whole life, and being able to do if for 20 years, and being renowned internationally … it makes me feel like a rock star. At the end of the day, it feels really good to make this my life.”
MORE DETAILS
The first “Un-Junk the Block” cleanup date is slated for Hamilton’s downtown/Central Business District neighborhood from 2-5 p.m. April 13. The effort will begin at Rotary Park and move through the downtown area. Wraith Games is seeking additional community volunteers and organizational partners to participate in the event.
For more information, or to volunteer, go to facebook.com/wraithgames.
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