We started by planting flowers.


A man with a gray mustache and glasses smiling while holding a leaf blower. He is wearing a black long-sleeve shirt, gray pants, green gloves, a cap that reads 'Columbia Gas of Pennsylvania', and earphones. Behind him are lush green plants and a sidewalk. There are signs in the background, one advertising Fiddles Diner and another with an airplane image and the text 'Explore Your Opportunities'. Mountain scenery and trees are visible in the background.

2019.

Stewardship Begins

The Perennial Project began with a simple act of hope—planting flowers among the ruins of blight and decline in Brownsville, Pennsylvania.

Vacant lots were cleared. Storefront windows were polished. Forgotten corners were tended.

What began as a cleanup became a signal: Brownsville is not done.

  • 100+ local volunteers mobilized

  • Main Street reactivated through visible stewardship

EXPLORE OUR PHOTO GALLERY

And slowly, what looked like a small act of care began to change the trajectory of a town.

A view of a small downtown area with brick buildings and storefronts, a street with a black car and a golf cart, and a large building with many windows. There are trees and purple flowers in the foreground.

2020. Portals Launch Youth-Led Preservation

In 2020, while much of the world paused, Brownsville’s students stepped forward.

Brownsville’s historic buildings—once symbols of economic decline—became classrooms.

Students began digitally documenting the architecture and cultural heritage of their own town before it could disappear.

Preservation became a platform for creative technology, public storytelling, and workforce development.

A classroom or conference room filled with students or attendees listening to a man in a pinstripe suit and black mask speaking. Other individuals, including a man in a gray suit, are present, all wearing masks. A large screen displays virtual meeting participants.

Before long, art, preservation, and digital technology began operating as one civic language.

Two young women working together planting flowers in a garden bed outdoors on a sunny day, with additional people and buildings visible in the background.

2020. Portals Launch Youth-Led Public Art

Through immersive design workshops and creative fieldwork, students re-imagined vacant lots and blank walls as spaces for public art and civic pride.

Salvaged parking meters. Historic fragments. Painted bottles. Tires pulled from our waterways.

Nothing was considered too broken to become part of something meaningful.

  • First student cohort trained in 3D modeling, VR, and rendering

  • Public art installations activated vacant downtown spaces

  • Historic streetscapes digitally preserved before loss

Four teenage girls wearing purple T-shirts with the text 'Planting the Seeds of Change' pose together in a flower garden, surrounded by colorful tires turned into flower beds and potted plants.

Engaged community members became co-authors of redevelopment.

Four men standing in a line indoors, engaged in conversation. The man in the yellow shirt is speaking and gesturing, while the others listen. The men are dressed casually, and one is wearing a black cap and shirt. The background has wooden trim and a window.

2021. Community Design Workshops

Residents, students, artists, and educators gathered to imagine a different future for Brownsville’s Main Street.

Vacant lots became proposals. Public space became curriculum. Preservation became participatory.

These workshops helped guide early stabilization efforts surrounding the Union Station district while expanding public ownership of the town’s future.

These workshops ultimately informed the creation of HOPE Park.

A young person with curly hair wearing a black face mask and a blue shirt looking at a display of colorful outdoor and biking photos on a wall.

What began as stewardship evolved into permanent civic infrastructure.

High-angle view of two people working on a construction site. One is wearing a white shirt and a beige cap, and the other is wearing a white shirt and has a white hard hat nearby. They are inside a partially built wooden structure with fencing and construction materials around them on the ground.

2021-present.

HOPE Park

Where buildings once stood—too far gone to save—we created HOPE Park.

An outdoor civic space for film, memory, performance, and digital storytelling.

  • Public programming reactivates downtown

  • Civic space reclaimed permanently

Students transformed a threatened landmark into a shared civic vision, opening the doors of the past to a new generation.

A person wearing glasses and a black shirt is standing on a tripod inside a building with peeling paint and broken windows, near an open door with sunlight coming through.

2021-present.

Union Station

As Brownsville’s historic Union Station continued to deteriorate under long-term vacancy, the landmark stood at increasing risk of permanent loss.

Owned by the Fayette County Redevelopment Authority and listed for sale, the building’s failing roof and accelerating deterioration became symbolic of the uncertainty surrounding Brownsville’s future.

Through digital scanning, storytelling, and immersive visualization, students reconstructed the station as both a living history project and a public experience.

Working from a digital twin created through 3D laser scanning, students produced animated films and virtual reality tours that allowed the community to experience the landmark reimagined before restoration had even begun.

One project brought former mayor Norma Ryan’s childhood memories of traveling by train to Kennywood Park back to life through student-led animation, oral history, and immersive design.

These public presentations helped transform Union Station from a symbol of deterioration into a symbol of possibility—contributing to renewed civic momentum surrounding the building’s stabilization and future redevelopment.

We’ve only just begun. And we’re still planting flowers.

Two children painting a yellow and red line on the sidewalk with small paint rollers, surrounded by garden plants and grass, on a sunny day.
A person writes on a pink sticky note with a black marker, surrounded by other colorful sticky notes on a wall or table, with pictures and signs in the background.
Construction workers are working on a sidewalk project using heavy machinery and shovels in a neighborhood with houses and green hills in the background.
A group of people gathered around a desktop computer in an indoor space with a stone wall and green plants. One person is wearing a virtual reality headset. Others are observing and discussing.

Today.

Today, The Perennial Project operates as a long-term framework for community-led revitalization rooted in education, preservation, public art, and digital technology.

What began with volunteer flower plantings and neighborhood cleanups has evolved into an expanding network of students, educators, artists, preservationists, technologists, and civic partners working together to reimagine Brownsville’s future from within.

The Portals Initiative now engages more than seven high schools across Pennsylvania and West Virginia, connecting students to digital preservation, immersive storytelling, public art, and workforce-ready technology pathways.

At the same time, community stewardship efforts continue to shape the public realm through seasonal plantings, cleanup initiatives, and the ongoing design and development of HOPE Park.

Across workshops, digital documentation, public installations, and adaptive reuse advocacy, the work continues to demonstrate how cultural infrastructure can help rebuild civic identity and public trust.

Brownsville is not presented as a symbol of decline.
It is becoming a real-time model for how overlooked communities can reclaim authorship over their future.