The following are details from the application for The H-Art Project – Community Spirit Initiative, which was recently chosen as a finalist for the Michigan Municipal League's 2025 Community Excellence Award.
Project Description
In just over three years, The H-Art Project has grown from a small one-on-one discussion to an effort backed by hundreds of volunteers working together to make this community special through a new focus on art, culture and diversity. Hart is a rural agricultural town with a diverse population, and the H-Art Project has made significant strides in developing a communal sense of place. In 2022, the group established a goal of beautifying Hart and enhancing local cultural opportunities through an ambitious initiative of bringing 25 works of art to Hart by 2025. During this short time, we have seen a quiet segment of our population engage in our community, learning that each member of our community has a place here. The initiative continues to bring our small town together in new ways that are both exciting and heartwarming.
Is your project easy to replicate in other communities (clear in its impact and execution for other communities)?
Yes. The H-Art Project promotes culture, diversity and inclusiveness, three pillars of community engagement. We believe that a few people with a new idea and some fresh enthusiasm can be duplicated in any community that would like to organically build their community spirit.
What is the Community Wealth Impact (based on one or more of the categories you selected) of your project?
Visitors frequently see rural Michigan cities as “Hallmark” towns. While communities can be tight-knit and lifestyles can be relaxed, cultural unities are quickly lost when economic focus frequently keys in on infrastructure and sustainability needs. This leads to a loss of opportunity for significant portions of our population that don’t have the means or desire to travel. Bringing culture to enrich the lives of local residents, their children and grandchildren has (been) shown to improve overall physical and mental health and contributes to lifelong learning opportunities. The auxiliary benefit of this initiative is the financial security and sustainability that comes with drawing new and diverse groups of tourists that have an interest in seeking culture while traveling.
Describe the creativity and originality of your project.
What began as a one-on-one conversation between the mayor and the city manager quickly grew into a volunteer force that would go on to change the sleepy community of Hart into a growth center in Oceana County, Michigan. The H-Art Project group has done a lot in a short time to beautify our city through a myriad of efforts, including art, culture, and entertainment. From pop-up concerts in alleys to volunteer flower planting days, we are seeing new involvement in our town from diverse community members who now seem to feel a sense of place. The community spirit that has bloomed from this effort is very palpable. Many local stakeholders, as well as visitors to our town, have recently noticed an energy that is new and infectious. Aside from the 25 by 25 art initiative, we are seeing strong economic development, including growth in housing, new business development, and a secondary education entity renovating a vacant building downtown. This past winter, during our Winterfest soup competition, many attendees remarked that our town feels like a “Hallmark movie.” The creativity of establishing the Tin-Man sculpture as the first large installation was an educational opportunity due to the Tin-Man’s historical representation of a logger. This tells our youth the story of how deforestation is what drove our local economy in the late 1800s and led to the creation of the Silver Lake Sand Dunes, just adjacent to Hart. The Tin Man was also used as a political figure in the early 1900s as a representation of the industrial growth in the country and how new machines could be used to replace older agricultural standards that were represented by the scarecrow figure. Future project goals include developing more education through art on how our agriculture-based area closely connects with global needs and how its sustainability is key to the future of our society. Other new and coming works of art will continue to build on our community’s agricultural heritage as well as its historical integration with area Native American Indians and strong migrant populations that make our small city quite a melting pot of different backgrounds. Our Historic District Museum includes one of the largest Native American Indian Artifact collections in the country. As new ideas are created, we look to continue to use the creativity and passion of our volunteers to organically continue our efforts. While we celebrate the graduation of our 25 by 2025 initiative, we look forward to seeing the momentum continue… all due to the H-Art Project!
