Kids+find+community+all+over+the+map

=Kids find community all over the map=

Full story: http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=maps18m&date=20061218

Seattle Times staff reporter
//Arbor Heights principal Carol Coram, left, scans over one of the more than 200 maps that Realtor Jeff McLean has donated to public institutions. With Coram are fourth-grade students Ronnie Parker, center, 9, and Erin Castillo, 10.//

Like a homely quilt, the map shows a patchwork of Seattle neighborhoods rendered in soft earth tones, with friendly lettering that looks more hand-scripted than typed. Inevitably, the first thing most do when they see such a map is to zero in on their particular neighborhood. Their home.

When Arbor Heights principal Carol Coram asked two of her fourth-graders where the Space Needle was, they started their fingers walking in West Seattle -- where they live -- and glided north before hitting Elliott Bay.

"Oh yeah, we've got to cross the pond here a little bit," Coram said to Ronnie Parker, 9, and Erin Castillo, 10. Beyond their West Seattle homes, Castillo had gone rollerblading around Green Lake, and Parker had visited the University District. The students and Coram were surprised to see more than 90 neighborhoods depicted on the glossy, hand-drawn color map.

Jeff McLean hopes more children will find both comfort and awe in these maps. A real-estate agent, McLean is donating more than 200 copies to Seattle libraries, schools, firehouses and police stations. The mapmaker, Big Stick Inc., of Naperville, Ill., has produced similar maps of other cities, including Boston, Chicago and St. Louis.

"Neighborhoods are really important in this community," said McLean, 38.

But why donate maps?

The idea occurred to him over the summer when McLean and his wife were discussing what to do for charity this year. McLean said they wanted to find a way to help young people, especially vulnerable ones.

McLean has a relative who got into such trouble when she was young, he said, that she was sent away to a private boarding school in Utah that helps troubled kids. And McLean said that several years ago he worked at a boarding school in Fiji for American kids, where he saw a common thread among children who were troubled.

"They feel like islands," he said. "My experience was they didn't have a sense of community."

Various studies have suggested that signs of neighborhood disorder -- such as graffiti, abandoned cars and litter -- harm the health of residents, who become more stressed and feel powerless.

McLean figured that if kids got more interested in their community, they might be less likely to tag property with graffiti or commit other destructive acts.

Studies showing a lack of geographic knowledge on the part of young Americans also shocked McLean. A nine-country National Geographic survey in 2002 showed that Americans ages 18 to 24 were almost dead last among their counterparts in geographic literacy. A follow-up survey this year found that nearly two-thirds of American youth polled couldn't locate Iraq on a map of the Middle East, and 90 percent couldn't find Afghanistan on a map of Asia.

"Geography is as close as your neighborhood," McLean said. "Our neighborhood is what we make it."

So McLean ordered about 200 copies of the map and spent about $5,000. He's been distributing the maps across the city. Big Stick sells the map directly on its Web site: [|www.bigstickinc.com].

At Arbor Heights, principal Coram said fourth-grade teachers were excited about finding a way to incorporate the map into their history lessons.

"They'll look at the neighborhoods and do research on how each got their names," she said. Neighborhood names come in and out of favor over time. Some -- such as Hillman City and Victory Heights -- don't appear on some official maps, but do on Big Stick's map.

Peter McGraw, a spokesman for the city's Department of Neighborhoods, says the department doesn't endorse any official neighborhood boundaries.

"Community groups often disagree as to what the borders are, where a neighborhood begins and ends," McGraw said.

Still, he added, "it's a neat-looking map."