Neighborhood Anchor Projects

Thrive at Lester Park is a multi-year Community Fellowship project led by Eva Barnett focused on revitalizing Lester Park, a beloved green space in the heart of Ogden’s East Central Neighborhood. The project’s vision is “to create a welcoming, year-round gathering place where people of all ages, incomes, and backgrounds can come together to support their health and well-being through recreation, art, education, social connection, and access to nature.”

Rooted in community input and partnership, Thrive at Lester Park has led to meaningful park improvements and community engagement, including:

• A community-informed park plan approved by Ogden City
• Seasonal soccer goals and recreation kits at the library
• New community murals 
• Improved safety with a new crosswalk
• Trash cans and dog waste stations to support shared care
• Community gatherings including poetry festivals, storytelling, pop-up art, community breakfasts, and popsicles & ice cream in the park

Together, these efforts are helping transform Lester Park into a more vibrant, safe, and well-used neighborhood space created alongside the community.

Dumke Arts Plaza Activation

In 2025, the Community Leadership Network, in collaboration with the Browning Design Lab, focused their group project on activating a brand new, but underutilized plaza in the East Central neighborhood. The cohort engaged the community around what they would like to see happen at the plaza and piloted various events, and community engagement activities to see what stuck. 

Arts After Dark

Arts After Dark grew from Community Leadership Fellow Leon Araujo’s idea for a guerrilla gallery and open mic, to engage local artists at the plaza. What began as a small, experimental effort was quickly embraced by the community and organically expanded to include more local artists, small business vendors, food trucks, and nonprofit highlights—transforming the plaza into a vibrant, community-driven gathering space.

Since launching in June 2025, Arts After Dark has supported over 50 local artists and 50 small businesses, engaging more than 3,000 attendees and strengthening connections between campus and community through accessible, arts-centered activation at Dumke Plaza.

This space in downtown Ogden features major art installations as well as community-led arts programming. Learn more about the Dumke Arts Plaza.

OgdenCAN is partnering with First Presbyterian Church of Ogden to support a community-driven planning process that reimagines their annex building and church facility as a neighborhood-serving space. Centering resident voice and local priorities, this project brings neighbors together to shape how the space can better support connection, services, and community life. The partnership also provides hands-on leadership experience for Community Leaders Network fellows, demonstrating how thoughtful, place-based engagement can lead to lasting community benefit.

What We’re Doing:

• Community Engagement: Providing opportunities for listening with the community, gathering input from neighbors, local organizations, and stakeholders to guide their master plan.
• Building Leaders: Community Leaders Network (CLN) fellows gain real-world skills in community engagement, planning, and design thinking.
• Creating Shared Value: Aligning the church’s plans with neighborhood priorities, strengthening connections, and fostering long-term collaboration.
• Community Workshops: OgdenCAN is facilitating prototyping and ideation sessions with stakeholders to provide clear, actionable guidance to inform the facility’s master plan.

In 2019, OgdenCAN helped fund the SPARC Home for Sustainable Living, a hands-on demonstration space where anyone can explore practical solutions for sustainable living. The SPARC Home shows real-world ways to save energy, conserve water, and make homes healthier, more efficient, and save on utility costs. Visitors can learn how to take action at home, discover available programs and incentives, and find out how to make upgrades simple, affordable, and impactful.

OgdenCAN is excited to partner with the SPARC Home to bring these solutions to the East Central community. This partnership reflects OgdenCAN’s commitment to practical solutions that improve everyday life for families in our neighborhoods.

• Learn more about the SPARC Home

The Little Free Libraries of East Central began as a resident-led literacy initiative, launched by Community Leadership Fellow Andrea Diaz, and is currently being run by United Way of Northern Utah. Funded through OgdenCAN’s intervention funding, the program reached 569 families through literacy classes offered in both English and Spanish and led to the installation of 15 free lending libraries throughout the East Central Neighborhood. In total, more than 15,000 books were distributed—nearly 4,000 in Spanish—expanding access to literacy resources and fostering a culture of reading across the community. Learn more about United Way of Northern Utah’s Little Libraries.