Limo Service in Amo, IN

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Posted inThe Hi-lo

March 16, 2024

Monarch butterflies have taken their spring flight above the busy intersection of Orange Avenue and Del Amo Boulevard.

Meanwhile, a vivid mural — initiated by members of the Ridgewood Triangle Neighborhood Association and painted by volunteers — was just completed and features imagery of those endangered butterflies taking flight.

Citing constant traffic and frequent issues with graffiti, retired teacher and RTNA member Donna Bergeron-Birge said she wanted to do her part to beautify her neighborhood and create a welcoming feel.

Painted across from Barton Elementary School, which is on the border of Bixby Knolls and North Long Beach, the new monarch mural was funded with the help of the city’s Neighborhood Micro Grant Program.

“We’ve always been the kind of neighborhood that everybody either drives by or drives through,” Bergeron-Birge said. “I would like to think that it can change, maybe people would like to drive to it and see something beautiful that was community-driven.”

Bergeron-Birge says she has been working tirelessly to improve her area through Clean Streets, a neighborhood-cleanup effort. She also advocated for more crosswalks and other traffic-related safeguards around Barton Elementary School.

Just before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Bergeron-Birge had gathered a group of her neighbors to discuss ways to improve the neighborhood. But this effort came to a halt soon after. Still, Bergeron-Birge found inspiration for the project through a neighbor who was raising monarch butterflies during the months of lockdown.

“My neighbor would make up these little monarch cabins and let others take them during isolation so everyone could enjoy the monarch from chrysalis form until its release,” Bergeron-Birge said.

The monarch butterfly became a symbol of hope and perseverance for the community during isolation, she said. Eventually, it became her inspiration to share the symbolism that the monarchs evoked in her.

With help from several volunteers and lead artist Shannon Apana, the mural was completed after four weeks of on and off work, even through inclement weather.

Apana got involved in the project originally to help his mother create a beautiful space in the neighborhood. Since then, he has gained his own passion for the project and says he wants to see it expanded.

Lead artist Shannon Apana was inspired to join the project after witnessing his mother’s dedication towards helping the community. Photo by Christal Gaines-Emory. Apana said his mother’s hard work to enhance her community has inspired him to help her in any way he can.

“My mom does a lot for this community. It’s refreshing and nice to see such a positive force doing something good,” Apana said. “I’m really proud to be a part of this too, I don’t even live here but I’m here to help.”

Bergeron-Birge and Apana have received permission to create a mural from the homeowner in charge of the portion of the now-painted wall, Mike Barber. Then, he told them the mural could extend to his shed, where Apana and Barber will be work to extend it vertically in the coming months.

Along with this extension, Bergeron-Birge hopes that the mural will reach both sides of the wall to illustrate a butterfly “migration” that travels across the walls surrounding the neighborhood.

Bergeron-Birge also hopes to use the monarch mural as an educational tool for local students to learn more about butterflies.

Although the first stage of the mural has been completed, Bergeron-Birge and the neighborhood association still have many ideas and plans to help uplift children who live in the community. Their next step will be planting wildflower seeds in front of the mural. They will also apply for more grants to allow for different murals to be painted nearby.

“Hopefully, the neighborhood now feels like we have a sense of place,” she said. “I’d also love to see the murals inspire children to get more involved in art, they’ll be learning all about monarch migration through art so I’d like to see that give them an artistic boost.”

Interested in volunteering? Email Donna Bergeron-Birge at ridgewoodtriangle@gmail.com for more information.

The newly elected Democratic congressman called for action on affordable housing, AI and gun control as he delivered the Noah Krieger ’93 Memorial Lecture at Brown’s Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy.

U.S. Rep. Gabe Amo (left), alongside Brown Professor of Political Science Wendy Schiller, spoke at Brown's Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy. Photos by Rythum Vinoben.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — As the country faces intense political divisions and grapples with local, national and international challenges — from the failure of the Washington Bridge that has snarled traffic in Providence and beyond since December, to immense international crises like conflict in the Middle East — U.S. Rep. Gabe Amo emphasized the importance of citizen engagement and considering the lives that are affected by public policy.

In short, he said, speaking at Brown University on Monday, Feb. 26, it’s about embracing hope over despair.

“Engaging in our democracy is to see a problem, or to notice someone’s pain…” said Amo, who grew up in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, as the son of a nurse and a liquor store owner. “[It’s] saying: I care enough to work toward a solution. I care enough to try to alleviate their suffering. Choosing to stay engaged is an exercise in staring down daunting realities and staying focused on the pursuit of progress.”

It was a connection to this concept that led him to pursue a career in public service, Amo said, as he delivered the Noah Krieger ’93 Memorial Lecture at the Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy at Brown’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs.

“You might say, ‘Why does the son of West African immigrants, a working-class family, want to be in politics?’” he said. “It’s the passion for service. The desire to see someone else’s life be improved in any way.”

Amo was sworn into office on Nov. 13, 2023, becoming the first Black congressman in Rhode Island history. After spending years working in local government and in roles in the federal government, he won a special election to replace longtime Rep. David Cicilline, who stepped down to lead the Rhode Island Foundation. Prior to his election, Amo served as deputy director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs and as a special assistant to the president, working as President Joe Biden’s principal liaison to mayors and local elected officials. He previously served as a White House aide to President Barack Obama.

Choosing to stay engaged is an exercise in staring down daunting realities and staying focused on the pursuit of progress.

Gabe Amo U.S. Representative

Amo, who represents Rhode Island’s First District in the U.S. House of Representatives, which includes all of Bristol and Newport counties, along with parts of Providence County, began his talk by addressing the need to alleviate the suffering stemming from the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

“My hope is — as not only the most junior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee but someone who is committed to finding peaceful resolutions — that we arrive at some kind of negotiated end to fighting between Israel and Hamas that sees a release of hostages, and a surge in food, medical supplies and personnel to respond to the living hell that so many people are going through,” Amo said.

During his talk, he shared his stance on three key policy issues: affordable housing, artificial intelligence and gun control.

“Housing connects to so many bedrock values… of safety, of economic opportunity, to have a real sense of belonging and place and community,” Amo said. “Right now, I don’t think we [as a country] are equipped to… address our challenges here. I think we need to lock in a core tenet that everyone in this country should have access to safe, stable and affordable place to live.”

He advocated for federal oversight to guarantee production, affordability and access to quality housing for all — not only those living in poverty.

Amo called for policies around artificial intelligence and its effects, including the possible displacement of jobs and the dangers of misinformation. “Deep fakes and other AI-generated content is making it difficult to discern facts, discern truth — that’s going to be more present in our lives,” he said. “And so we need to create a policy that adequately moves in the direction of avoiding problems that lie ahead.”

Amo also noted the urgency of addressing gun violence.

“Our challenge here is that we have political gridlock, we have partisanship,” he said. “We have a threat but no way to respond to it.”

During a Q&A session with students and members of the public, he fielded inquiries about a range of topics, including the failure of the Washington Bridge, to which he called for transparency from the state government and encouraged Rhode Island to be proactive about requesting federal assistance.

“The Federal Highway Administration is helping already with some of the technical analysis,” Amo said. “When there is a need for federal resources, I will ask alongside the most effective appropriator in Rhode Island’s history, Sen. Jack Reed, and Sen. [Sheldon] Whitehouse, and we’ll do everything we can to help this most important part that connects both parts of my district.”

In keeping with the theme of considering how government affects everyday lives, Amo added: “You have to talk about issues of disruption ... to the economy, to people’s commutes — it’s a really emotional thing," he said. "The first step is acknowledging the feeling of pain.”

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After months of mysterious teasing, France’s new social media app is live.

ID is the invention of startup amo and its founder Antoine Martin, who is considered the godfather of France’s emerging social media app scene. His previous company, Zenly, was sold to Snap for about $250m in 2017, making ID’s launch highly anticipated in the small bubble that is French tech.

Free app ID enables users to interact by “dropping” content on each other’s profiles known as “boards”. Its popularity comes on the heels of another French social app, BeReal, finding global popularity and a place in the cultural canon of social media.

Ten days after launch, my board is still completely empty. As I meet the amo team in their ultra-slick Parisian office — think turntables in a corner and posters for the latest ‘Basquiat x Warhol’ exhibition on the walls — I tell Martin and his cofounder Michael Goldenstein, also ex-Zenly, that I don’t think I get it.

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As it turns out, that’s not entirely my fault. ID largely functions thanks to other people filling up their friends’ boards. Martin snaps a picture of me, drops it on my profile and adds a Sifted logo in the background.

He explains that users are meant to navigate each other’s boards, dropping memes, pictures or stickers, drawing and writing, and of course filling up their own profile.

Users are getting creative. The founder of French burger joint Dumbo promised free food to people who dropped burgers on his profile. One user asked their friends to draw sketches of them. Another one stuck a game of Connect 4 on their board, added a small crowd of people watching and pinned a picture of everyone they beat.

Even Martin’s mother is doing a much better job than I am — her board features cute pictures from the founder’s childhood laid upon recent ones of his son.

“We gave people much more freedom to fill in their boards,” says Martin. “It’s the opposite of Instagram’s three-by-three grid.”

All the boards are visible to anyone on the app, but users can limit friend requests.

Martin and Goldenstein raised an $18m seed round for amo led by high-profile investors Newwave, Coatue and DST Global Partners and including VCs Alven and Origins. Sifted understands that the company is valued by investors at more than $100m, but amo declined to confirm a number.

Those are big numbers for a non-US startup in the consumer space, at the same time as similar companies like BeReal are starting to seeing their appeal wane.

Amo’s founders are pleased with the launch of ID; thousands of users signed up in the first few days and the app has seen traction in the US, its biggest market by downloads. But the team recognises there is much further to go.

“We know it’s just the beginning and the whole team is heads down working on what’s next,” says Goldenstein.

The short-term objective is to grow as fast as possible, says the founder, and that means bringing new features to keep users on the app. It’s a challenge that amo’s 30-people team, which is made up of many former Zenly employees, is already familiar with.

“Most companies in social, once they catch fire with something new, they spend all their time trying to manage the fire rather than innovating on new things,” says Goldenstein.

“90% of social apps is the execution game, and that’s what this team knows to do best.”

In fact, amo is so focused on growing ID that even its monetisation strategy is still TBD.

“We want to gain a critical size as fast as possible,” says Martin. “If we have a critical size, it won’t be a problem, we’ll make money eventually. That’s not what’s at stake now.”

There is one thing, however, that he is certain about. In 2022, just five years after it was acquired by Snap, Zenly was shut down as the US company announced it was cutting 20% of its team. This time around, Martin is determined to keep doing his thing — without the help of a buyer.

“There were many good things about Snap [...] but towards the end we felt shackled,” he says. “We felt like we could do more than we did.

“This time, we won’t stop — and we think there are other ways than to sell ourselves early or even to sell ourselves full stop.”