Photo credit: Molly McWilliams Wilkins

The arrival of spring didn’t just bring the flowering of cherry blossoms to Macon, Ga.

Artist Hunter Franks spent three weeks here recently sowing new ideas on how to better connect residents of this friendly historic city to build a better future. It was the first stop of his Creative Interventions Tour, a project supported by Knight Foundation that will expand this year to other communities where Knight invests, including Akron, Ohio, Detroit and Philadelphia.

Many of the projects centered on bringing together people who because of geography or other divisions rarely interact, everything from collecting postcards detailing why people love their neighborhoods and sending them across town to strangers, to a free community potluck, to creating an “I love Macon” wall from a blank construction space on a busy street.

The events culminated in a cocktail party, where a leader was announced for the new Macon Chapter of the League of Creative Interventionists, a way of preserving the spirit of using artistic expression to build community. Mark Vanderhoek, leader of the nonprofit Macon Roots, was named as the chapter leader during the event celebrating the weeks of work.

“I see this role is to be a facilitator,” Vanderhoek said. “I think a lot of people in this room see how this can move the community forward. We can change the conversation through our actions.”

The chapter plans to meet at least once a month and to lead activities centered around regular themes—the theme for March was “play”—a common thread chapters around the world will share.

Beverly Blake, Knight’s Macon program director, said Macon was a natural for this first stop on the Creative Interventions Tour because it’s “a community that has so much creativity and so many people who get it.”

Blake added that by 2030 40 percent of working people in the United States are predicted to be self-employed, and Macon is attractive because it offers “a great place to live and to start your own business.”

“Creativity is economic development, and creativity is the future of Macon,” she said.

Franks said it was inspiring to see people come together for the events he hosted and help complement the groundwork already underway in Macon. The city is creating a new master plan for its urban core and has been recognized internationally for its work in redeveloping the College Hill Corridor between Mercer University and downtown.

“That’s something I have seen in my time here is the ability for us to have one event—and some people have been to every event and that’s great—but then also inviting somebody else, and somebody else walks in off the street. That’s how you create meaningful change.”

Molly McWilliams Wilkins is a Macon, Ga.,-based freelance writer. You can follow her on Twitter: @MakeItWorkMolly.