It Was Like a Movement, and It Was Beautiful
Told by Ryan Bradley
Written by Laurie Grobman
Over the past two years, Ryan Bradley has engaged hundreds of volunteers in removing over 10 tons of litter from Reading. A recent collaboration with the freshman class of a local Christian school yielded over 3.7 tons of trash cleared. Now, Ryan’s focusing on 9th Street and Douglas. When the new Reading STEM school opens its doors, “the kids can walk through a clean, safe neighborhood,” and “when your neighborhoods are clean, they become safer.”
Ryan is the Clean City Coordinator for the City of Reading and oversees cleanup and beautification efforts across the city. Ryan is really proud of the city’s Adopt-A-Block program in which residents, businesses, and organizations “adopt” a city block, park, garden, or playground by committing to clean up litter and debris at least once per week for two years. The adopters are recognized with signage on the block.
Years before he became the Clean City Coordinator, Ryan, with his nonprofit Men Acting Now, cleaned up his own neighborhood. Men Acting Now opened its first halfway house on West Oley Street in 2011, and he and the men in the house “helped revitalize that part of the community” by cleaning the streets, helping the neighbors bring groceries in, painting older residents’ porches and houses, and fixing a few roofs. Ryan remembers how the neighbors came out of their homes and got to know each other. The Church around the corner bought flower boxes that had “love, peace, harmony” engraved on them and put them in front of the people’s houses: “It was like a movement, and it was beautiful.”
Ryan founded Men Acting Now in Reading because when he first came to Reading in 1996, at 29 years old, he lived in the Adaptive Halfway House on Walnut Street. Ryan grew up in
Chester, Pennsylvania. He played high school baseball and basketball and had two college offers. He was “a good kid.” But things “went south.”
In his junior year, he was stabbed. He had a son at 17. And his mom died. But he was pushing through and doing well with help from a lot of mentors. Then, in his senior year, Ryan and his friends retaliated against the guy who stabbed him, and Ryan got five years’ probation. The school prohibited Ryan from playing baseball, which was devastating for him. Ryan turned to using and selling drugs. Ryan never robbed anyone. He never stole anything. And he wasn’t violent. But he “grew up around violence every day.”
Since his release from the Halfway House, Ryan has been and remains committed to creating a safer and more connected community. He earned degrees in both Addiction Studies and Social Work. Given his record, it was hard for Ryan to find a job. But then he got a call from the Halfway House he went through and was hired as a counselor. They said “We know what your record is. Do you want a job or not?” He was later promoted to supervisor and then operations manager. Ryan has also worked for many years at the Caron Foundation and the Council on Chemical Abuse (COCA).
When the city offered the Clean City Coordinator job to Ryan, he was ready for a change after so many years doing counseling, social work, gang prevention work, substance abuse prevention, and more. And in a way, he came full circle from decades earlier when, turning his life around, he began his journey to help others do the same. He remembers the feelings of connection and community achieved when he, the men in his halfway house, the church, and neighbors worked together to clean up their neighborhood.
Ryan wants that sense of community to come back to Reading’s neighborhoods. Adopt-A Block was created at the request of Mayor Eddie Moran. Ryan took the mayor’s vision and expanded the program by recruiting volunteers, building partnerships, and organizing large-scale community cleanup days. Adopt-A-Block also educates community members about the negative impacts of pollution and inspires them to take responsibility for their shared public spaces.
A lot of people tell Ryan he’s got a tough job trying to gather volunteers to clean up their and other peoples’ neighborhoods. But Ryan believes he’s the “one for the job.” He has patience, a good work ethic, and “the desire to keep bringing people together.” He loves
seeing residents take pride and ownership in beautifying their city. As of April 2024, 170 city blocks have been adopted.
Ryan gets a great deal of fulfillment from his work. One of the first families to sign up for the initiative, a couple and their three sons, sent him photos to put on social media. He respects this family, saying “When they clean, THEY CLEAN!” When they thank Ryan, he replies, “No, THANK YOU.”
Ryan’s vision for his city is vast. He’s read studies that show that when there’s a clean neighborhood, there’s less likely to be gun violence in that neighborhood. “Just imagine,” he
exclaims, “what it would be like if everyone, businesses, homeowners, renters, all cleaned their own spaces. I’m not only talking about litter. I’m talking about all of it.” Ryan is getting us closer to his vision, one block at a time.