When Cavana Faithwalker entered the Phoenix Coffee on Lee Road earlier this week, it seemed almost everybody knew him. Patrons and employees greeted him with, “Hey Cav!” Faithwalker, a poet and longtime Heights resident, “brings something very warm and unique to our community,” said Peggy Spaeth of Heights Arts, the nonprofit community arts organization. City Council will recognize Faithwalker as the newest Cleveland Heights poet laureate at its regular meeting Wednesday, and he will read one of his pieces. Though he has an idea of which poem he will share, sometimes he changes his mind at …

Cavana Faithwalker is expected to be appointed the city’s fifth poet laureate in April during National Poetry Month.  Faithwalker, 54, has worked with the Cleveland Museum of Art and Nia Coffeehouse, an open mic poetry night. He also runs his own consulting business, Left Thumbprint Solutions.  "He has a long history of public poetry,” said Peggy Spaeth, executive director of Heights Arts, the nonprofit that started the poet laureate project in 2005.  Now he will be tasked with “connecting the community with poetry,” Spaeth said.  A Heights Arts committee, Heights Writes, recommends a …

Revive may look like a regular boutique, but owner Lisa Dunn makes sure she knows exactly how the artisans who design the delicately hand-knit scarves and sparkly hand-crafted jewelry are treated and paid.   Dunn, a 10-year Heights resident, regularly spends 80 hours a week at the shop, which has locations on Lee Road and at Legacy Village. She handles everything from marketing to human resources. Her husband Korey Freeman, who works his own full-time job, spends weekends maintaining the Revive website. And her mother single-handedly scraped and repainted the boutique’s ceiling. "It's been …

Eric Coble and Ron Register, the new school board president and vice president, share one of the same goals: to get all Heights residents to take ownership of the district’s schools. “These are ‘our students’ and ‘our kids,’ not just ‘my kid’ or ‘those kids,’” said Coble, who replaces Nancy Peppler as board president, in a telephone interview. “In the next year, there are a lot of changes coming down the pike. I hope that the community can fully engage and stay with us on this.” Coble, a playwright and father of two children who attend Cleveland Heights-University Heights schools, said a levy…

Tucked away in the corner of a fourth-floor hallway at Cleveland Heights High School lies a room filled with an otherworldly a cappella sound. It drowns out the noise from teenage boys dragging their sneakers on the tiled floors, from girls fawning over friends. It is the sound of Moses Hogan’s spiritual Elijah Rock sung by the Heights A Cappella Choir. Somewhere blended seamlessly into the four-part harmony is the voice of 17-year-old first soprano Julia Barcus.  Vocal music director Craig McGaughey calls her a “unique talent.” Although Barcus has been singing for just a few years, she plans…

School social worker Cindy Schmidt learned about helping children in need when she was just a child herself. Growing up, Schmidt's social worker father told her and her sister the bedtime story of Little Miss No Name — an abandoned little girl who needed help and a home. Schmidt remembers she was "jazzed up" to help Little Miss No Name. "I just remember, even at a young age, thinking, 'We're going to find her a home!'" Schmidt said with a laugh. Her father would fall asleep telling the story, remembered Schmidt's mother Arlene Schaars, 90, during a telephone interview from her home in …

Just a few years ago, Vince Manzano, Kevin Washington and Kenny Bencke were classmates at Monticello Middle School. Today they own what is believed to be this area's only sneaker boutique: Heart & Sole on Coventry. The shop, at 1781 Coventry Road, offers a variety of rare men's sneakers and clothing.  "We just did it and then it worked," Manzano said while manning the store on a recent afternoon. He sported a Rebel 8 varsity jacket that retails at the boutique for $190. The boutique oozes urban cool with black cityscapes painted on the walls, hardwood floors and graffiti art on the ceiling…

Lisa Moose never intended to become her hometown's lone woman firefighter. She never intended to become one of the few women firefighters in the country. But spurred on by the challenges and joys of her work, today Moose is a 23-year Cleveland Heights Fire Department veteran. It's a job she loves."We do so many things," Moose, 47, said. "We've delivered babies, cut people out of cars. I was there when Coventry burned and when it burned again. It's all part of what we do. Sometimes people's lives depend on what we do." A lifelong Heights resident, Moose joined the department just out of …