About Us | Sidewalk Stories LA

Our Mission

Repair, Create, Connect

Sidewalk Stories LA is a California nonprofit public benefit corporation with a simple mission: improve public safety and youth civic engagement by repairing damaged sidewalks and transforming them into community-built mosaic art.

We believe a single repaired panel does two things at once. It removes a hazard that has tripped seniors and snagged wheelchairs for years. And it gives neighborhood kids a chance to design and build something beautiful on the street where they live.

Our founder, Trevor Damyan, walks these streets every day. He started with the cracked panels near Blackburn and Melrose in the Fairfax / Mid-City West neighborhood, and wondered why nobody had fixed them. So he decided to do something about it. Not just patch them. Transform them.

Cracked and lifted sidewalk panel in Los Angeles neighborhood

What We Believe

Our Core Values

Safety First

Every project starts with a hazard. We repair the concrete because it matters. Seniors, parents with strollers, and people with mobility challenges deserve safe sidewalks.

Youth Led

Kids do not just watch. They design, vote, and build. We hire teaching artists who know how to guide young people through the creative process from sketch to finished tile.

Community Owned

Residents vote on which panels get repaired. Local businesses sponsor panels. The neighborhood decides what the mosaic looks like. This is not top down art. It is bottom up.

Tangible Results

We do not do reports that sit on shelves. Every dollar produces a panel you can walk on, photograph, and point to. Before and after is our favorite metric.

Our Team

Who We Are

A small group of Los Angeles residents who believe sidewalks can be safer and more beautiful at the same time.

Trevor Damyan

Founder & Board President

Trevor lives in the Fairfax / Mid-City West neighborhood and walks past cracked sidewalk panels every day. He brings a decade of experience in structured finance and project formation to the nonprofit world.

Jason Clement

Founding Tech Partner & Board Member

Jason builds the technology that powers Sidewalk Stories LA, from the mobile app for photo submissions and voting to the digital storytelling platform that documents each panel.

Teaching Artist

Lead Artist & Youth Mentor

Our lead teaching artist guides neighborhood kids through the mosaic design and installation process. We are currently identifying the right artist for our pilot program.

Children engaged in hands-on mosaic and craft activities

Our Story

From a Walk to a Movement

It started with a walk. Trevor noticed the same lifted panel near his apartment every day for months. Then another. Then a whole block where the sidewalk looked more like a hiking trail than a city street.

He looked into who was supposed to fix it. The answer was complicated: property owners are technically responsible, but many cannot afford the $1,500 repair. The city has a backlog measured in years. So the cracks stay.

Then he thought: what if fixing the sidewalk was not just a repair, but a moment? What if neighborhood kids designed the pattern? What if a teaching artist helped them sketch it? What if the finished panel became a point of pride instead of an eyesore?

That is how Sidewalk Stories LA was born. One cracked panel at a time. One neighborhood at a time. One story at a time.

Why We Do This