Last month, our summer interns participated and attended a Community Conversation event at the Lake City Community Center. Sponsored by Lake City Future First and many other community advocacy organizations, the Community Conversation events bring residents together to discuss important issues, with stations for “Strengthing Community Partnerships”, “Building a Healthy Community”, “Enhancing Public Safety” and “Planning for the Future. Attendees also learned more about what their community has to offer, how to get involved, and more. Here are Allan and Winnie’s thoughts/observations as first time attendees.
Allan Duong:
The Lake City Community Conversation was an event I’ve never heard of or been to. I remember arriving to the event and seeing an elder who had everyone sign in. After signing in I entered the room and saw all different types of people, in terms of age and race.
They even had different booths talking about Lake City, as well as a poster related to the upcoming projects for Lake City. I remember walking up to one of the booths and heard a very passionate Lake City resident. The resident was very engaged in the conversation on the problems of Lake City. It’s good to see someone very passionate about their community.
I saw children at the event, though they weren’t very engaged into what was happening, it’s still good to expose children to events like the community conversation. The event had food for anyone who was hungry or thirsty. I also remember how nice everyone was, from when I entered to when I exited. The Community Conversation gave me a pretty good experience of engaging with the Community.
Winnie Huang:
The Lake City community conversation was something that I’ve never attended before. There were local businesses, City representatives, neighbors, and community groups coming together to provide information/updates on projects in progress or being planned for the area.
I like seeing everyone gathered together. Even though the turn out wasn’t as big as I heard it could be, I feel that people still got to get the information they wanted or learn more about what’s going on and being planned. There were chairs out for people to sit of course, and it was nice how everyone just sat together and started talking like they’ve known each other forever. At community meetings I’ve seen before, everyone tends to sit by themselves or with people they know. Everyone was very nice and friendly, and easy to talk to.
Near the end of the event, one of the community members started putting chairs away. Allan and I offered to help. As we were helping him, more people began helping him put the chairs away as well. Lake City is a diverse place, and it seems like a welcoming community and neighborhood.