Community Voices

On Wednesday March 6th the city of Ontario hosted its first HEAL Zone community meeting at the De Anza Park Community Center. This was the first of many opportunities that the residents of the HEAL Zone have to meet with city officials and voice their opinions about the changes they would like to see in their city. The members of HdV were at the event along with other HEAL grant recipients to demonstrate the programs we had to offer and to get a chance to listen to the community voices in response to what we were offering. While there the group participated with the Ontario residents in a creative art activity that had each table describe to a “reporter” what their ideal city would look like after the HEAL initiative had been in place for three years. Afterwards each table drew a rendition of their ideal city and demonstrated it to everybody in attendance. As each table of residents got up to share their visions and what they drew it was a very heartwarming experience to the HdV team to hear that many of the changes that the residents of Ontario were looking for were changes that HdV already hoped to implement through the introduction of the community garden (Or that HdV was already grounded on through implementation of our core values); such as community unity, access to fresh produce, harmony amongst neighbors, a drug free environment, and “safe spaces” accessible to all residents. Hearing the residents express interest of issues that HdV was already working on definitely brought smiles to our faces J Hopefully we will have made significant progress on these goals by the next community meeting.