"Embrace Your Community"

We were walking around the Hunts Point neighborhood when I saw this sign. For the last hour, our tour guides from The Point Community Development Corporation had walked us around from one end of the town to the other. They spoke to us about the lack of fresh fruit in the neighborhood, about the abundance of gas fumes that passed through Hunts Point due to it being a huge shipping port, and about the large amount of asthma that was rampant in the community because of the high gas fumes. They showed us the public park that the neighborhood fought to obtain from the city, yearning for green space in the congested town. They showed us the community gardens, the local business; the locals showed us Hunts Point at its best and worst.

It was about halfway through this trip that this tour of Hunts Point occurred. Before the tour, we had gone to many organizations that also focused on community development, organizing, and activism. These organizations pursued the neighborhoods and populations intentionally with the goal of creating holistic neighborhoods, products of equality and justice. This has always sounded so beautiful to me—this idea of organizing a community and believe in the land that you a member of. However, it was not until this point in the trip that I realized that I was not being an active member of my own community.

The sign reads “Embrace Your Community.” In my time in Bowling Green, I have done anything but this. I have failed to realize the beauty in the integration of students and townies. I have failed to see opportunities to encourage the community around me, instead choosing to bash the small town for the many ways it doesn’t stack up to my preconceived notions. As I’ve begun reflecting on the Bronx, I’m realizing that this is a huge conviction that I’ve taken away from the trip. If I value community organizing, I must choose to see the good in a community and build upon that. Since returning from the Bronx, I have taken intentional time to recognize the beauty and potential in the community that I am a part of—Bowling Green, Ohio. Although I know this town is not the one I will spend the majority of my life in, I still value seeing the potential in this community and fostering that with and through everyone I interact with. I have been able to see the downfalls of this community as well, and have begun to brainstorm what it would look like to do things differently.

This “Embrace Your Community” sign is a reminder to me that this activist, empowering lifestyle that I want to practice in the future also integrate itself into my daily life presently (even if I’m in a city that I’m staying in temporarily).