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See how residents in nine cities are building bridges to and meaningful connections with neighbors they never knew.
Stories

Photo Essay—Standing on Common Ground in Local Parks

See how residents in nine cities are building bridges to and meaningful connections with neighbors they never knew.

By Deborah Williams
Published DATE TK

 

The next several months are bound to be charged with fervent political discourse, following months of headlines about loneliness and social divisions. But in communities across the country, real people are reaching across the aisle, the street, the tracks, to join hands with their neighbors. Some leaders of the movement? Local park and rec departments that are growing their scopes beyond access and maintenance to programming and activation.

 

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Most of Cleveland’s refugees, immigrants, and asylum seekers resettle in the Near Westside and Clark-Fulton neighborhoods, which are socioeconomically and racially diverse. Though newcomers and U.S.-born residents often live in close proximity, they can be culturally siloed. To build bridges and foster connection, the Cleveland Soccer Group Foundation (CSGF) leveraged existing 12- to 18-week youth and adult soccer programs to to facilitate connections over love of the sport. At the start of each practice, teams bonded through ice breaker questions about soccer (who’s your favorite soccer player?) and cultural connections (what food reminds you of home?).

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Two-thirds of Cleveland’s Forest Hill Park is owned and operated by the City of East Cleveland, which is low-income and majority Black, and has struggled to find the resources to maintain the park. The other third is better maintained by the City of Cleveland Heights, which is more affluent and a mix of white and Black residents. Cleveland Metroparks, neighbors of Forest Hill Park, and local community partners recognized the opportunity for the park to become a place of common ground rather than a divided space. So they hosted a series of events, called Forest Hill Fun Days, at the park. One of many vendors at the event was Splice Cream Truck, a roving ice cream truck-meets-recording-studio that documented oral histories of neighbors’ memories and hopes for Forest Hill Park. The captured recordings are now being used for TKTKTK.

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Like many cities, East Baton Rouge Parish continues to reckon with its history of racial segregation and inequitable access to green spaces and recreational opportunities. That’s why the East Baton Rouge Parish Parks and Recreation Department (BREC) created its first Community Advisory Council to guide its next 10-year master plan. Dr. TKTK [First Name Last Name] (left) and Rex TKTK [First Name Last Name] (right) are two of the 15 resident advisors who met monthly for a year to help BREC through the planning process. The council accurately represented the parish’s demographic and geographic makeup. After a deep dive into the park system’s operations and facilities, the group took part in facilitated discussions about racial discrimination and inequities, and then members worked in small groups to plan and host community events throughout the year to further engage residents across lines of racial and geographic diversity.

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This Midwestern city is increasingly ethnically diverse as it welcomes immigrants and refugees from all over the world, particularly from South Sudan, Liberia and Laos. Many settle close to Prospect Park on the Des Moines River. Its range of amenities—a boat launch, world-class disc golf course, and picnic and open areas—draw a dynamic cross-section of cultures and interests. Though the groups would use the park at the same time, they would intentionally give each other a wide berth, thinking it was a sign of respect. Disc golfers, for instance, would skip the hole closest to where the Sudanese neighbors hung out because they didn’t want to infringe on their territory. Des Moines Parks and Recreation held three pop-up events in Prospect Park over three months to activate the space in ways that invited more interaction. A Garbage Grab river cleanup, a play-for-all day, and a Sudanese cultural celebration. Youth in the summer camp volunteered alongside several African-born Prospect Park neighbors and some disc golfers. Volunteers began to see the park as a resource to take care of.

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Staff at the Yvonne Richardson Community Center (YRCC)’s Bridging the Gap program set out to do just that with three groups that rarely overlap: seniors, teens, and members of Fayetteville’s growing homeless community, many of whom find temporary shelter in the city’s parks, including Walker Park. Housing security a multisectoral issue that affects parks departments all over the country, many of whom are seeking strategies for equitably and justly improving park quality and safety for all residents, including the houseless population. In addition to weekly bridging sessions, the teen summer campers and senior center attendees helped plan two events in Walker Park to provide free hot meals and services as well as social activities—chess, corn hole, and card games—to the homeless residents. NAMETK, a youth center camper, and NAMETK, a man experiencing homelessness in Fayetteville, enjoy a game of chess at Walker Park.

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More than 1,000 community members showed up to a meeting in TKMONTH2023 to provide input and feedback about the $110 million renovation of 100-acre Ralph Wilson Park. The West Side of Buffalo is the most culturally and racially diverse section of the city—especially among growing populations of Latino, Karen, Somali-Bantu immigrants—yet there are few opportunities for immigrant and U.S. born neighbors to work together. That’s why Ralph Wilson Park Conservancy established a working group of ambassadors to promote belonging and ownership of the new space. At a quarterly working group brainstorm about how to activate 30 acres of the park (which include a splash pad, pool, skatepark, and parking lot), TKNAME shared her creative ideas for pop-up park programs that could appeal to residents of all cultures.

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Raleigh Parks staff felt that there was an opportunity to increase participation in the department’s programs among two under-resourced groups: participants from Spanish-speaking countries enrolled in English Language Classes and U.S.-born families receiving financial assistance. These groups were often placed at odds in society due to perceived economic competition over public resources, when in fact, they have many things in common: the two groups often live in very close proximity to one another, enroll their children in similar Raleigh Parks programs, and are underrepresented in the world of outdoor recreation. Raleigh Parks launched a new program called Welcome to Raleigh Parks, which gave a sampling of recreational and social services to eight families representing these siloed groups from the same zip code. The events included free meals, optional transportation, and English interpretation for Spanish speakers, and always began with an icebreaker that was approachable for children and participants with limited English proficiency, allowing participants to begin events as friends and equals.

On Common Ground in Cleveland

Soccer, “the world’s game,” can be a home away from home for refugees, immigrants, and asylum seekers settling in the US. Most of Cleveland’s newcomer communities resettle in the Near Westside and Clark-Fulton neighborhoods, which are socioeconomically and racially diverse. Though newcomers and U.S.-born residents often live in close proximity—attending the same schools and living on the same streets—they can be culturally siloed and have few opportunities to foster neighborliness. To build bridges between newcomers and native Clevelanders, the Cleveland Soccer Group Foundation (CSGF) leveraged existing youth and adult soccer programs to connect U.S.-born and newcomer populations over a shared love of the sport.  

Up to this point, teams in the adult soccer league typically were ethnically homogenous, which had the unintended consequence of pitting newcomers against U.S.-born teams. That’s why CSGF facilitated intentional mixing of adult teams over the 18-week program, to have more equal representation from refugee, immigrant, and native Cleveland backgrounds. At the start of each practice, teams bonded through ice breaker questions about soccer (who’s your favorite soccer player?) and cultural connections (what food reminds you of home?). One player even brought fufu, a West African dish, to share with his teammates. 

More than 50 youth summer campers—boys and girls hailing from West African, Latin America, the Middle East, and Cleveland—were able to freely mix over a 12-week period and meet twice a week.  

“Sports programming has a unique power in bridging disparate communities. The shift from seeing people as strangers to seeing people as teammates is transformative in the way we know one another and the way we understand our neighbors.” —Cleveland Soccer Group Foundation staff

On Common Ground in East Cleveland

Two-thirds of Cleveland’s Forest Hill Park is owned and operated by the City of East Cleveland, which is low-income and majority Black, and has struggled to find the resources to maintain the park. The other third is better maintained by the City of Cleveland Heights, which is more affluent and a mix of white and Black residents. Cleveland Metroparks, neighbors of Forest Hill Park, and local community partners recognized the opportunity for the park to become a place of common ground rather than a divided space. So they hosted a series of events, called Forest Hill Fun Days, at the park. One of many vendors at the event was Splice Cream Truck, a roving ice cream truck-meets-recording-studio that documented oral histories of neighbors’ memories and hopes for Forest Hill Park. The captured recordings are now being used for TKTKTK. 

On Common Ground in East Baton Rouge

Like many cities, East Baton Rouge Parish continues to reckon with its history of racial segregation and inequitable access to green spaces and recreational opportunities. That’s why the East Baton Rouge Parish Parks and Recreation Department (BREC) created its first Community Advisory Council to guide its next 10-year master plan. Dr. TKTK [First Name Last Name] (left) and Rex TKTK [First Name Last Name] (right) are two of the 15 resident advisors who met monthly for a year to help BREC through the planning process. The council accurately represented the parish’s demographic and geographic makeup. After a deep dive into the park system’s operations and facilities, the group took part in facilitated discussions about racial discrimination and inequities, and then members worked in small groups to plan and host community events throughout the year to further engage residents across lines of racial and geographic diversity. 

“Very appreciative of the parks, creating a space and opportunity for people of different backgrounds, different, different, upbringing to have those conversations be open minded and see how we can work to work together” —Community Advisory Council member

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