The Little Neighborhood That Could - Part 5. Empowered.

Updated: Mar 30, 2023

We taught the neighborhood how to work with the local government and with each other. You can do this too in your community.

Woman sitting on library floor with laptop and books around her. — Photo by Christina Morillo on Pexels.

A library. Was it possible that adults, teenagers, and children working independently would all put a library at the top of their list of needs? Who would have thought? But it made so much sense. Walking or riding a bike to the nearest library was too dangerous and far away, and most people could not drive because they did not own a car.

The people in the neighborhood were wildly successful in convincing the Library Board to help them. However, it would still prove a rocky road. The Board placed the new library second on their needs list. Yet, studies were needed to support it, funding allocated, and a site selected. Each step is complex, and complications with any of these steps could derail the project for a long time. A brick-and-mortar building was still far away in the future, several years at least. And the neighborhood’s desire to have a new library co-located with the elementary school, though seemingly logical, would be resisted by the County School Board, citing security concerns, lack of direct control by the School Board, and the possible precedent this could set for co-location requests for other types of facilities.

Group of elected board members sitting around a conference table. — Photo by Christina@wocintechchat.com on Unsplash.

We stayed in contact with the neighborhood in the following years and coached them here and there. They had gained many advocates along the way, and they had a rich and diverse group of interests counseling them to success.

Yet the story did not end there. Emboldened by the knowledge and potential of effective civic engagement, the neighborhood went on to accomplish many other ventures than just the library, including mobile library services in the interim period, the establishment of an arts program by the local university for the children (and from that came a mural painting program that put local artwork on the sides of buildings and recreation facilities which the local kids then taught other neighborhoods to replicate); creation of a local history museum (this was a significant endeavor done in partnership with the County); an upgraded recreation center; increased law enforcement presence in the neighborhood and; a seat at the table of a network of city neighborhoods to name a few of many accomplishments.

The neighborhood leaders and the people living in the neighborhood did not understand the latent power they had to control their destiny; that was the purview of wealthier neighborhoods, or so they thought. Simply put, they needed to learn to enter the local power structure, engage with it and influence change. With that newfound knowledge, this little neighborhood became empowered and able to change its destiny.