Belonging and Sharing: Earth Day in Northgate Park
Written by Tim Buckley, June 2023
“I’m so happy to see how the awareness raised in the park has carried over into the neighborhood,”
Veronica and Jorge Carlos moved to Salem 25 years ago from San Diego. Veronica was pregnant with her second child. “It was a drastic change,” she said recently, admitting it was “sad to leave family and friends”, and sadder yet that the beaches and constant sunshine of Southern California receded quickly into the past.
Veronica, center, helps pass out gardening tools to kids and their families
What may have surprised her growing family (four children: 32, 25, 19, and 13 and two grandchildren) is how quickly Veronica established balance in the Northwest. She found her footing in the Salem/Keizer Coalition for Equality, where she established friendships and learned about advocacy. She also joined the Hallman Elementary School Parent-Teacher Club and has been active in it for 20 years.
Toughing it out during the gray winter months and rain, Veronica learned to create sunshine in what she was doing
– raising a family, making friends, and volunteering. She became an advocate for students, her own and others, after a bad experience in Hallman’s third grade class. “It’s important that students are treated well,” Veronica said, “that they get proper support and have a sense that they belong.”
Her deeply held values of respect and belonging carry into everything she does. The recent Earth Day celebration she organized is an example, where Northgate Park was buzzing with fun family activities. Some sat in, walked through, or helped plant the Peace and Forgiveness Garden. “We bought art supplies so kids could paint small rocks to leave there,” Veronica said. The garden also commemorates the tragic death of a neighborhood teenager and commits to a nonviolent future. “I’m so happy to see how the awareness raised in the park has carried over into the neighborhood,” she said.
Hallman-Northgate families garden together at the Peace & Forgiveness Garden in Northgate Park on Earth Day 2023
It wasn’t a slam dunk but, with the neighbors and business leaders supporting the idea, the project found its way onto the final list.
In the $300 million being raised by the bond, almost $1 million will be spent upgrading Northgate Park, and the restroom will be a major part of those funds. “A broad coalition of groups came together to support this opportunity,” said Salem Mayor Chris Hoy. “Over the next ten years, we’ll see better streets, sidewalks and bike lanes, safer playgrounds at our parks (etc.) …and we will see tangible results of the community coming together.”
The Building Community Resilience model relies on volunteers like Cecilia to trust the strength of neighbors coming together with a unified voice. It relies on Neighborhood Family Councils advocating for their children and family’s needs. And, when the business leaders get behind those decisions, as we’ve seen with this project, it demonstrates that trust placed in Neighborhood Family Councils is well placed. In the bigger picture, the Building Community Resilience model also demonstrates that when the quality of life in neighborhoods where families are facing the most adversity improves, the rest of the city thrives too.