Making room for new to grow

By Carol Combs, Starfire Family Leadership Network Coordinator

About 12 years ago when my oldest was knee high to a grasshopper, we would walk out our front door and she would look across the street at the remnants of what used to be a bustling parking lot for the Hamilton Die-Cast Company. She would proudly say “look it’s Hamilton’s Rocky Top Mountain Park”. To her young eyes she seen the potential in what it could be, while us adults just seen it as a weedy overgrown dumping ground and a place where nothing good happened. During that time, the neighborhood we lived in was not known for anything good, it was the place you were told not to go after dark and you always locked your doors before turning onto East Ave, the main artery of the neighborhood. If you spoke to the residences of the neighborhood, they would tell you that “the city forgot about us here in this part of town,” and signs of that to be true showed in the road conditions, the abandoned spaces, and the constant flow of “bad” stories that came from the neighborhood. Little did I know that in the years to come, our family would help bring that space to life and begin shedding light on the gifts and goodness that lived within the neighborhood.

Fast forward to 2017, the neighborhood is still home to our family and we had grown by one; there is another knee-high to a grasshopper seeing the potential of that barren and abandoned space once known to her sister as “Hamilton’s Rocky Top Mountain Park”. My mentor once shared this story from “Walk Out, Walk On” (https://walkoutwalkon.net) about a small group of citizens who gathered in a space that was very much like the space we seen when we walked out our front door, a weedy overgrown dumping ground and a place where nothing good happened. In the story, each week a small group of citizens would gather, hold hands and commit to cleaning up “just the space where their hands made a circle”, as weeks went on more citizens joined and in the end the space was transformed into a beautiful, shared space where the community could come together, celebrate, and get to know one another. Having stepped into a new space where we as a family were beginning to look at life a little differently, explore our community, and discover our place of belonging, I too began to see that old parking lot through the eyes of my children and seeking out who might join US in transforming the space.

My family and I have been on an incredible journey the last 5 years, we have learned a lot about ourselves, we have all built valued roles in our community- each of us Carol, Briella, Grayson, and Charlie- have become named and known in Hamilton for the gifts we shared to bring what felt impossible to life in our neighborhood.  Over the course of 2 years, we activated our own social network and brought to life a space where people in a “forgotten neighborhood” could come together to celebrate and get to know one another. What once was a place where nothing good happened is now a place that is a source of good.  The space is ALIVE! One of my favorite things to do during that time was to go outside on the porch and listen to the kids playing and the adults enjoying each other’s company; the sounds of little legs sliding down the plastic slide, the sound of the kick against a soccer ball and the comradery that comes with the game, the squeak of the swings, swinging in unison, and I wouldn’t be doing the moments like this justice if I did not include the smell of the neighbors cooking tamales outside-this was community…our community. 

By me and the kids working alongside my mom and other members of our community, we had accomplished so much in a short amount of time.  Joining The Jefferson Alliance brought new energy not just to the neighborhood but to all of us and in the process, we gained some amazing people in our life; Pastor Aaron, Kathy, Woody, Linda, Frank, Brandon, Brooke, Peggy, our 17Strong family (and that is just naming a few). As a family, we tasked ourselves with the responsibility of caring for the park. Each morning mom would get up and walk the park, picking up trash and making sure it was safe for the day’s flow of neighborhood kids (including my three). At least once a month-sometimes more- the kids and I along with mom and our Jefferson Alliance/17Strong family, would hold an event. We joined forces and got involved in the Art in the Park movement in our city, hosting a Saturday morning craft once a month, we held a movie night, organized a Día de Los Muertos celebration with our neighbors, we would play ball with the kids, and supported those who wanted to use the space for events however we could. It was great to see Pastor Aaron and his parishioners activating the space too. What once was a barren dumping ground was alive with grass, trees, accessible playground equipment, a mural, and people from the community.

I had decided some time ago that Hamilton would always be home and I imagined that it would also always be in the Jefferson Neighborhood but just as the seasons of nature change, so does life. Two years ago I made the decision to move, we needed more space and the time was right. I had my eyes set on this house across from the park but the timing and the work needed was not in the stars and we landed in a brand-new neighborhood. Moving from the Jefferson neighborhood was a hard, I felt like I owed it to the people there to stay, I felt like if we left things would go back to what they use to be, I felt like those we had come to know and love in that neighborhood would feel like we betrayed our commitment to them and our community.  I know now that is not the case, I still know and love the people we met. In our absence, the activation of the park continued. Pastor Aaron and his group show up and care for the park and the people of the neighborhood. New neighbors stepped up to keep it clean when mom could not and each time, I go to visit, the park looks even more alive than my visit before. The work we did as a family brought to life so much for us and our neighborhood.  Our roots are deep here in Hamilton, our relationships within the community are even deeper, and new life grew because of our family’s discovery of the power of community, connection, and contribution.

Learn more about the Jefferson Neighborhood here: https://www.justhamilton.com/a-shared-passion/