The Linda Vista Life Economics Flower

Our vision is to holistically bring together the dreams of the people of our neighborhood by creating a catalytic space that curates and funds them. 

Our project consists of 8 petals, each of them dreams or rumors that we have heard everyday leaders of our community share with us over the years. Each petal or sub-project will focus on selected individuals who will participate in a cohort-style process of learning, practically applying the leanings and developing those areas of work for future funding. The cohorts will also have opportunities for cross-learning on the intra-neighborhood, cross-neighborhood, and international level. 


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Sports Pathway

Vision: To create a practical neighborhood sports pine line from K-12 grade

  • Last semester we had an unprecedented 60 middle school boys and girls in our program. We are now in "contact work" season, meeting with kids at lunch as we wait for the American football season to begin. We also took 13 soccer players on their first ever college talent ID camp. We have another scheduled for March of 2023. So far the majority of our flower work has been in this area because this is where we meet the kids and parents that become part of the other 7 petals.

Homelessness

The Main Idea:  To engage the unsheltered population in community development

  • We meet with a cohort of folks every Wednesday where we have a teaching and work on potential solutions for different individuals. So far 9 people have come off the streets through either solutions we have provided (like getting and donating cars to the individuals) or by just being inspired to do better by themselves and picking up jobs to work. The houseless individuals then serve the rest of the houseless community by providing lunch and other needed supplies like socks, toothbrushes, and clothes that we accumulate through donations.

Urban Gardening

The Main Idea: To train community members in urban farming

  • We planted a garden from scratch restoring an old dump in the process. We’ve just gone through the first harvest season and are now working on stage two of building the garden up to be a beautiful and artistic place. Some of the people who are working on this garden will also help support the big community garden that the neighborhood is building at our local Rec Center

Micro-Business

The Main Idea: To assist people so they can create small businesses

  • So far we have created a T-shirt business owned and operated by a houseless woman. So far we have printed and sold two T-shirt designs and are in the debriefing stage before we take the next steps. We are also in the initial stages of discussing a cooking business, having catered two events so far.

Prototypes

The Main Idea: To create space for experimentation, where new ideas can be tried.

  • We have done collaborative work with othe police using sports as a tool for intervention at one of the parks that has a bad reputation in the neighborhood. We have also done cleanup projects together with the police as a way of making sure that police presence is not just associated with making arrests.