Taynyia Hall Reflection

Garfield Park Asset Map

Well when I first went out I thought I was going to find a lot of business assets because my neighborhood has a lot of restaurants and clothing stores. When I heard I was going to have to interview people in my neighborhood I thought it was going to be a lot of mean people and they were not going to want to be interviewed. I had these expectations because I live in this neighborhood and I know how some of these people are just snotty and mean and I thought they were not going to cooperate with us young kids.

I think McDonalds was a very special asset because everybody goes to McDonalds on their free time. All the people at McDonalds were open. When we were doing our interviews they were all eager to participate. They weren’t rude and agreed to participate. The most interesting activity I saw during the asset mapping at McDonalds was this man drawing one of our kids and he talked a lot about all of his drawings. The most interesting person I met was a young woman named Rosa. She was very into our conversation. She really opened up to me showing me a lot of her family pictures. She showed me her sons and told me how she missed him because he was in jail. I really liked Rosa and I think she was very comfortable around me. I learned that she really cared about her family. She also told me that one of her sons died. She was really hurt by that and that was very interesting. My interviewing skills improved. I was so nervous trying to talk to people. I didn’t realize that Rosa really helped me to lose my nervousness. I thank her for that, now I’m not scared to ask someone for an interview.

The most significant thing I learned during this mapping process was never be scared to ask a person for anything, just be yourself and people will like you for who you are. Also, I think you would have a great time on your mapping experience. I hope I don’t misjudge people by how they look or by some of their actions, because I can be wrong.
For the next mapping class I know that you would have a lot of fun. The last thing I want to say is that if you don’t like this project then there is something wrong with you.

Melanie Brooks Reflection

The assets I expected to find in my community were small owned businesses that reflected something positive about the person who owned it and the area surrounding it. I expected to interview a lot of drug addicts and elders because those are the main people you see outside at that time of day. They know a lot about the community because they are always outside and they know a lot of what’s going on. The experiences that made me have this expectation is because these are the main things I’ve seen living in this community. To me once you see something for the first time it’s hard to imagine anything else because you have that stuck in your mind. It’s not a bad thing though.
One asset that I think is valuable to the community is the Medical Center and Pharmacy. This is valuable to the community because a lot of people might come here for their health. It’s good to have a place in the community where people can be taken care without having to travel far to get to a medical clinic. The most interesting thing I’ve seen during the asset mapping time was people in the neighborhood had beautiful flowers and they were taken care of. You didn’t see a lot of debris in their yard. I didn’t really get a chance to interview anybody, but I’m sure they would have had some pretty good opinions about their community. I think my interview skill have been change by participating in the journalism class. You learn how to hear other people side and opinions about different issues or topics you discuss. It’s always good to know that they look at things in different way. It helps you to get to know different people.
The most significant thing I learned during the mapping process is you can always think that a project is boring, but when you actually get out and do it, you learn a lot about others and the community around you. It educates you better than what a teacher can sit down and tell you. You can actually see and hear what’s going around you by observing and interviewing. I don’t have any suggestion for next year’s asset project because I won’t be participating in it.

Asset Reflection 5.11.09 LeVante and Andrea Vega

LeVante Hunt

Andrea Vega


The asset mapping has so far been going quite well. Pictured above is Cortez interviewing a young lady outside the Laundromat? We have interviewed dozens of people and took plenty of pictures of community members. Most people do not feel very proud about living in the community but are comfortable with living here. But if you were them would you see this gave us and good under stander about how people feel about the community