What folks were saying at the Community Services Week "Party"

October 22, 2011 was a great day in Silver Spring – and a great day for Montgomery County!

We celebrated the end of Community Services Week with a wonderful event on Veterans Plaza. A great band was playing while many community organizations and institutions had table with information about how they work with volunteers to help our community. (This came after a day of volunteer projects in the Civic Building.)

The Silver Spring Regional Area’s own “Community Engagement Specialist” (Andre Roa - 'Dre- , our AmeriCorp team member) made a map of the area and asked folks to put a pin indicating where they live (if they live in our area.)

He also asked them to put a ‘sticky’ on the map sharing what they like about this amazing community… Some of the comments included:

[] Diversity
[] ] We have urban gardeners; we have doc film fests at AFI; we have cool small businesses; we have the best restaurants (Mandalay, my fave); we have the Quary House & Side Bar & Adega; we have parks – Sligo & Long Branch and we have NICE PEOPLE!!
[] Silver Spring Ave. Ah-ha! We grow hopes…have instant music james…and merriment on the trampoline. Yay! Oh – great block party too!!
[] They are friendly and very gentle and polite
Artists last stand! Living outside the box
[] Best neighborhood ever!
[] Diversity of food, color, and language
[] Everything I need is in walking distance (metro, groceries, movies, food, the park, etc.)
[] Indian Spring – a great & active neighborhood
[] Like the friendly walkable environment and all our diverse neighbors, businesses, and organizations supporting each other.
Festivals!
[] Zombie Walks are here!
[] Lovely, supportive neighbors; access to downtown Silver Spring & Takoma Park; festivals galore; and a strong, warm sense of community.
Cool people, interesting stuff to do, Quarry House, Side Bar, and Impact Silver Spring.
[] I live Ruatan Street. We have a lot of police taking care of our street.
[] An extremely diverse neighborhood.
[] Great places to walk to – also dog friendly!
[] I feel it safe where I live and peaceful.
[] I like that it is a very family oriented community. It would be great to bring the neighborhoods together in a bigger community.
From the time that I came there, it is like getting hard to leave my neighborhood! I love it!
[] Why is Downtown Ellsworth Drive still open to traffic??
[] How can we make crossing Wayne Ave & Fenton St safer (as a pedestrian, some crazy drivers have had some close calls)?

What a cool, simple idea to get a sense of what folks think!... If you see “Dre” in one of our upcoming meetings and/or dialogues, please thank him for doing this!

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Reemberto Rodriguez, Regional Director
Montgomery County Silver Spring Area