Welcome to Our Neighborhoods!

How do you convey the excitement and hard work that goes into making neighborhoods stronger?

We've tried a lot of different ways over the seven years of the New Communities Program, and probably the closest we've come is in the new video below by Sarahmaria Gomez and Alex Fledderjohn of TuMultimedia.

This is the first half of a longer piece they created as a "thank you" tribute to Jonathan Fanton, the president of the MacArthur Foundation. It captures the voices of neighborhood residents talking about:

• a community garden on Maypole Avenue in East Garfield Park;
• the South Chicago Art Center;
• a mural in North Lawndale;
• the La Estancia development in Humboldt Park;
• a mariachi band at Cooper School in Pilsen;
• the Oakwood Shores mixed-income development in Quad Communities;
• the West Haven Giants baseball team;
  
• the Little Village Boxing Gym; and
• the foreclosure prevention efforts in Chicago Lawn.

All that in five minutes! I think the reason it works so well is because the work it represents is so genuine and real.