Friday night (4/11/08) we had our third Carter St. Voice Group meeting. We have been meeting together with our neighbors in an effort to make sure everyone is heard and is able to use their voice to express their thoughts and feelings on the things that face our street. This is all a part of doing community development with the residents at the heart of the transformative process.

Over the last few meetings our friend Delia, who has been coaching us in community organizing, has guided us through the process of listening to the community stake holders (fancy words for neighbors). This process has helped lay our the memories of what Carter street was at it’s best, where it is now, and what our dreams for it can be together. In our last meeting we went around the room and introduced ourselves by each telling our name and how long we had lived on Carter St. and what we liked about Carter St. As we sat and listened to one neighbor after another state that they had lived here their whole lives or even for generations it struck me again and again just how rich we are in history and heritage as a street. Many of the dreams that were mentioned in the second meeting were reflected in the comments on how things used to be. Memories of a past that will be lost if there is not some action taken to slow or harness the gentrification that is threatening this beautiful heritage.

One of our neighbors began to express that she had lived on Carter St. for 32 years that it was home. She had moved but only from one side of the street to the other. Her favorite part of the street was that neighbors look out for each other. Then her daughter spoke next and said she had lived on Carter for 30 years that she was born here and that all of her siblings had moved away but she remained because  ”this is home this is our roots”. Soon after her sons walked in the house and participated in the rest of the meeting. The oldest is 13 and he was also born on Carter St. Three generations had known little else than this street as a center for their lives!!!

After the meeting our team stuck around and talked about how beautiful the people we had just hosted were and how blessed we are to have such a rich depth to work among, to be friends with and to simply be our neighbors as Carter St. continues to become “home” to our team.