[Dryerase] The Alarm!--Community Day

[Alarm!Wires]

Community Day event to show a different face of Beach Flats

Contrary to images of rampant crime and social dysfunction, community 
members pull together to paint a more positive picture of the 
neighborhood.

By Fhar Miess
The Alarm! Newspaper Collective

If all goes according to plan, Beach Flats Park will be teeming with 
people from all over the city this Sunday afternoon.  Resident 
organizations and individuals have been organizing a Beach Flats 
Community Day to be held in the park, located at the intersection of 
Raymond and Leibrandt.

The event will feature food, games and entertainment for people of all 
ages.  Save our Shores will be doing a puppet show and Ary Lima will be 
giving a demonstration of Capoeira, a Brazilian martial arts form.  Live 
bands will be playing ska, reggae and rock en español.

While art, entertainment and expression is the focus of the event, it 
will also give resident organizations such as Vecinos Unidos, Agricolas 
Unidos and the Beach Flats Neighborhood Accountability Board an 
opportunity to introduce themselves to their neighbors and network in 
the community.  A community forum has been organized, featuring speakers 
from these organizations.  Organizers welcome members of the public to 
take the mic to make announcements, initiate conversations and just 
generally express themselves.

According to Molly Flaherty, who works with the Beach Flats Community 
Center and the Beach Flats Neighborhood Accountability Board, the main 
mission of Community Day is fun and entertainment.  In the process, she 
hopes that it will also bring Beach Flats residents together and 
encourage dialogue about recent and upcoming changes and developments in 
the neighborhood.  Among these are the new medical facility being 
planned for Salud Para La Gente and the redevelopment of the Dolphin and 
Lee Apartments.  Flaherty said she hopes to give the former residents of 
those apartments an opportunity to maintain their connections with their 
neighbors through Community Day.

When asked how Community Day is likely to be different from “First Night 
Out” and various other community events recently organized by the Santa 
Cruz Police Department, Flaherty seemed initially baffled by the 
comparison.  Those events, she notes, were meant to facilitate and build 
communication and trust between police and residents, but there isn’t 
such a strong political agenda behind Community Day.  It is more about 
just having fun and providing an opportunity for residents to rejoice in 
the family and community ties that have developed over decades in the 
Beach Flats.  Flaherty emphasized that this event “is not about building 
community, it’s about celebrating what’s already here.”

She drew attention to the many accomplishments of residents who have 
organized to improve their neighborhood with murals, the building of 
Beach Flats Park, the Beach Flats Community Garden and traffic-calming 
measures.  Residents, she said, have engaged for decades in on-going 
struggles for their rights.

Flaherty decried the treatment the neighborhood and its resident 
organizations have received in the press, particularly since Santa Cruz 
police officers shot and killed José “Browny” Ávalos August 1.  Contrary 
to prevailing notions, stoked by the media, “the base of Beach Flats is 
not gangs or drugs,” she said, “it’s family.”

Payaso, who helped start the ball rolling with Community Day, hopes that 
people from outside of the Beach Flats will come to the event to see a 
different face of the neighborhood.  “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” 
he said.  Behind the cover of public opinion lies a rich and colorful 
text, filled with stories of artists, musicians, tight-knit families, 
folks who watch after one another and community activists struggling 
against a political climate that isolates and marginalizes them.  People 
from other parts of Santa Cruz are encouraged to come and hear some of 
those stories for themselves.

Community Day will be held Sunday, August 18, from 3pm to 9pm in Beach 
Flats Park at Leibrandt & Raymond.  Folks from around Santa Cruz, not 
just the Beach Flats, are encouraged to attend.  For more information, 
call Pepe Reyes or Molly Flaherty at the Beach Flats Community Center:  
420-6126.
 
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noted otherwise, this material may be copied and distributed freely in 
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