Debra Jeffries-Glass
What would you like to be asked?
What keeps you going in this work, in this park?
Wei Tchou Thank you. I think as an observer of the park, what keeps me going is just that there’s an immense amount of wisdom, obviously, from everyone you’re hearing from tonight, but even I think just people traversing the park randomly. It just feels like there’s something really ancient and human that happens here to learn from and I think it’s worth cultivating, learning about and passing on.
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Mason Crawford I guess for me, I’m a talker and I like to have a good time and when you’re doing street outreach, you get to talk to anybody and everybody and one thing you learn is a lot of people are actually really good people and so you can make people laugh, make people feel warm and welcomed.
That’s what you can usually make the first connection to something. So yeah, I just like to talk and go out and meet people and that would be it for me. And you can ask me anything. I may not know the answer, but you can ask me anything.
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Marcellous Valentin For me, what keeps me going in this work is just being able to serve the community that raised me and being able to see the humanity and dignity in someone being reconfirmed in them. When they’re feeling like they’re nothing. And then, same, you can ask me anything.
Hopefully, I have an answer.
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Jeff Cohen Okay, I’ll go with the second part of the question.
You can ask me anything. Hopefully, I have an answer.
As far as what keeps me going, I like what I do.
I like the people we serve. I like the community. For me, coming here, it was something new and we’ve become part of the community here and I don’t see us leaving, so I’m happy doing that.
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Carol Prudhomme Davis I think what keeps me going in this park is I have friends here and they’re from every walk of life that everybody has brought up here and I found out during the pandemic, it was unhoused artists that got me to get up and off my butt and quit feeling sorry for myself because what I wanted to do couldn’t happen. What I would like is to be invited to the table, to invite our organization, to be invited to be a part of events and brainstorming and really be able to explore what we can do with food equity here.
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Brian Crozier What keeps me going in this work, well, in the park, I mean, overall, this work will never be done until there’s fair and equitable treatment for all community members, regardless of using status, regardless of housing status, regardless of socioeconomic factors, right? The work will never be done until then. As long as I can walk, breathe, whatever, I will continue to do that work. That’s that.
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Bob Humber 60 years ago, this park had a drug problem. The problem was, I wanted to solve it. It was about wine. It wasn’t about crack or K2 or anything like that. It was wine. We solved that problem for a while and we’re back at it again. But when I start something, I want to finish it. So as long as I have a breath in me, I’m going to keep fighting, keep fighting to get drugs out the park, no matter what it is.
Debra Jeffries-Glass
Well, thank you for your wisdom, for your wit, for your work, for your warmth.
If I could come up with another word, it’s going to be that we are good.
Can we please have a round of applause for our panelists? Thank you.