Reflection Prompt

The 'Mid City Speaks' event I believe went well, I did expect more residents of the community to be there, but the people that did were insightful. At times it felt like we were such a big group that when someone came to the event it seemed we crowded the individual with questions. I think having an event inside of a church cafeteria would have been more inviting at least to those who attended that church.

The residents that I spoke to did have a different perspective for the site and were more concerned with workforce development. My view of workforce development was to be the base of ones career, to help them start. Some residents were concerned about how would workforce development continue to help him afterwards. One mentioned a clinic of some sort that could tie with the workforce development, in terms of skills he felt that a cafe won't provide enough experience to an individual to go higher up in society. A few were open to the idea of a grocery store (not a corner store), but not so much on the garden. As for the idea of the homes, it was not popular with the residents, they felt like the area had enough homes and need to focus on workforce development.

The Food Systems board was not successful at the One Stop Grocery location. There were very little constructive answers written on the board. So for the next engagement event, maybe there is another way to implement survey answers, like going around town with a clipboard and directly asking questions and writing down answers. There was a better response at the actual event, when talking to the residents and being able to write down their thoughts for them.