Harbor Gateway completes a dream

Moevao Liavaa is the senior lead LAPD officer for the Harbor Gateway area. He’s seen the racial violence that can tear communities apart, and on Saturday he saw a vacant lot — which he remembers being covered in four-foot shrubs a few years ago — turned into a community center. • He had something to say about what it looked like now: ”I just feel like tearing up and crying, because looking at this come through is just awesome.” • On May 2, ShareFest volunteers turned a dirt lot that had been acting as a community center for years into a full-blown facility for kids in Harbor Gateway. It was part of the Sixth Annual Community Workday where 8,000 volunteers completed more than 255 projects throughout the South Bay and Harbor areas. • In 2006, 14-year-old Cheryl Green was killed by a gang in Harbor Gateway, and three years later, her name adorns a community center that the everyone from the L.A. mayor to the smallest kids in the neighborhood rallied behind. • On the Friday night before the Workday, Cornerstone Construction Group, Inc. — who worked asked for help from ShareFest on Extreme Makeover Home Edition — transported the a module that the LAPD Harbor Division donated for the center. Through the whole day Saturday, Cornerstone, volunteers from Kings Harbor Church and families from the community put in at least $50,000 worth of labor to turn the module into a working community center in one day. Soon, the Boys and Girls Club will start running programs out of the center. • “It’s like a long dream for them (Gateway residents) that’s finally come through,” Liavaa said • Last year ShareFest helped paint murals for the center and provided what it could to make the space more inviting, but that was nothing compared to the work put in on Saturday and the long years the community had waited for it to happen. • “Because of all the violence that’s taken place, hopefully this will draw them closer together and bring them together as a community,” he said. ”If we can change two, three kids, deter them from joining gangs or doing drugs, to me that’s a success. If we can touch just a couple of kids and make them go on and be successful, that’s worth all this.” • For more stories about the Workday, visit http://sharefest.wordpress.com/ • For more pictures from the Workday, visit http://www.flickr.com/sharefest

Loving through Laundry

This year, ShareFest partnered with Wilmington Community Organization and participated in a new type of project. It wasn’t about revamping, refurbishing, rebuilding or beautifying. This project was specifically about connecting with people in the communities we’re serving. • At four laundromats throughout Wilmington, volunteers from churches like New Hope South Bay and charities like Just One put quarters in washing machines and provided soap for residents who showed up to do their laundry. • Just One started this type of project years ago and has consistently hosted it at laundromats in other areas for three years. They call it Laundry Love. • “This is just a small way of touching the community but to uncover some of the deeper needs. That’s what the whole purpose of Laundry Love is. We wash clothes but build relationship with community to find out what they need,” Derrick Engoy, who ran one of the projects, said. • Just One’s concept is to have a consistent time and place where volunteers and the people they serve start to get to know one another. • It made a perfect partnership because this idea mirrors ShareFest’s goal of relating to communities and tailoring specific solutions to needs. • After the project was completed Saturday, each location will be assessed, and leaders from Wilmington, Just One and ShareFest will decide whether they want to continue this project and at which laundromat. • “It’s about building relationships,”Engoy said. • For more stories about the Workday, visit http://sharefest.wordpress.com/ • For more pictures from the Workday, visit http://www.flickr.com/sharefest