If you haven’t noticed already — something unprecedented is happening in this community. It’s connected with this newspaper produced by volunteer effort, a day care center which grew out of a very real community need, a community school board elected by residents from every area of this community, a proposed teenage council, a residential service concerned not only with home owners but with landlord-tenant relations, the stop the Jack-in-the-Box movement, an area wide clean-up campaign which will continue past a one-day effort.
All these things are being done by community residents — many of whom have not previously participated in community activities and who are organizing for a specific purpose of community wide benefit.
All of this may or may not have something to do with the announcement by Washington University that it was “going to do something in this area.”
These organizations may have started with the idea of acquiring funding from the University or using the services provided by the University, but if you will look at their efforts to date, you will find hardly any Washington University involvement except where it was requested — which is as it should be and the result of Washington University policy as well as resident policy.
The composition of these groups is completely made up of neighborhood residents and the activities are completely resident initiated and executed.
What we are witnessing is the mobilization of a community improvement seldom seen and not duplicated, to our knowledge, in any area of the city.
What is needed now is some coordination between these groups. The natural choice is the Skinker-DeBaliviere Community Council — If the reorganization is effective in producing a representative cross-section of this community.
By coordination we do not mean control. We can’t see any of the spontaineous volunteer groups submitting to control. But we can see them reporting on their activities and needs to the over-all board so that there is no duplication of programs, so that additional needs are not neglected, so that community resources can be mobilized to benefit all these special service organizations.
Granted all these things are in the fledging stages. They have yet to withstand the test of time and sustained effort. But as far as we are concerned, it’s one hell of a start.
Originally published in The Paper, May 1970.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
