The year All I have to Do is Dream, the song by the Everly Brothers came out I was 9 years old and attending 4th grade at College Heights, an elementary school in Big Spring, Texas. It was the year I refused to wear a dress, not a single day. It could have been the dust storms stinging bare legs was the reason, or that sometimes when you are young, you have to make a decision and stick with it.
It was the year I started buying my own records, the 45s at an actual record store downtown with floors I still remember creaked when you walked down the aisles. Somewhere that stack of records would have included Charlie Brown! And of course, La Bamba!
This week, I can’t help it. I keep finding myself singing the words from that Everly Brothers’ song: “Dream, dream, dream...”
I have been dreaming. LEAD Agency is applying for one of the EPA Community Change Grants. We received the technical assistance from a New Orleans firm of landscape architects. The grant is to do a thing that could actually change this community. That team came 6 weeks ago and listened to as many people as I could convince this was a “thing” and got themselves in the room with that team and told them what we needed, what we “dream” about having here.
And on June 6 they are coming to show us what they thought they heard from us. You can come see these plans and give them your opinion. Maybe they missed the point. Maybe they dreamed some other type dream and we get to amend or approve what they have come up with.
This grant is competitive. Groups in communities around the country are applying. The grantees will be able to do a 10 to 20 million Dollar landscape project to change their communities.
What do you think could be done with that much EXTRA money here? What would bring you joy? Get you up and out of the house? What could transform this place and provide a destination you can claim right here in Miami, Oklahoma?
Thursday June 6 at the Ottawa County Annex 123 East Central come drop by to see the plans and have a say in the final design. The doors will be open to the public from 10 to 2 pm.
Start humming that tune, pretty soon the words will come and the dreams of a new way of seeing this place will be next.
Respectfully Submitted ~ Rebecca Jim
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