Newsletter

October, 2014

Sup. Perez Brings New Playground to Lamont Park

Photos courtesy of Gema Perez

South Kern Sol, News Report, Alfredo Camacho

LAMONT, Calif. - Over a hundred community members gathered at Lamont Park on October 5 for a ribbon-cutting ceremony celebrating the park's new playground. The renovations also included a wheelchair ramp and wood chips in place of sand for improved safety and wheelchair access. The host of the event, Kern County 5th District Supervisor Leticia Perez, said the renovations were made in response to concerns she heard from the community.

"We've been meeting with residents here at the library and what we've been hearing time and time again is that the park has been taken over by a criminal element; older men who come and play poker, drink beer, and make the environment uninviting for families," she said. "Parks should be places where families and children feel safe, places you can even send your kid from across the street to play at the park."

According to Perez, private donors, as well as a grant from Kaboom!, a national organization that creates play spaces to address the "play deficit" among children, made the recent renovations possible. She also announced the receipt of a $200,000 grant for further improvements: lighting and a walkway.

Read more here.

Tuesday, November 4 is Election Day!

In preparation for November's election community organizations have hosted educational candidate forums throughout the county. Last week, the Dolores Huerta Foundation and Vecinos Unidos hosted a candidate forum in Arvin. Candidates for Arvin's City Council, Arvin City School District, and water board took center stage at Arvin Veteran's Hall on the evening of October 8 to answer questions from the public about their platforms, their experience, and what their plans are should they be elected to office.

Last week, the Dolores Huerta Foundation, Faith in Action, the Kern County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Building Healthy Communities South Kern, and South Kern Sol hosted an educational candidate forum on Tuesday, October 14 at Sierra Middle School in Bakersfield where State Assembly, and Kern High School District candidates participated.

The next candidate forum will be in Lamont on October 22 at 6:00 p.m. at the David Head Center, 10300 San Diego Street.

BHC-SK encourages you to go out and vote and encourage your community to do the same! Your polling place is printed on the back cover of your sample ballot. Locations often change, please check the polling place address for each election. For additional information, you may call the Kern County Elections Office at 661-868-3590 or check the polling place locator here.

To learn more about your local candidates visit Voter's Edge.

(Arvin's Candidate Forum, Oct. 8)

BHC-SK Needs Your Help!

As you know, we are revising the Action Plan that guides the work of BHC-SK and our partners. We want to ensure that this updated plan is reflective of the current needs and issues in our South Kern Communities. In order to do that, we need to receive input from a broad cross-section of our communities, as well as from special populations or subgroups.

We need BHC-SK partners to help with this by holding focus groups with residents, youth, partners, or others who live/work/play in South Kern. This could be groups of clients, residents, neighbors, or special populations/subgroups you are able to access. If you can help by conducting a focus group, we will make the supplies available for you and assist in facilitating, if needed. If you are able to conduct or host a focus group, please e-mail Angel Munoz at [email protected].

These focus groups will be very important since the data collected will help decide what issues get included in our Action Plan to be worked on over the next three to five years.

Thank you for your ongoing support and all of your hard work to build healthy communities in South Kern!

Jennifer Wood-Slayton, M.A. Hub Manager Building Healthy Communities - South Kern

Job Opportunity: Community Water Center is Looking for Research Assistants

The University of California, San Francisco, in partnership with Community Water Center and Rural Community Assistance Corporation, is looking for individuals to assist with data collection for interventions related to promoting intake of healthy beverages among children in schools, families and other community locations in Arvin and Lamont communities.

For more information please click here.

About Us

Building Healthy Communities is a comprehensive community initiative that is creating a revolution in the way Californians think about and support health in their communities. Residents are proving that they can make health happen in their neighborhoods, schools and with prevention-and in doing so, they are creating a brighter future for their children.

Over 2,000 residents, youth, businesses and organizations are leading the BHC-SK effort to positively change the health of our communities through a shared vision, goals and action plan. Residents in Arvin, Lamont, Weedpatch, and the unincorporated areas of Greenfield are proving that we have the power to make health happen in our communities.

BHC-SK is promoting healthy change in the areas of: