Construction of the Latino Health Access Park at 602 E. East Fourth Street has begun, after 10 years of planning and collaboration with local companies and the city of Santa Ana.
The park is expected to be completed by the summer of 2012 and will include a 3,000-square-foot community center, walking and jogging path, bathrooms and security.
Conceived by parents concerned about the lack of places for their children to play, the park makes a dent in increasing the amount of open space in Santa Ana. A recently-released report by nonprofit The Trust for Public Land shows there is one acre of park space per 1,000 people in Santa Ana. Santa Ana came in second to last in a survey of major cities, with 1.9 percent of its land dedicated to parks. New York City has 19.5 percent of its land dedicated to parks, or 4.5 acres per 1,000 people.
“Seeing the trucks come in to make our park is a dream come true,” said resident Edith Melchor, a member of the group, Parents with Green Hearts, which lobbied for the park’s creation. “The park under construction makes it a real Christmas now.”
Our staff is also thrilled with the progress.
“This land is more than dirt. This land is the dream of 10 years for our community to have a place where our children can play. For this project to get this far, we have had to do a lot of asking.,” said Latino Health Access CEO America Bracho. “No one should feel ashamed of asking and fighting. What we should feel ashamed about is not participating in providing our families a better life. Because if we don’t do it, no one is going to. This park is here because we chose to participate.”
The park project began after one mother brought the idea to Latino Heatlh Access. Since then, parents have joined to form Parents with Green Hearts. They feel so strongly about the park that they collected funds through tamale sales to pay for a videographer just because they wanted a video memory of the day construction began on the park.
The $3.6 million park is being built by Latino Health Access in cooperation with other community partners on leased lands from the city of Santa Ana. One parcel was donated by Northgate-Gonzalez Supermarkets. The project has also received large donations from St. Joseph Hospital System, TAYLOR and Associates Architects and McCarthy Building Companies.
“To us, this is not a question of statistics. It is a question about our lives,” said Melchor. “We know that a park like this can change the lives of our children.”
