By Alliance Communications Coordinator Amy Durr
Akiima Price, founder of the Friends of Anacostia Park in Washington, DC, has dedicated her life to getting people outdoors. In this 3-minute PBS NewsHour Brief but Spectacular video she discusses the impact a local park has on her under-resourced community. This is particularly poignant for me because I grew up without such a “village” so I love when people create villages for themselves!
Akiima Price shares:
“I would ultimately like to establish this park as a trauma-informed park that has models and systems that can be replicated and shared in other places. To where it’s really seen as a clinic, whether you’re using the space for a restorative justice circle or you’re having court-mandated mental health happen in the form of a hike.
“I know there are people who have shared with me that use that bike path that have gotten off their blood pressure medicine and their diabetes medicine.
“I’ve met people who are going through drug addiction, you know, trying to get clean, and how just being in that park, the stillness and the silence of that park is helpful, and the fact that there are people that they can talk to.
“What we’re about is not just the park, but the people. That park feels like that’s my family, the elders feel like my grandmas and then having our staff there and having all these people working and then bringing their kids. It feels like a village.”