By Hannah E. Jones, Park Pride’s Marketing & Communications Manager
At Park Pride, we strive to inspire the next generation to get involved with parks and pursue careers in the greenspace sector. That’s why we were thrilled to welcome four summer interns to our Park Visioning and Community Building teams, including Prashanti Pathak (Visioning), Shreya Panthangi (Visioning), Sonya Parmer (Community Building) and Angelise Rivera (Community Building). All interns joined us through the Partnership for Innovation’s Summer Internship Program.
Prashanti and Shreya are master’s students in Urban Design and City and Regional Planning at Georgia Institute of Technology, respectively, and Park Pride’s community-led approach to design drew them to this internship opportunity. This summer, they worked with Park Pride’s Park Visioning Team on the new Red’s Farm Preserve Vision Plan, including helping conduct neighborhood meetings and surveys, creating graphics, and writing about the history of the space.
Throughout the process, they both saw the immense value in working closely with the community to create designs that reflect their desires for their park. They also saw first-hand how greenspaces have the power to bring neighbors together and all the work that community volunteers put into making their parks thrive.
“These are people that are doing this truly because they love their neighborhoods,” Shreya said. “They’re not getting anything out of it, in terms of money, besides serving their community, and it’s amazing to see that.”
Understanding a park’s history and the context of the neighborhood is an important piece of the visioning process because, as Prashanti put it, “It helps create a sense of belonging. History helps us understand the people and how the place was formed and the identity of the place, which creates a more connected public space rather than a disconnected one.”
Shreya added: “As planners, we have the technical knowledge to produce what the community wants. The brain power should come from the community, and how to make that possible in the best way is our job. Sometimes we need to set aside our ego, set aside our aspirations, and focus on what the community wants because that’s our job.”
As an international student from Mumbai, India, Shreya has an interesting perspective on parks in Atlanta. At home, she describes parks as a luxury that community members don’t have the bandwidth to advocate for, but in Atlanta, she perceives greenspace as a basic need.
“[At home,] community members don’t have the energy or the capacity to be this passionate because there are a lot of other issues where their energy goes,” Shreya said. “It was really nice to see community members in Atlanta being so passionate about their home and their area. Seeing them loving their space so much was definitely an eye-opener; I’ve never seen something like this.”
Community Building interns Sonya and Angelise (a rising sophomore with a major in Psychology at Oglethorpe University and a master’s student in Public Policy at Georgia State University, respectively) were similarly inspired by our Friends of the Park groups’ commitment and dedication to their neighborhood greenspaces. Over the summer, they worked with Park Pride’s Community Building Team to meet with Friends groups in their parks to learn about their current goals, challenges, and ways they can be further supported by Park Pride.
These park visits gave Sonya and Angelise a first-hand look at how much work our community members put into their neighborhood parks and their essential role in advocating for and stewarding these greenspaces.
“I feel like my eyes were opened to how important a park can be to a community,” Sonya said. “I didn’t even realize that average people could advocate for their parks.”
When hearing from a neighbor during one of their check-in meetings, Angelise had an aha-moment where she thought, “This work matters.”
“There was a moment when we were meeting with a Friends group, and they mentioned that a resident who had undergone heart surgery was grateful that their neighborhood park had a Friends group because they were able to put in benches. Because of that, this person was able to walk outside and take breaks as needed,” Angelise said. “Something as small as benches made an impact on someone’s ability to enjoy the park.”
Ultimately, all four interns walked away with a strong sense of the power of parks to strengthen our communities and improve our city overall, along with a deep appreciation for the hardworking community volunteers who help our greenspaces thrive.
“[I learned] to advocate for what’s important to me,” Angelise said. “It makes me think of the quote from The Lorax, where it says, ‘Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.'”
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