-Visioning Program For 2020-
Chapter 2
Serving the Youth/Celebrating Diversity

Making life in West Covina more interesting and fulfilling for the youth of the community, as well as for the adults, required other changes as well. The youth partnership worked hard to greatly expand after school programs, providing a productive outlet for children that needed the stimulation of the larger world outside their immediate neighborhoods. This included a range of extracurricular programs in art, dance, science, and technology as well as other educational and recreational pastimes that were available not only after school but also on weekends. A variety of educational programs for young and old alike, sponsored by both Hurst Ranch and the Heritage Museum, renewed ties with the past, providing residents with a greater appreciation for the historic legacy bestowed by previous generations of West Covinans.

With the cooperation of the school districts, the city and other members of the partnership improved local parks and created new ones, including one at the former BKK landfill site, ensuring ample open space for organized sports, swimming, and tennis as well as just plain roaming around. The remaining wilderness areas within West Covina were protected from development and made accessible with hiking trails and campsites. A renewed effort to maintain horse trails and open up new ones was also initiated. This network of parks and trails ensured that all West Covinans could enjoy the nearby pleasures of the outdoors without first having to get into a car.

New public schools and libraries were built to relieve overcrowding and to ensure that all students had access to the best teachers and the latest educational technologies. This community-wide commitment to quality education had the not unexpected added bonus of raising local property values. However, these new school facilities were not single-purpose facilities but were also designed to serve the needs of the entire community. They became neighborhood centers open to all ages, enabling young people to more easily meet and get to know other members of their community, including senior citizens who often volunteered as mentors for the young. Each school facility also included a neighborhood childcare center operated by professional childcare workers.

With each school site functioning as a neighborhood center, the open space and recreational facilities built around each school became a park available to the entire community after school and on weekends. Each of these neighborhood centers also served as the natural location for community forums including the town hall meetings that had now become a well-regarded aspect of the city council. In this way and others, these neighborhood centers also helped to bridge ethnic differences that had emerged in an increasingly diverse city. They created more opportunities for people to talk with each other and in the process discover that what they had in common, especially shared concerns about the welfare of their children, far outweighed differences of race or religion.

Neighborhood block parties, as well as community-wide celebrations held throughout the years, further strengthened community bonds across ethnic differences. Most of these events, including the annual 4th of July parade, picnic and carnival were made possible by the many citizen volunteers who came from neighborhoods in all parts of the city. Each event was taken as an opportunity to showcase the culture of each ethnic and religious group living in West Covina but also to highlight shared civic virtues as "American" citizens. People took special pride in both their local neighborhood and community-wide celebrations and so it was considered quite normal for each West Covinan to do their part to help city crews clean up after words. It always amazes visitors to West Covina the day after one of our community events because the streets and parks are always completely free of trash despite the crowds of the preceding day.

previous page

table of contents

next page

- back to top -


Community Events | Visit City Hall | Meet Your City Council
Kids Stuff | West Covina Loves Your Business | Home
Phone Directory | Site Map | Contact Us