Allison Park Photo
When Jervon Ogman, 8, agreed to go to the Dwight Community Fair, he didn’t realize scaling a 50-foot rock wall was part of the deal.
On a hot Saturday afternoon, the Dwight community celebrated the commencement of summer the way they’ve done it for the past 26 years: with the fair, complete with a DJ, a rock-wall, community vendors, and a cookout — all for free.
Amid the kids running around with popcorn and cotton candy spilling from their hands, Dwight Community Management Team Vice-Chair Curlena McDonald (pictured above) explained the roots of this over two-decade long tradition.
“It started as a neighborhood clean-up back when this space was a vacant lot with trash, drugs, and shootings,” she said. The Dwight Community Management Team coordinated with the Yale School of Urban Design to draft a “neighborhood plan” for what the reinvented community space would look like. They settled on erecting the building where the annual fair is held in, which eventually became Amistad Academy.
Due to the efforts of the Dwight Community Management Team over the last several years, McDonald said, conditions are “much better than [they] used to be.”
The fair depends entirely on resource donations such as money, food, and vendors from different community organizations with West Chapel District and Stop & Shop as the two main sponsors. These donations allow the event’s activities and food services to be open and free to the public. “[We] have great relationships with businesses,” McDonald continued. “[This event] survives because we depend on each other.”
She said the event is meant to bring the community together in a kick-off to summer, where people can “eat, have fun, and be in this building and space.”
This event also marks the start of a summer break for the Dwight Community Management Team, who will continue their monthly meeting at the beginning of September. The organization has a “great relationship” with the local police department as well, with officers sitting in and contributing to every meeting. (Pictured above: top Dwight cop Lt. John Healy and neighborhood Livable City Initiative rep Tracy Claxton.)
As a community organization comprised of 20 – 30 members, the Dwight Community Management Team ensures that these monthly meetings are held, where they discuss “what’s going on in the street” and “how to improve the neighborhood,” said McDonald.
Strapped into the climbing wall, Ogman said he was “scared” at first. Then he climbed the wall like a seasoned pro. As he hoisted himself up to the top rung 50 feet in the air, he could look around and see familiar faces and his loved ones in the Dwight community: his step-brother, his mother, his friends. Ogman couldn’t help coming back down with a smile on his face.
