The Scarlet THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF CLARK UNIVERSITY NOVEMBER 10, 2017 | THESCARLET.ORG
30 Years of Service in the Neighborhood: Main South Community Development Corporation By Connor Stephens Contributing Writer
A couple dances at Noche Latina. Photo by Andreana Nop.
LOST IN PARADISE
LASO provides tropical getaway at Noche Latina By Nandita Modhubonti Scarlet Staff
The Latin American Student Organization (LASO) hosted their very first event of the year on Friday, Nov. 3rd. Noche Latina is advertised annually by LASO as “a night of music, food, dance and even more dancing.” The event itself is a formal one and hosted with the aim of both celebrating and giving the Clark community a taste of Latin American culture. The doors to the event opened at 7pm sharp, and, considering the fact that all the tickets had sold out within the first few days that sales began, there was an undeniably large crowd waiting in the Higgins University Center. The diversity within the Latin American community at
Clark was easily noticeable from the fact that each table was named after a different country from the region. Seated at the table for Argentina, the first thing I noticed was the cleverly designed placeholders that included facts about Argentina’s geographical features including a miniature model of the Andes mountain range. The theme for this year was “Lost in Paradise,” and focused on the natural beauty of all of Latin America. Tilton Hall, where the event took place, was decorated predominantly in colorful cutouts of tropical flowers, trees and butterflies. The club even managed to set up their own geofilter on Snapchat, encouraging all guests to share their night on social media. Likewise, both of the MC’s hosting the event
were energetic and entertaining to say the least, and made it a point to interact with both performers and guests alike. The very first performance of the night was a poem recitation revolving around homesickness, effectively incorporating the many nuances of life at home and mentioning the many attractions of Latin America. Next, Clark’s Salsa Team performed their set, dancing to both traditional tunes as well as versions of popular Latin music. The music had been adapted to the mode of dance from the Caribbean, and it was clear to see a significant amount of practice had gone into the preparation for the event.
NOCHE LATINA PG. 6
If you happened to meander through University Park last Halloween, you likely witnessed quite a commotion. Scores of children dressed up as everything from Minions to Elsa enjoyed face painting, costume parades, lawn games, and candy handed out by members of the Worcester Police Department. For several years now, this annual event, known as the University Park Halloween Party, has provided a chance for families in the Main South neighborhood to celebrate the holiday as a community and has vastly contributed to the positive change in public perception of its venue. A non-profit organization known as the Main South Community Development Corporation (CDC) hosts the Halloween party along with a number of other community events in the park including the weekly farmer’s market, summertime Salsa Dancing lessons, and free public movie screenings. Grown from a 30-year running collaboration between Clark University and the Main South community, the Main South CDC continually strives to bolster the availability of high quality affordable housing and to contribute to the development of a positive Main South identity. To learn more about the organization’s history and current endeavors, I sat down with Jack Foley, a founding and current board member of Main South CDC and Clark’s Vice President of Government and Community Affairs. A number of community development corporations currently operate in the city of Worcester, each working to enrich their respective neighborhoods through the promotion of affordable housing and provision of community services. These in-
clude South Worcester Neighborhood, Oak Hill Community Development Corporation, Centro Las Americas, and Worcester Common Ground. While individual missions and methods may vary between these organizations, the belief that residents should be involved in their neighborhood’s community planning process is fundamental to all of them. As the concept of community involvement in public planning is seemingly intuitive, such a paradigm was not always commonplace. In fact, community involvement in public planning was essentially unheard of in Worcester before the mid 1980’s when Main South CDC Worcester’s first community development corporation introduced the idea to city planners. The idea was initially met with resistance. “It was a bit of a shock to the city system to have members of the community determine what they wanted strategically and where they wanted their community to be and not have the professional planners decide for them,” Jack Foley remarked. At the time of this first foray into the realm of community-based public planning, Worcester - particularly the Main South neighborhood – was dealing with increasing levels of violent crime, catastrophic rates of urban abandonment, and a general lack of economic opportunity. These trends, as is the case in so many other post-industrial northeastern cities, resulted from the loss of Worcester’s economic center in the late 70’s to early 80’s when nearly 9,000 manufacturing jobs were relocated in the pursuit of cheaper labor. “People lost the opportunity to earn a living,” explained Foley. “If you were young or newly immigrated, you had no chance to earn a living. People walked away from these neighborhoods, there was arson for profit – in the 70’s houses were burning every week.”
MAIN SOUTH PG. 5