My Community

My family has lived in this community for several years. We still live in the same house my grandmother lived in when she was a child. She lives with us, too. 

When she was a child, there were open fields, but that was 50 years ago. People started to move here because it was a good place to live. There was a good school. People thought the neighborhood looked pretty, and there were many trees. 

So many people moved to this community. They built apartment buildings, and small houses. Soon, there was no more open land. My grandmother saw all the 
changes. 

They opened stores, too. My grandmother says that when she was young she had to walk for blocks to get to a store. She would get tired walking. Now there is a store just down the street. The store owner knows that there are many customers. 

She used to have to walk very far to get to school, but then they built a school right across the street from our house. So her child, my mother, could go to school in a minute. She just opened the front door and crossed the street and she was there. 

Even more people moved into the community. The school got overcrowded, so the school district built another building. Hundreds of children go to the school every day and I am one of them. 

Four years ago, when I was in 1st grade, there was no place to play. We had a playground but it was not good, so after school I would just go home and play on my block. But there wasn’t much to do, it was hard to play there, and my mother worried. 

That year they started to change the school. They tore up the concrete outside the school and planted grass and trees. It took a very long time, and there was a lot of dirt. In fact, my mother kept vacuuming every day because of the dust from the construction. 

Finally, they finished the construction. Now there is a park right across the street from my home and my brother and I play there every day after school. My mother can see that I am safe. All she has to do is just look out the window.