My Community

My family has lived in this community for many years. We still live in the same house my grandmother lived in when she was a child. 

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

So many people moved to this community. They built homes, apartment buildings and houses. There was no more open land. 

They opened stores, too. My grandmother says that when she was young she had to walk for blocks to get to a store. Now there is a store right 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. 

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

Five 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 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. They planted grass and trees. It took a long time. There was a lot of dirt. My mother kept vacuuming every day. She said it was dust from the construction. 

Finally, they finished. Now there is a park right across the street from my home. I’m there every day after school. My mother can see that I am safe. She just looks out the window.