Photo by Elizabeth Eun
Over a span of eight weeks, the high school interns at the K.W. Lee Center for Leadership’s Korean American Youth Leaders in Training developed a community project to benefit Koreatown. The problem they decided to tackle was the astonishing lack of greenspace in Koreatown. Their solution: proposing plans for a future park for Koreatown youth located near Wilshire & Hobart.
The National Recreation and Park Association recommends 10 park acres per thousand people, but Koreatown falls way below the mark. It only has a measly four parks total, meaning that there are .01 park acres per thousand people.
By conducting on-the-street surveys to 520 people and pitching their plans to the organizations like the Koreatown Immigrant Worker’s Association (KIWA) and the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA), the interns are working to ensure that a park at Wilshire & Hobart can become a reality.
The cost to build the park is around eight million dollars, and KIWA is currently in the process of getting grants from the CRA and other organizations.
