(CSULA-UT) Back in March 2011, Lucia Reyes and a group of El Sereno community members
organized the Fix El Sereno Park group to voice their concerns regarding the poor conditions of El Sereno park.
Over the past few months, the group has met with District 14 Councilmember Jose Huizar’s representatives to address their issues with the park which included a condemned building, broken rails, mud slides, dirty sand in the play area, dirty bathrooms and a base ball diamond with a raised home plate and an un-kept and uneven field.
This has resulted in a response by city officials and local residents. Cleaning the concrete bleachers and installing  a new chain link fence to replace the old railinghave been noted.
The group also hosted their first community volunteer event last month at the park. Help was needed to spread mulch along the backside of the gym to help alleviate rain runofffrom the hills and onto the playing fields below. However, the amount of mulch promised by the district office was not delivered.
“We had a good turn out, but we didn’t receive all the mulch promised. Also, we had very few supplies. We have our volunteers ready but we need to have the necessary resources to fix our park,” said Reyes.
Nevertheless, the event brought in over 20 volunteers, including parents, coaches and community members.
The group is planning to have more volunteer events later this month. To entice volunteers, a raffle will be held for a two night hotel stay.
The park also worked with Our Town magazine to promote the “El Sereno Gourmet Food Truck Festival 2.” The event was meant to raise funds for El Sereno Park.
The event was scheduled for Saturday, August 20, 2011. Details for the event is on the Our Town website http://blog.ourtownelsereno.com.
“The event was a great idea. We need to fix our park but having good food doesn’t hurt either,” El Sereno resident, Toni Escobar said.

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