news-record.com

What is your new year’s wish for this community? A healthier economy, stronger leadership, an increased emphasis on protecting the environment?

Here are some hopes and wishes from Triad residents. We will publish more Thursday.

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“I’d like us to get a better sense of what community really is. It’s not just the people who look like us and think like us and live like us.

“Community is about the collective, about including and appreciating the other, and not trying to change or dilute that. And community doesn’t just happen by default. Community is built and nurtured — intentionally.

“Community is beautiful and necessary and messy and real, and the need and longing for it is built into the very core of each of us. My hope for this community in which we live is that we would create and be and live authentic community in 2009 — and beyond.”

Michele Forrest,

blogger and advocate for the homeless

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“My hope is that every person, family, business, and branch of government would save 10 percent, give away 10 percent, and live on the rest; and that as individuals, we would reject passivity, accept responsibility, and lead courageously.”

Jonathan W. Smith,

managing partner, Jonathan Smith & Co.

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“I hope we can all come together and build the mountains-to-sea trail portion through Guilford County and make the loop around downtown Greensboro as good as we all know it can be.

“Center City Park turned out great, and downtown Greensboro is at an all-time high.

“Let’s keep the momentum. Pave the railroad right-of-way at least down to Pembroke Road, if we can’t find a way to parallel the tracks from there to downtown.”

David Williams,

High Point computer programmer and data analyst who enjoys bicycling and hiking

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“I’d like to see us show more respect to one another, and also to the natural world around us. To be a healthy community, we have to stop fouling our air and water, and stop cutting down the trees whose oxygen we breathe.

“My hope is we’ll build a vibrant locally based economy, become more energy efficient, and grow more of our food. That way we’ll be healthier and less at the mercy of national and world politics.”

Joel Landau,

general manager of Deep Roots Market and co-chairman of the Greensboro Sustainability Committee

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“I would love for the state and city to follow through on all the promises they have made and do the right thing. They promised landscaping, they promised to change the signs, they promised to divert the trucks. We haven’t seen any of it yet. That would be No. 1 on my list, that they just do the things they ought to do and make our lives a little better.”

Doug Coleman,

longtime resident of western Greensboro who lives near the newest section of the Urban Loop and is bothered by its noise

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“Here are nine dreams for Greensboro for 2009.

“I dream that an interactive civil rights museum might become a reality in Greensboro.

“I dream that some of the treasures of the Triad might become highly valued so that we would support these with our time and our money. To name a few:

• Greensboro Urban Ministry’s highly effective empowerment of the poor;
• Habitat for Humanity’s amazing home-building for the working poor;
• Bennett College’s unique educational opportunities;
• The Natural Science Center, newly refurbished and bursting with curious kids and odd animals;
• Greensboro Youth Soccer, one of the top youth clubs in the nation;
• Reading Connections, the savvy group fighting to end illiteracy one person at a time;
• The local Boy Scout chapter, who are overcoming Nature Deficit Disorder in our young men.

“I dream that black and white congregations might unite to end childhood hunger in Guilford.

“I dream that 10 percent of Guilford residents would donate blood every six weeks at Nussbaum Red Cross Center.

“I dream that Greensboro residents would demand of city planners many more and much safer bicycle lanes to crisscross the county.

“I dream that in 2009 every church, temple and synagogue would have values-based sex education for all their youth and older children.

“I have a dream that this next year we would value most highly those in our community who give so completely of themselves for so very little money, namely, teachers, police and firefighters.

“I dream that every adult would discover a school (public or private) near him or her, and volunteer.

“I dream that everyone over the age of 8 would read three books next year, whether the books have pictures in them or not.

“I dream that every Triad resident would awaken to the natural beauty surrounding us, and fight for the preservation of the woods, trails, and lakes that make this area so lovely and livable.

Michael Usey, senior pastor at College Park Baptist Church