Communities Speak
San Francisco
Project Title: I am OMISponsor: Western Neighborhoods Project
Project Director: Woody LaBounty
The San Francisco-based project, “I am OMI,” used history and stories to help three small polarized neighborhoods — Ocean View, Merced Heights and Ingleside — develop a sense of unity. The project also gave a group of neighborhood youths a chance to learn more about their neighborhood and explore their own lives through a summer video camp.
Stories were collected from more than 60 residents, and a number of events were held to present the stories to the community. Project Director Woody LaBounty said that the project brought many groups together for the first time and that it even resulted in a revitalized merchants association “The general attitude in the OMI is much more optimistic and hopeful since the project,” LaBounty said.
Evaluation findings from Harder+Company confirm his optimism. OMI youths participating in a focus group said that the project helped strengthen the OMI community because it gave people a sense of pride about where they live and it helped build relationships between different types of people. And organization partners who were interviewed identified a number of project benefits, including greater willingness to become involved in local events and activities and an increase in the number of relationships among groups within the OMI community.
Read an article about the I Am OMI project in the "San Francisco Chronicle."