To be a force for change, focus on the local (and you can help Forest Hills Connection help you with that)

ANC 3F Commissioners Sally Gresham and Mary Beth Ray (airborne) kick up their heels in March on the newly completed sidewalk at Park Van Ness. Both handled neighborhood questions and complaints about the project.

by Marlene Berlin

We’re not going out on a limb here. You probably voted for Hillary Clinton on November 8th. More than 90 percent of registered DC voters did. Perhaps you’ve been in a funk ever since. And the national and international news isn’t doing much to lift your mood. What can you do?

And if you’re in the 4 percent of Trump voters, or the 3 percent who split their votes between Johnson and Stein, this is for you, too. Perhaps you wonder how you, in your own way, can be a force for change. One place you can start is right outside your door.

In our own neighborhood and in the city at large, there is a lot to learn and do. And Forest Hills Connection can help with that. We’ve told you how you can make your voice heard and contribute to efforts with a community-wide impact – new sidewalks, repaved alleys, repaired lights, better habitat for local wildlife, and a reinvigorated Van Ness commercial area.

Our neighbors are active, and you can be too. Forest Hills Connection has told you all about the community members testifying before the DC Council in support of UDC. As the community led the effort to block Chick-fil-A from moving into the Van Ness Burger King, we learned a lot about the role the District’s Public Space Committee plays in determining how walkable our neighborhood will be. We know making our community a better place to live means supporting the local businesses. It means volunteering for neighborhood events like the first-ever Van Ness Art All Night. It means weighing in on the renovations and programs at our local public schools. And it helps if you know your Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners and what they are doing to make our community a better place to live.

Our government works better when its citizens are engaged, so Forest Hills Connection tries to connect you to your neighborhood and local democracy at work. We feel this is our most important mission.

You can join us in this mission.

We’d like to to raise $5,000 from our end-of-year appeal so we can add another Forest Hills Connection team member focusing on marketing and events. So far, we have raised $1,745 from 16 donors.

More than 1,000 of you get our news from our monthly email newsletter. From you, we continue to hear about how much you have come to rely on our news coverage, and how you’ve enjoyed attending the book talk, local artists studio tours and the holiday bazaar. You tell us you would like more. Tracy and I need your donations to continue to make this happen. Please donate $150, 100, $50, $25… it all helps. Here’s how to give.

We thank those of you who have supported us from the beginning, and those who have joined us in the past four years. And we hope you enjoy our new look and soon, speedier load times. Your dollars at work!