East Rock Record reporters me with New Haven Alder Caroline Tanbee Smith, who represents Ward 9 which includes East Rock and Fair Haven. She spoke about community involvement and public service, about some of her priorities (traffic safety and economic development) and asked students to share their thoughts with her. Afterwards, reporters offered their own visions of how they could serve their community and have impact. Here are their reflections.

I think a great way to help the community would be to start a foundation that would raise money to pay people to help around the city by picking up trash or anything that needs to be done. Paying people would motivate people to help. We could earn money by having a pizza restaurant. The restaurant would not make a profit, but bring in enough money to pay for the building and ingredients. Most employees would be volunteers. The money goes to the foundation, the foundation pays citizens to help and donates to other causes in the city. —Tucker Pickett

I would get really rich and buy all the houses in Fair Haven and then make them look better and then I would make them all go to people that would take good care of them.—Charlie Pellegrino

To help prevent overdoses I would make a stricter rule that pharmacies would have to check people’s IDs thoroughly, like in the airport where they have cameras that frame the face and compare it to the ID to see if its compatible. I would increase security in places such as CVS.— Leia Vazquez

I would like to volunteer at IRIS because I want to help immigrants in need. Because some immigrants don’t get a chance to have a place to live, I want to help them have a chance to be helped at IRIS.— Eliseo Plascencia

The East Rock Record interviewed Caroline Tanbee Smith, an Alder in New Haven and talked to us about immigration in New Haven. She told us that we have to remember that immigrants “are people. People we have grown up with, people we love, and people we care about.” Now we have to support them through the things President Donald Trump has promised to do in the next four years. Caroline and other Alders have helped make an Immigrant Rights Tool Kit. Some things that we as a community can do is to volunteer at IRIS, which stands for Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services. It addresses the physical and mental needs of refugee and immigrant families as well as provide immigration legal services at a nominal fee. That is how I would serve my community.— Nayala Conroe

Traffic and Littering:  One time I watched Good Morning America and I saw car crashes. When I was going to school I saw light up signs near exits 5-6. They were closed because of a car crash. Crashes are bad because sometimes you have somewhere important to be and the road is blocked off because of a crash. We should not change highways because the whole point of them is they don’t have stop lights because people need to get where they are going quicker. We should focus more on traffic in the city. They could change the speed limits on the highway to 45 around New Haven so people go more of a medium speed and it’s easier to brake.—Quinn Pellegrino and Fatima Riaz

Crossing Guards: There are not enough crossing guards. My parents changed my bus stop so that it wouldn’t be on Grand Avenue. There should be crossing guards in all the busy areas of New Haven, including on Grand Avenue. There are also a lot of people who walk in the street. Sensors or lights could also make sure drivers know where there are pedestrians or people walking in the street. More technology can tell people driving when they run a red light in real time.—Fatima Riaz and Quinn Pellegrino

Littering: We need more fines! I’ve seen fines that are $219 just for littering. I see a lot of people littering but no police officers are there to catch them. They can see the litter but wouldn’t know who did it. There should be a police officer near all littering signs because if people see the officer they won’t litter in front of them. It is a pretty boring job and there aren’t enough police officers, so they could put a mannequin that’s really realistic sitting in a police car. There should also be a camera in the cop car.—Fatima Riaz and Quinn Pellegrino

One thing I would like to help with is litter. There is a lot of trash in my neighborhood. If I picked it up, I could help my city be a more beautiful place. One thing I really hate about trash is that it does not smell good, so it doesn’t attract visitors.— Rafi Conroe

I would like to help homeless people. I would clear a field and plant some soft grass. They could put up their tents to live there until they find a good job and to buy a home. Maybe I could help them find a motel when the weather is really bad like in storms that could attract lightning.— Ryann Phelps

What I would like to do when I grow up is become a veterinarian. When I was a kid, I had a dog named Pluto and when we first got him, he had a broken leg. He used to put his leg up on my bed and I used to pretend I could fix it. Any time I get in trouble—and I get in trouble a lot—I always look for my dog. In the future I want to learn how to help animals so that I could help all the animals in my community.— Samuel Pellegrino

I can help my community by helping people with things they need done. For example, I could help my neighbors by planting things in their garden. Or I could help them with something in their home.—Aarav Lemar

Instead of just throwing trash on the ground you should throw things in the trash or the recycling bin. That will be good for your community. Everyone should know that. Don’t ever throw any stinky trash on the ground. There might be a fine for littering. Don’t use cigarettes because it is bad for our world and air and environment. Once in a while, you should try to clean it up.— Weiyu Zhong

Instead of throwing away trash and recyclables, you should recycle it. Fun fact: when we throw away our trash, it might go to a country where there is a lot of trash and people sort through the trash to find enough to survive the day. They live on the minimum of a dollar or two dollars a day.— Jason Lin

I would help the community by cleaning up the environment. I hate cigarette butts. They stink, and they are bad for people’s health. I will pick them up and throw them in the trash. I will need gloves because I don’t want to touch a stinky old butt!— Emmanuel Plascencia

I see trash whenever I am walking to school. There are soda cans and chip bags littering the sidewalk. I can help the cleanliness of the city by after school picking up trash on the sidewalk and putting it in the trash can. I think picking up trash is important because it makes the city look more livable and fantastic. That is how I would help my community look better and cleaner.—Haven Pickett

For the past three years, ever since I was 7, I have wanted to be a nurse. I want to be a nurse because being a nurse can help people become happy to know that their friends or family members are okay. It brings me joy to know that people are getting the right treatment that they need. Being a nurse is a great way to serve your community because you can help people in stressful times such as when they get into car crashes. People get into car crashes once in a while or maybe more often than we know. It makes me sad to hear that people get into crashes. They probably weren’t even doing anything wrong to get in a car crash. One thing that made me get inspired to be a nurse is from the minor injuries my dad got from playing soccer as a goalie. Since I was little, his injuries made me very worried.— Briza Mendez Herrera

Cities tend to have a lot of people, making people think that they don’t need to do stuff like picking up trash or donating to local charities because they think that they won’t make a difference, which is far from the truth. Although cities are really big, you can still do things that over time will make a big impact. You can put your empty soda can in the recycle bin or reuse a plastic bottle by putting a different drink into it. Or you can walk the extra two minutes to get to the store. These are small, but effective ways to help the community with things such as the environment, air quality and putting it in overall better shape.— Cady Ali

Landlords, Be Better! It isn’t fair to pay for housing and to not get helped when problems arise. You are about to learn about some of the tales that have been first-hand experiences from me, a resident of East Rock. For example, imagine your shared lower floor is a creepy dank basement that hasn’t been looked at or renovated for a while. Your downstairs neighbors were tired of it and asked to have it renovated. After a week or so, people start working. Now, for three or so weeks, you have to go to the laundromat to clean clothes you need for school. And when you come near the house, you hear loud banging. Awful, right? Now, imagine an apartment where your small shower has plastic walls which have gotten moldy (for the second time!). It takes weeks for people to come. When they do, it becomes hard to use the bathroom. But it won’t be that long, right? WRONG! The shower is half disassembled. The only way to “shower” is to take tap water in a bucket and splash it on yourself. At least it’s just one night, right? WRONG! A lot of bucket bathing!

This actually happened to 5th grader writing this. To stop this from happening to more people, we must all stand up to bad landlording! How would I make East Rock, New Haven better? Make it law for landlords to help tenants with problems involving the foundation and function of the house/apartment that they are PAYING to live in. This is so important. If people in New Haven can’t be happy, what is the point of paying to live there? It matters for the tenant and landlord to cooperate, and this should be stressed by the government.— Alya Mikkelson

Everyone knows that libraries are an important part of a community. It is crucial for citizens to have access to books regardless of how much money they make. Volunteers are an important part of doing so. If I were a volunteer, I would help shelve books or give recommendations. I could also do read-alouds for toddlers. That would be very helpful for parents who want to look around.—G.G. King

Just think: grocery prices have gone up very high since the early 2000s. Now, you can walk into a grocery store with 10 dollars and only buy one item. Before, you could buy much more. Grocery stores want to increase their own profit instead of considering that some customers may not be able to afford the items, including basic food necessities. If the people in need are not able to afford grocery prices, where else can they find supplies to survive?  What I would do is ask the managers of all grocery stores to lower the prices and think about how they might be affecting people. If this doesn’t work, I would contact owners of supermarkets to gain access to excess food that I would give out. Another option is to donate food to homeless shelters so that they do not have to worry about the prices and can focus on getting a job to support their family or find a place to live.

I would love to start a food drive at school to donate and feed the people in need. First, I would seek permission from my principal to put flyers around the school and town to tell people about what I am doing. Then, I would have a stand at both school entrances to make donating easier.  The reason I would bother doing this is because if I needed help or money, I would be happy if someone did this for me and showed support. The bottom line is that grocery stores have gone too far and I would love to stop this.— Divera Simon