Residents were asked, “Please tell us about an important moment in your life that would help someone understand what it’s like living in your neighborhood.” Explore 50 responses below, selected at random. Which stories capture your attention? (Some responses were transcribed by youth volunteers.) To learn more about the storyteller and how they interpreted their response, click “Zoom In.”
Good community (Story #458)
I agree with the previous person. You can’t base how the neighborhood is off of one moment. Not all moments are good and not all of them are bad. From the Boynton I know we have our ups and downs but we will always be a good community.
Coming to the city
I was in Haiti .Things was really hard so my family moved to the states and ended up in Boynton Beach. Things was different but was accepted it. All of crime and police lights.
Choose the right ones
Listen the way people can be brought up is by choice the way they can live life is by the way they want to most people may do more bad things after one mistake and some may be forgiven
Rip daddy
Important moment in my life was losing my father. When he left my life I had to survive in this neighborhood alone.its a pretty ruff neighborhood I needed my dad for certain things.
Good of bad
Growing up in Boynton Beach my family and i were close he had a nice relationship because my grandma would never allow anything else we stuck together and it was all love. We lived on “the hill” and there was a lot going on fighting. Violence. But there was also good times.
Changes from the past to present
From the past to right now the family values have changed. Back then the community raised us. People used to watch the kids. Athletics have decreased.
Weight
Growing up was not so hard but I went through the struggle with my family and friends .
Make something out of it
Living around here isn’t really as bad as people make it seem. Yes there’s drugs and murders and bad things going on but if you are focused on a goal u should have a good outcome. Many people make it out the hood that’s why I push my kids to be something in life.
Katrina
Hurricane
My community is a a blessing
My community is a blessing and is so nice. When you are down, someone will help you up. I’ve lived here my whole life and my children want me to move to WPB or Wellington but I don’t want to. It’s so nice growing up here. My children came last week and took me out to eat for my birthday. My sister lives nearby and we see each other often.
Delray Beach- Kene
I honestly feel this community is doing well. It’s gotten safer for the kids, way more opportunities have rised, and more jobs are becoming available. The setup is very clean and organized, government officials are doing their jobs, etc
Always remeber
Some people try to turn back their odometers not me I want people to know why I look this way . I’ve traveled a long way and many of the roads weren’t paved . First you forget the names than you forget the faces . Living in my neighborhood was a good thing for me met nice people
Belle Glade should be a better city
I wish the community was better. They need to get more resources. More places for people to go. Not much is in Belle Glade to do and enjoy. You can make a living in Belle Glade. I moved from Georgia in 2001. I liked Georgia better because it was cheaper. But I still like it here. A young boy got killed back in 2016. He was running and the police shot him 3-4 times. We need more enforcement here in Belle Glade, because that’s not supposed to happen. The officer is still in the force. The force used to be…
Growing up (Story #493)
Growing up in my community was going good at first but than it slanted. Things started to feel off but one day I seen this. Kid on the news he died because i fatal shoot out was happening. Around his neighborhood
Change-Rickia
I made a lot of errors in life. When I changed me, I changed my life. I’ve been homeless I’ve been in and out of jail. I’ve been been down to my last dollar and had it stolen from me when that was all i had to eat with. My neighborhood was selfish i changed me.
Angels Surrounding me
They were arguing about a girl. He left and I was standing there talking to one of the guys. Someone came from behind and hit my with a baseball bat. I had seizures and was foaming from the mouth. I was in a coma for 9months and 2 weeks. Then I woke up and stayed in the hospital for another month in Jackson Memorial. I couldn’t play high school football after that.
Living
Well I’m Greg light and growing up in my neighborhood was ok. I wasn’t rich but i wasn’t poor there was always food on the table and i always had clothes. there were people who had nothing and there were people who had more. Ofc there was fights and violence but that’s in every hood.
Back then
Living in my neighborhood things have changed alot. I remember when it was ok to just sit outside your house,no u have to worry about these kids killing each other.
God bless
No mother should have to bury their child. The shooting that happened about a month ago in my area where I stay devastated a lot of people including me. I did not know the family but I supported them.
My legacy- Rickia
I raised 6 boys into men and 4 girls into women. I currently have 22 grandchildren, 12 great-grandchildren and 2 great-great grandchildren. I raised them off a salary of being a gardener during a time when it was very difficult to be anything. I now have Doctors , Lawyers and Business Owners
The run
A important impact for understanding why I live in this neighborhood is slavery I been living hea for almost 50 years
The Field
Once my youth football team no field to play on. My coach tried everything to raise money and get one. He reached out to the Mayor. The mayor helped and got us one.
Don’t Have Nothing
Gang Violence
Don’t judge
Well when I was going to lake worth high school it wasn’t a school for black kids it was on a segregated school Due to the people around us our community was dying no one liked the colored folks
Extra items- laroderick richardson
My neighborhood is normal we have parties the kids always playing. With each other a story is that a new person moved in and we had a party and invited him and he came and brought soda and cake and pizza we did not know he will bring all that stuff but he did
Don’t judge a book by its cover
A very secluded family lived across the street from me my entire childhood and we barely spoke or interacted. I left for college and after returned to live with my parents. I notice one day a very nerdy looking young lady coming back and forth and decided to approach her. Well, she ended up being the love of my life and we are still together. I’m glad I fell in love with her and not her appearance.
Stay safe (Story #188)
Growing up in lake worth was some what good people treated others. Nicely until it got bad people started killing beach other. And other dangerous things my story is going to teach you how to Stay safe my community is not the same
Truth, streets, and what comes with it
I saw death the morning of my high school graduation. It let me know about
Helpful community
Hurricane erma was an important hurricane and it was coming closer and cooler the community had to evaluate fast which was crazy. Everyone was worried and couldn’t focus. Everyone was in panic mood. But when we came back the comity was destructed but the community people from different homes help each other with food, water, gas and more and that’s what I loved about my community
Social culturalism – Kene
Positive; downtown cultural vibe identity. Lived down here for three years, the demographics are changing, wealthy individuals disturbing the southern flavor. Outlook isn’t as good due to impatient materialistic snow birds. They don’t follow directions. They have no shame or conscious, and it’s undoing the natural flavor of Delray, and changing it.
Coming from Haiti
I grew up in a very tough neighborhood. My parents had moved from Haiti to America at arrived here at the age of 7 I lived in Boynton for 46 years. Growing up I was called rude nasty things. “I was often told to go back to Haiti” or “go back to the boat that brought me here” and fought a lot over this.
Keep to self
Growing up I was always a quite person never liked to talk to any one but when I met this one person. He told me that I should hang out with him at this time I was in high school I went on all type of dangerous places somewhere I wouldn’t want young men’s going or ladies. Many may say that’s what I chose but. If I can time travel I would.
L I F E
In 2011, child poverty reached record high levels, with 16.7 million children living in food insecure households, about 35% more than 2007 levels. A 2013 UNICEF report ranked the U.S. as having the second highest relative child poverty rates in the developed world.According to a 2016 study by the Urban Institute, teenagers in low income communities are often forced to join gangs, save school lunches, sell drugs or exchange sexual favors because they cannot afford food.
Great hearts-Rickia
I lived in boynton all my life. Beautiful city but ugly people. There are people that have great hearts and I’ve met plenty of them but one time i went to the corner store and and i saw a mother and a child outside she had one bag of chips. Her daughter cried she was hungry and she pushed her the chips she looked up and asked her mom if she was hungry and mom shook her head no but when i asked she said yes i gave her money i went back to that same spot a couple months…
Fatherless
Living in my neighborhood is tough. It wasn’t easy for me at all. I have been a single mother of two since they was born. Not to many black males take care of their children around here.
1st place
It’s hard to just think about one moment. Everyday life will show you what it’s like. The good and the bad. Boynton is a community, a team, a family. We work hard together to win together.
The streets
Important moment In my life was when my brother died . It made me realize that the streets of Boynton Beach are not for anyone. Things really got bad around here.
Community get together (Story #648)
Muck bowl
We bleed the same
Till this day we still don’t have freedom back where I was growing up I was beat for nothing accuse for nothing the police hated my kind
Great out of the bad
graduating from the university of Florida and wining also the employee of the year and being raised up around the farming and family tight knit community.
Care
When my dad earned dad earned his citizenship we were very happy and when we came home everyone else was happy as well we could tell because they threw him a little get together and we thought that was pretty nice that they cared.
Hard times
Growing up in Boynton Beach wasn’t so easy. I been on my own since 16 years old. I have had me ups and downs but I still push through.
Nurse -Devonte white
Important moment in my life was going through nursing school. I always wanted to be a nurse and i made it into reality
My life (Story #98)
Many of them have worked for decades examining poverty-related issues—from hiring discrimination to segregation in housing and education, criminal justice reform to immigration, deep poverty to homelessness. Even though they had devoted their lives to fighting poverty, some of the participants asked whether their work made any difference at all.
Stay safe (Story #204)
Well I was Always good in my neighborhood it was my grandchildren that wasn’t they left me they didn’t want to come see me. Because all the violence that was going on. Mother and farther got tired of it tired of them crying
The Child Who Looked Different
When growing up I was mixed with African American and Chinese . I would get picked on very often especially when my Chinese mother would drop me off to school. Many kids would question me if I were to claim to be African American like my father. All the kids I grew up with would pick on me and my facial features that favored my mother. Which also made me a very guard child because I didn’t like when people would question my ethnicity even to this day.
America
Learning English was important to me .I had to learn and learn fast cause it’s a lot going on around boynton. I came to America when I was 17 and things was different.
Delray my community- Kene
I learned that there’s a lot about Delray that I didn’t know, but found out that Delray has a lot of history and is broken down and built based on the history of it. I enjoy taking guest and family members around showing them historical monuments, giving the history of it, and telling them what it’s like living there. It’s amazing how many opportunities are given to people living there.
Much Better
Better to live here from where I lived. Better opportunities in the community.
Weekend yard work
I have lived in the same place on and off for most of my life with the same neighbor . Maybe about ten years ago sadly her husband past . Now am 42 with a son so what we do on weekends we cut her grass for her like he husband use to do .
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