“We Are Here” Stories (List View)

Palm Beach County 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.

The stories and micro-narratives they submitted (as part of the We Are Here SenseMaker project) are listed below. Click ZOOM IN to learn more about the community member and how they interpreted their submission. NOTE: Some stories were partially transcribed by volunteers who shortened the narratives and referred to the storytellers in the third person (e.g., “her experience was” instead of “my experience was”).


Sep 12, 2018

The support is real

There was a bad car accident in Boynton were the driver died. People were so supportive of the family of the person who passed. My community is so nice.
Sep 19, 2018

Don’t do what they do

Growing up in lake worth beach Florida was ok at first till group of kids thought they were man enough to handle things. Going out stealing cars , robing people, hitting people and other things
Oct 30, 2018

Happiness- Kene

The birth of my daughter. She motivated me to change my life around to live for her sake.
Nov 6, 2018

The right track-laroderick rickstdson

I grew up in the trenches I was selling dope and getting bad grades in school and the someone wanted to put me on the path to success and I was not selling dope and I was getting good grades
Oct 14, 2018

The Care and Feed of Grandfathers.

Came here from Lantana and lived here since 1970. Ran service desks in Lantana, but business became difficult and would have to borrow money to keep it running. Didn’t want to do that. Had two small kids to support and be around. Came out here quite by accident. Called out to a mechanic job in the area he found in the newspaper. Discovered Pahokee when he came down, and decided to move the whole family here. When he came down here, someone helped him out to pay off his dying business. He was lucky. Started working here, and living in a trailer. A lot of Jim Crow here, and he grew up in the North. He was a stranger to this. Did various jobs here. Father left home when he was 7. This experience made him determined to be a part of his kids lives.
Sep 14, 2018

My community (Story #315)

Living in my community is when you see two people fighting and another person is just recording it or “hyping” it up .People in this community don’t see things until they know when to stop.people use phones to control their life instead of books .back than when slavery was still happening,they would try to run away to learn how to read .