“We Are Here” Story Collection

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.”

Hardship

Growing up in the projects poor , there wasn’t much in my community .
Zoom In

Living Dreams Through Nightmares

It’ll usually be 5:30 I’m at McDonald’s with my coffee, lab top, and WiFi. It’s a lot of sunshine because I’m on the good side 7:30. Then I start walking to the dark side where you usually see red and yellow tape, blue and red lights. Shaking hands with the good fellows with a smile but also with their hand behind their back having a knife. I hang out talking about sports and life then go to football practice and see bright lights.
Zoom In

Choose the right friends

Well growing up in the city of lake worth was bad for me I did drugs at the age of 16 cause my friend put me. On it my story is going to teach you about. How to choose the right friends
Zoom In

The man stealing

Growing up I was a Haitian immigrants. in my neighborhood was very rough I was talked about you a lot because my skin tone and how I spoke. one time I was walking anyway and a man was stealing from the store. The police Soon arrived and bodyslammed the man on the ground to simply handcuff him.this wasn’t the first time I seen your officer be extremely rude and rough with someone they were always extremely late and rude in my neighborhood.
Zoom In

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
Zoom In

Ms.T my Second Mother

When my mother kicked me out of the house I spent nights sleeping in a park while trying to finish high school. I had no bed, no shower,and no food.I went back to my old neighborhood and knocked on the door of Ms.T she was a well known lady kind of like the mother of my neighborhood.All I wanted was something to eat. But Ms.T didn’t just give me a meal. She took me into her home, where he had warm food and a roof over his head she treated me like her very own son. She also brought…
Zoom In

Life is the way it is

Well I don’t have much to share my neighborhood wasn’t all bad and good you can say people may have got shot may have got into fights I was always that girl that got into fights
Zoom In

Strong Household

Ms. Mann Was raised with both parents in her life. Has 3 sibling out of the 3 she is the oldest. Growing up with experiences from the Glades area and the East of palm beach county. Through her family unit it has helped develop her into the successful women she is today.
Zoom In

Pioneers on the move.

I grew up in a close knit farming community where everyone knew one another. My families origin goes back to my great grandmother migrating to the Glades from Eleuthera, Bahamas in 1897 to Pahokee. Most families traveled to the Glades seeking work.
Zoom In

poor decisions.

one important memory in my life was when i my neighborhood was having robbery all over the place and no one was spared. it took months to fi d the culprit and shortly after me and my family moved and now we live here in.
Zoom In

My husband- Devonte white

Coming up I had alot of important moments in my life. I was finding my husband and i still remember how theres where. Until he was killed by a drive by shooting.
Zoom In

Different but normal- Kene

I help everybody. Help out the less fortunate with whatever I can. Teach kids not to smoke, would trade my life to save a child’s. When I’m rich, I’d like to give kids little puppies, teach them responsibility. No exaggeration!
Zoom In

Always forgive those who must be forgiven

Some times I think about the past how It used to be How people treated us cause I was coming up black people told me in lake worth that I wouldn’t be anything cause I was black cause I didn’t have any lack of knowledge , they said hurtful things that hurts till this day
Zoom In

A hole left in me

When Greg Bryant jr was shot in a drive by shooting on i-95. It impacted me and my brother a lot because we grew up with him and that shooting made me look at life different. I started doing things different and staying out of trouble
Zoom In

Because of what I look like

I have been stopped by a cop just for walking one day. He stopped got out the car and asked where I was headed. I responded in a polite manner. He continued to watch me and later started to follow me until I went into the store I was headed to. I felt some type of way about this.
Zoom In

My community (Story #387)

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.
Zoom In

My community (Story #365)

An important moment in my life is when someone who you loved the most turns out to be dead or injured.You don’t know how to feel you feel like nobody and this world can’t fix this.My community people would just come to me and say “sorry for your lost” but they know how people can change when someone was injured in their life too
Zoom In

Get it on my own – Devonte white

Important moment in my life is learning how to provide for myself. I used to depend on my parents to do everything. I had to get off my butt and go work for something
Zoom In

Sadness

Seeing kids in a wheelchair while young.
Zoom In

College

Important moment in my life was going to college.My grandpa used to always tell me the world is bigger than boynton. There’s nothing really around the city but drugs and violence so that changed me.
Zoom In

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.
Zoom In

Getty-Rickia

I can remember when I was about 12 my grandma had made food and invited everyone in our neighborhood to get some not only did they come get food they also brought more food that they had prepared at their house and it turned into a little Getty
Zoom In

Halloween in delray

Last Halloween we went to our neighbors house and we had a thousand homes in our community and a lot of young families halloween is a good event in our community my neighborhood is friendly oriented and family oriented and have lots of fun
Zoom In

Made it happen

My home situation was slightly better than average when compared to the typical ghetto home life.My mom didn’t always work, but she took temporary work when she could and I never went hungry.
Zoom In

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.
Zoom In

Become the better person

It’s either life can take down the good road or the bad on you choose what road you wanna take See me my choice was that I took the bad road I’ve been in prison for 17 years got out 2015 the way I grew up was horrible mother being on crack ,sister having a baby at teen age , becoming a drug dealer I have been doing things I regret cause what situation I’m in right now is worst that’s why I want better for the Young’s kids that’s around me
Zoom In

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.
Zoom In

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
Zoom In

Bullied- Rickia

I was about 13 years old. I began to be bullied by the kids in my neighbor hood because my mom white and my father was black. What I didn’t know the was the my family was also being bullied too. I can still hear my father say to me “Son they talked about Jesus, the greatest man that walked the earth what makes you think they will not talk about you
Zoom In

Wake up

Important moment is when me and my friends got older . When we was young we didn’t know what was going on. But we was aware of the things once we was teenagers. All the drug dealers and murders opened our eyes
Zoom In

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
Zoom In

Don’t be one

Well boynton wasn’t the same in 1967 there were street gangs street violence drug lords and kids dying
Zoom In

Violence (Story #96)

Growing up in a violent neighborhood where gang violence would occur with fights, gun shots going off every night it was a little scary not knowing when this would end.
Zoom In

The life of cano

Violence different things happening people getting shot and drug deals basically the typical hood
Zoom In

Do the right thing (Story #459)

One shooting happens then later on another shooting happens. Why is this gun violence going on for. This should be stopped. That’s could’ve been one of my grandchild or anybody else’s. Kids need to stopped taking life for granted and d the right thing.
Zoom In

We gotta do better

This did not happen in my life but it affected me. A young boy was shot and killed in Boynton Beach. Now I didn’t know him but I miss him. What if that was my son or nephew. We gotta do better.
Zoom In

Give god the glory-billy penn

Living in this neighborhood is not about the drugs and the alcohol I was born in 1947 in Delray Beach hoping kids don’t follow in my foot steps if I got a problem I don’t do drugs but around people that do good and bad in my childhood never went to school
Zoom In

Scared

I never thought me growing up was so ruff for me. My mom and dad died in a car accident. I was raised by my grandparents raised me until they past away I been living from house to house in finish house still didn’t go off to college .
Zoom In

Friendly welcome to the neighborhood- Kene

When I moved into my house in my neighborhood, there were neighbors and friends of mine that already lived there that were sitting in my driveway waiting to help me unload my furniture. I didn’t ask for it, but they were just curtious enough to offer me assistance.
Zoom In

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
Zoom In

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.
Zoom In

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.
Zoom In

Do better

My neighborhood hood was terrible and we loved quick when we realized someone died every week. We didn’t like it and wasn’t what we were used to i was scared to sleep there.
Zoom In

The Life

Me and my family moved from down here from New Jersey and the people here in this neighborhood helped me build this house for me and my 4 kids
Zoom In

The city

Growing up in boynton there’s a lot of important moments. Things are not as good as they used to be around here.when I was younger I was shot 5 times on different occasions.
Zoom In

Don’t be the one

Well coming up in the city of lake worth. I wasn’t Always a girl who had friends No one liked me because of my skin or where I came from they used to pick on me. , call me names , billy me because what I wear and what I language I speak
Zoom In

The Wrong Guy

I’m sure there are many stories like this one because of the ridiculous amount of police brutality incidents. I had let my grandson use my car to run a few errands. He soon return the car to me but while returning the car to me he got into a incident with a police officer right in my driveway. The police officer roughly grabbed my grandson out my car although i did tell the officer the car wasn’t stolen it was for me and I let him use it. He threw him on the ground and left him with a…
Zoom In

Refresh the page to see another random set of stories or view the stories and micro-narratives in a list.