"We're focused on getting that dollar rotating within the community, so that people are able to be successful. We want people to have jobs and we want the retailers and commercial businesses to come, so that that there are local jobs for people within the community. We don't want to see a whole bunch of part time stuff, we want folks to get insulated with the right kind of jobs. We want to collaborate with housing developers and housing rehab programs to help people. We don't do housing but we want to help those that do to be successful. We want the community to get plugged in. If there's a way that we can help collaborative partners, we want to do that.

One of the first things that you're going to see One West do is to get businesses to willingly participate in a program that will be hiring staff and will be on the street, cleaning up, every week. We want to clean up the trash in the streets. We're going to start on 12th & Broadway and go all the way up to Kroger. We want Kroger to get involved, as well. We're asking businesses who are willing to participate financially, as well as volunteerism. We want the community to participate, too. The hope is for this initiative to bleed into the side streets, where the businesses and the families in the homes can see that this is not what we do here and to say that trash in the streets is unacceptable. We want to engage the city to be a partner in this, and provide more rotation in trash pick up and supply more trash cans throughout the community. We think that this visible change, right off the bat, will restore the pride within the community. We want to get that investment in the area so we can begin to put these vacant and abandoned properties back into play and be able to attract retailers and grow and help grow home businesses that need a little help out the gate. 

This year, my goals are to help clean up the community and foster that collaboration with residents to clean it up. Second, we want to be a collaborative partner with projects and programs in neighborhoods that are moving forward with progressive value added development strategies. We're in a capital campaign that helps to fund any and everything that we want to do. So, we're asking for an investment from West Louisville and all around to help us to be able to do more. So we're out seeking investment to do more. With the YMCA and Passport coming, we want to continue to build on that momentum. We have some things underway, relative to real estate development, that we'll be announcing within the next couple of months. 

It's extremely important that West Louisvillians be involved. I have never seen community economic development go well whenever the community was not apart of it. Ownership is within the community. For-profit developers don't have to engage the community but community economic developers do. The Bingham Fellows Class of 2014, that started One West, were comprised of local leaders. Those leaders recognized that in order to effective in revitalizing the community, you had to have the community at the table. Our board is comprised of all people from all nine communities of West Louisville. Not only is it leaders from across the city but leaders from the neighborhoods. We've got folks representing the arts community, folks representing the residential community that are all serving on the board and leading the committees. For the first three years, One West focused on outreach to the community. They listened to what was important to the community on the different issues and concerns that they felt were of prominence. We made that our priority list.

Another thing that we're very serious about is private investment because we don't want to be a 'here today, gone tomorrow' kind of business. We want to do what is going to be value added with a long term strategy. We need a long term strategy with all of the challenges that we have. With that, every time we have a win or success, we are going to celebrate that and help promote what's happening. It's going to be one initiative at a time and it going to require patient money, that's going to help us reach the long term goals." - Evon, President & CEO of One West, California