Lucy Gomez

Lucy Gomez works at Logan Square Neighborhood Association. She’s an artist and she enjoys taking pictures and was a journalist and worked on the newspaper in high school at Clemente. Her peers referred to her as “the person who took pictures.” As an artist she needs to practice and if she doesn’t, she feels as if “she’s starving and her soul is starving” because she needs art to be fulfilled and if she doesn’t do it she feels incomplete. She went to Lafayette for elementary and Touie for middle school. She has a daughter who she’s guiding through life and teaching her right from wrong and about growing up. She also takes care of her eighty five year old mother. She loves gardening and it’s another one of her passions. She likes to help inform parents and kids about the dangers of childhood obesity.

Lucy’s involved with avoiding childhood obesity, and she helps kids and parents help make more healthier choices. She wants to teach kids that eating healthy will benefit them. She uses her artistic creativity to find solutions to problems. She thinks outside the box in order to look for solutions that help everyone. She wants to change the things the school and park districts do because she feels they’re not doing a good job. She feels your attitude is one of the keys to a successful life. “You can be the smart person with bad attitude that doesn’t open doors for you.” She thinks everyone is born equal.

“We’re not perfect and you’re not better than anyone else so your value system is key to life.” She believes a good character is good for a successful life. She wants to change the park and school districts policies. She wants to try and please everyone because she knows that people will disagree with her. So it’s a little hard trying to please everyone when some people don’t like change. For instance, the school closings are causing panic because parents are worrying where their children will have to go and if they’ll be safe.

Lucy thinks the schools closing down is a bad move and she knows no city has closed that many schools down at one time. She thinks some schools might have to close down so they can be efficient with money. “Has the school district met with the community?” She’s concerned about how thats going to affect the kids education. “I think it’s gonna come back and bite them if they succeed (in closing all the schools). It’s gonna hurt more than help.” She thinks the school closings will cause more problems rather than fix it. She pays attention to how other people do things whether they are helping or not.

Her heroes were people she knew personally and had an experience with them. They were regular people she looked up to. She thinks there’s a lot of injustices in the world and if she can latch on to one injustice and make a difference, she’ll feel like she did her part and everyone should do their part. She wants to make the world better for people who’ve been treated badly and don’t have resources for education. So she wants to create new opportunities for people who are struggling to have access on some education.

Lucy helped me see that following your dreams and participating and helping as much as you can can help you get far in life. She also helped me see family will always be there for support and some people don’t have it so you’ll have to be that person to help support. That no matter what skin color, language you speak, or what religion you follow, we are all alike and born equal.