Replacing urban vacant lots with green spaces provides countless benefits for local neighborhoods, but one of the most rewarding parts of the city's gardening program is seeing beginning gardeners transform into leaders.

Hispanic social clubs are deeply rooted in La Villa Hispana's past. A new generation of young leaders is ensuring their future.

Samuel Paredes was 16 years old when he secretly applied for a U.S. visa. His parents had just gotten divorced, and he was still living in Ipiales, a city of 160,000 on the southern border of Colombia. Shortly after the death of his grandmother, he expressed to his mother and father his desire to study cybersecurity—born from witnessing political upheaval—at an American college.

When work began on the five-year action plan for La Villa Hispana in 2015, there was a lot of energy and electricity behind the scenes around transforming the neighborhood into a vibrant “intersection of culture and commerce,” but within the residential community, it barely made a ripple.

The women come from a variety of backgrounds. Some work in factories or grocery chains, others as school lunch ladies, making $8 to $9 an hour. Others are Hurricane Maria refugees who work for Burlington, some for U.S. Cotton, supporting families as they tilt on the poverty line.

All have one thing in common: the dream to one day be registered nurses.

Artist Will Sanchez grew up in the La Villa Hispana neighborhood. But it wasn’t until he was sentenced to 18 months in prison in 2003 for trying to rob a convenience store at 5404 Storer Ave. that he discovered his love and talent for art—and re-embraced his childhood community. In 2018, he opened La Cosecha Gallery in the exact same location he tried to rob 15 years earlier.

It’s 20 minutes before showtime, in a small banquet room at the Julia de Burgos Cultural Center, and Yasin Cuevas is glowingly ecstatic. For one, her first-ever Miss Latina Image fashion show—expanded from “Miss Puerto Rican Image” of years past—has attracted a packed house, more than any other program in the past few years. It’s also a signal of much more: a newer, more diverse Clark-Fulton community, one more gung-ho on the self-education of its youth, as La Villa Hispana grows gradually into the fore.

On a recent Thursday in April, Jenice Contreras walked in front of 32 investors, architects, and community development corporation reps to announce some long-awaited news. “It’s a perfect storm,” she announced to the group at the Greater Cleveland Partnership offices downtown. “It took three decades. But we no longer need three decades to make it happen. All the right elements are now in place.”

A vision 35 years in the making is hitting critical mass as the community of La Villa Hispana takes shape with a renewed sense of community and a flurry of new development.