You may have seen Kathy Park Price around Park Slope or at monthly Community Board 6 meetings. She’s the chair of CB6’s human services committee, co-VP of Community Education Council (CEC) District 15 [whose neighborhoods include Boerum Hill, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Fort Greene, Gowanus, Kensington, Park Slope, Sunset Park and Red Hook], and the founder of two civic engagement groups – Garden Train and Citizen Squirrel.
Price was born in Seoul, South Korea; moved to the U.S. at the age of 3, and moved to New York after graduating college in 1996 with a political science degree. She grew up with a very volunteer-oriented mindset, which she attributes to her father. She’s lived in Park Slope since 2011, where she’s been raising her children, ages 7 and 5, with her husband.
It was only after the 2016 presidential election that her involvement with various neighborhood groups really kicked off. She wrote, “On Nov. 9, 2016, I vow to make positive changes in my life as a result of last night’s election results,” on a Post-It note that she still has at home.
“I don’t know why I wrote that, but I felt that the only thing I could control was myself, my little world,” Price explained to the RHSR. “I can’t control what’s happening out there with the elections and the world, but I thought this I can do.”
The speech made by former president Barack Obama on the night before the 2008 presidential election also helped her realize that one voice can make a difference. Specifically the line, “One voice can change a room,” has stayed with her ever since.
“It sort of hit me that my interest in volunteering, paired with public service and service in the community through organizations, could be impactful,” she said.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Price’s idea to form Citizen Squirrel, an organization that supports families with elementary school children that want to be civically engaged, came last year when conversations about civic engagement at schools kept coming up.
“We can, as a community, encourage and foster civic engagement – not relying on schools to teach everything,” she added.
The idea behind Garden Train, District 15’s School Gardens Consortium that Price founded, was about shining a light on the gardens as a vehicle to grow and connect community. Acknowledging she’s not an educator or a civic engagement expert, Price felt it was an ideal opportunity for parents, teachers and students to come together outside the classroom and get involved. So she reached out to Grow to Learn NYC, whose mission is to inspire, promote and facilitate the creation of sustainable gardens in city public schools.
This past January, Price also held a Citizens Squirrel Civic Engagement Workshop for Families with Young Children, which was student-led and student-driven. Kids learned how to chant for a march and learned about Cafeteria Culture, an environmental education and advocacy organization that works with children to achieve plastic-free, zero waste, and climate-smart schools and communities. Price also handed out calendars with different ideas for families with young children to do throughout the year to foster and grow civic engagement.
Most recently she created a Citizen Squirrel play ballot, for kids 10 and younger, at the Participatory Budget Expo held in Park Slope. Kids went around to each of the 17 proposed participatory budget projects to learn more about them, received a stamp when they understood the concepts, and then picked six of their favorites.
“[People] 11 and up could vote but I said, ‘Why not encourage 10 and under to learn and participate.’ A couple of parents thanked me for the ballot because they said they were able to attend the expo and focus more on it because the kids were learning about the projects too,” she said. “When we do things as a family, it reinforces values and allows the adults to participate too. So, while Citizen Squirrel is for kids, it’s also as much for the adults.”
Price hopes to create a resource guide for families that includes volunteer opportunities and contact info for family-friendly organizations. She’s also applied for a grant to do more civic engagement workshops since the January one was a pilot.
“I’d love to expand and also teach other people to teach their own workshops because my idea for this isn’t to own it, but to grow it,” Price said. “To me what’s more valuable is fostering that culture.”
FAMILIAL TIES
Price bakes a lot with her kids, but also noted that a lot of their other activities together tend to relate to or seem influenced by community projects. Her children also occasionally attend CEC meetings, public community board meetings and other neighborhood events.
“My kids feel really comfortable; they’re not intimidated in the space or by grown-ups,” she said. “They know who their council member and assembly member are.”
Though Mother’s Day is this month, Price noted that other involved parents, including fathers, deserve recognition as well any time of year.
“There’s so much wisdom, love and power that’s brought to the community, and our area in Brooklyn is built on families,” she added.
She’s also a candidate for CEC15’s Education Council. Three PTA officers from each school can vote for the parent leaders who want to represent them until May 14. For more information, visit https://www.nycparentleaders.org/selection-process-calendar.html
Author
George Fiala has worked in radio, newspapers and direct marketing his whole life, except for when he was a vendor at Shea Stadium, pizza and cheesesteak maker in Lancaster, PA, and an occasional comic book dealer. He studied English and drinking in college, international relations at the New School, and in his spare time plays drums and fixes pinball machines.
