In the Spring of 2016 a group of my neighbors, who live in the quiet unincorporated community of El Sobrante, started gathering monthly to share crops we had grown in our yards. That November, a young African American man named Will Sims, was murdered just down the hill from our neighborhood and a few of us began to meet weekly at breakfasts.
We would discuss what we could do to confront hate, challenge racism and help make our immediate neighborhood a better place.
We knew the antidote to fear, hate and scarcity is community.
In the start, our main objective was to break down supposed walls of isolation and build mutual support and trust. The activities and events grew.
From there, the web of relationships began flourishing.
La Colina Community Circle has grown since to be a model resilience neighborhood situated in the hills of El Sobrante, California.
Neighbors founded Community Circle with the intention of breaking down walls of isolation and strengthening the connections between people.
The Community Circle has grown into a thriving community in a world challenged by climate change.
Through monthly and annual events such as crop swaps, block parties, and fire abatement work parties, the bonds between neighbors have grown.
Growing from these monthly events, networks of relationships have been foraged and we have strengthened community resilience by building disaster preparation plans, winning a fire safety grant from the county as well as organizing neighborhood fire safety work parties.
Unlike a traditional hub typically housed in a municipal or other community center, the web of relationships, which include homes and individuals in the neighborhood, creates a resilience neighborhood model.
Our community strives to care for the needs of all community members, especially the most vulnerable.
The Neighborhood Resilience Model Is Built Around The Web of Relationships
A model for Permaculture and Sustainability
The neighborhood itself contains an ethic of food self-sufficiency in which gardeners grow a variety of fruits and vegetables including olives, blackberries, and tomatoes.
A keystone garden is the forest garden at Rising Spring Farm, home to community organizer Jessica Bates and an inspiration of resilience for the neighborhood.
Rising Spring contains:
Water systems to support the garden and home
Three 208 gallon rain-water tanks
A single 5,000 gallon rain tank
In-house gravity-fed water filtration system
Water-efficient appliances
Alaundry-to-landscape greywater system
Various edible perennial vegetables and fruit trees in the landscape.
In addition to food gardens, neighbors also have innovative sustainable features, from a hand-crank washing machine, a solar generator, to a diy solar hot water heater.
One neighbor has a full-house greywater system and a home made composting toilet.
These measures are essential infrastructure to community resilience and will be necessary during California’s persistent droughts, power outages and increasing climate extremes.
La Colina Community Circle Emergency Response
La Colina Community Circle has also prioritized disaster preparedness.
Two neighbors are now Community Emergency Response Training (CERT) certified, while another is a HAM radio operator. Many community members have prepared emergency go-bags and have stockpiled 72 hours’ worth of food and water.
The aforementioned 5,000 gallon rainwater tank is primarily emergency water for the neighborhood.
A key piece in building networks of resilience has been their monthly meetings, where neighbors often discuss how they would respond to various disaster scenarios, including evacuation plans.
Since the community is adjacent to part of Wildcat Canyon Regional Park, neighbors applied for and won a “FireWise” grant for $5,000 to improve community fire safety.
A Fire Wise Community (Firewise USA program) “is a part of California’s efforts to ensure communities are prepared against wildfire, and CAL FIRE Office of the State Fire Marshal’s new Community Wildfire Preparedness & Mitigation Division works to assist local communities in receiving this designation.”
Another source of vulnerability for the community are earthquakes as many of the homes in the neighborhood cannot afford and currently are not retrofitted for a sizable quake.
