Over the past month, we checked in with our 2024 grantees to learn how their funded programs, projects, and initiatives are progressing – and to better understand the impact they’re making across Los Angeles. Now, we are excited to share these interviews, with stories of growth, challenges, and community transformation.

Destination Crenshaw received funding through the LA2050 Grants Challenge from the Goldhirsh Foundation to support creating I AM Park in Crenshaw, an interactive green space with public art and sustainable design. Below is an edited transcript of our conversation with their team.

LA2050: Destination Crenshaw’s work spans creative placemaking, environmental justice, anti-displacement, economic development, and more – each facet part of a broader effort to reshape narratives about what’s possible. Why is that narrative shift important, and how does it influence the work you do?

Destination Crenshaw: It's funny you say narrative change – because the thing about culture is that it outlasts everything else. So when you have a culture that represents your community – sure the styles people wear can change over time – but ultimately, with culture, your place is your place.

So, creating that narrative for our community and changing the dynamic between us being pushed out by change to us welcoming change as a part of our future together is something that people highlighted for us not too long ago.

The fun part about this work is including all those different aspects of economic development, anti-displacement, and more into our reparative framework. This is how we're going to repair each other and our community and ultimately enable the Crenshaw Boulevard corridor to thrive. Creating a new narrative to describe our work is exciting, and it really tells the story of what Destination Crenshaw is eventually going to create.

LA2050: Looking across the Crenshaw Boulevard corridor, how does I AM Park represent the broader vision? Are there lessons your team is learning from this specific site that you will carry into future projects?

Destination Crenshaw: I AM Park is our smallest and trickiest parklet. It's important because it's our most family-friendly parklet, because on the southern end of Hyde Park, there are many single-family homes with no access to parks. We're building that parklet to be a place where people can come, bring their kids, and play. Even the art is going to be climbable for the folks in the Hyde Park section.

It’s also a tricky spot because we are doing environmental remediation right now. This is teaching us why development is so expensive in underinvested communities—because every single thing affecting I Am Parks’ little 3,000 square feet also impacts a larger development.

For us, this is why we do the work.

LA2050: What do you hope to achieve in the last six months of the grant, and how can the broader LA2050 community support?

Destination Crenshaw: We're going to finish Sankofa Park, and we're going to finish the environmental study at I AM Park. Then we will get started with capital construction at I AM Park to catch up with the progress of Sankofa, and the other parklets along the way.

We're also going to continue to partner on events during the summer and fall in South LA to keep bringing people out in the district. We're really trying to grow our on-the-ground support.

My call to action for the broader LA2050 community is to join our Crenshaw Legacy campaign. We have partnered with Crenshaw District streetwear brand, Bricks and Wood, on merch if you give $10 a month to support Destination Crenshaw.

When I think about creating a sustainable nonprofit in 2025, I believe we have to focus on community and how we support each other.

Interview Participant:

Jason Foster, President and CEO