Rancho Cordova is an All America City!
The city of Rancho Cordova has joined the prestigious ranks of more than 500 communities from around the country to be selected as an All American City! Every year, the National Civic League honors ten communities countrywide for their civic accomplishments. Community members found out months ago that Rancho Cordova had been selected for the second consecutive year, as an All-America City finalist.
Each of the 27 communities that were chosen as finalists have spent the week in Kansas City, Missouri culminating in a 10 minute presentation and a 10 minute question and answer period earlier today. The 2010 All-America City finalists have addressed issues such as serving youth despite financial hurdles, diversifying the labor force, providing affordable housing, and increasing the tax base to fund schools.
The delegation of community members from Rancho Cordova presented three projects that represent the city. Project 680, led by Ryan Lundquist, is a community driven effort that collects much needed, socks, underwear, and shoes for homeless children in the area. Rancho Cordova Cultural Heritage (Saturday) Schools, a collaborative effort of immigrant parents and the Folsom Cordova Unified School District to preserve and honor arts and culture of mother countries. The Rancho Cordova City Hall Project provides a “civic heart” for Rancho Cordova, incubating business and community engagement as well as serving as a home for municipal services.
The full list of 2010 All America City winners include:
Chandler, Arizona
Lynwood, California
Rancho Cordova, California
North Miami, Florida
Acworth, Georgia
Des Moines, Iowa
Salisbury, Maryland
Gastonia, North Carolina
Mount Pleasant, South Carolina
El Paso, Texas
What does the delegation think about winning? Aside from being “in awe”, they managed to send these remarks:
As a young city, the youngest in the room, this is a big deal. This event and everyone here we’ve met, all the finalists have been very very inspirational. It’s also a great honor to receive this award, something we consider to be the Nobel prize of civic accomplishment.
That’s no small accomplishment for a community that has been through some rough times, and with the help of a little magic has been reinvented into an All America City.
Our City Hall, our “Magic Factory”, part of our winning nomination here–City Hall tonight is filled with our citizens and our community volunteers watching a live streaming webcast of this event. They are the real people responsible for this honor. They are the real awardees tonight. They are our inspiration and motivation and as of now they are All-America citizens of an All America City.
This award confirms some success for us, but everyone should know, residents, staff, volunteers, that come Monday morning, we’re going to work even harder to improve our community, and continue the Magic.
… Because in Rancho Cordova, WE MAKE THE MAGIC!!!
Similar Posts:
- June 18, 2010 – Magical Rancho Cordova, All America City!
- July 20, 2010 – Voice Your Opinion on Fair Housing in Rancho Cordova
- July 1, 2010 – Rancho Cordova Celebrates 7th Birthday With a Marriage
- August 9, 2010 – Meet the Candidates: Paul Tassinari
- August 11, 2010 – Smith Is New Rancho Cordova Planning Commissioner
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Posted by Michelle Ventress
on Jun 18 2010. Filed under News.
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Way to go Rancho Cordova! One more reason to be proud of our wonderful community! I want to personally thank everyone that had a hand in this, and the group of dedicated individuals that traveled to represent our city. Thanks for all of your work. Yea Rancho!!!!!!
I am truly saddened for the people and reputation of Rancho Cordova. Getting this award is NOT ANTHING to be proud of. It is a purchased product, bought with sophestry, gimmicks, and pom-pom shenanigans. It is ploy and marketing, bearing little value for future generations of residents. The portrayal of our city by the representatives in Kansas City is little more than purchased fragrence to mask the reek. If only our city leaders could have devoted as much money, time, and energy into addressing the real social, economic, educational, and environmental concerns of our community. Telling other cities about Rancho Cordova volunteers providing socks to homeless kids may sound compassionate and thoughtful, but it is only token gestures of kindness when compared to the real problem. HUNDREDS OF HOMELESS KIDS deserves more of our attention. I don’t think the hundreds of homeless children of Rancho Cordova would care if a team of people went to Kansas City for a pleasure trip, or that the city has a new All-America City plaque hanging at city hall. I’d bet the homeless children of Rancho Cordova would rather have a safe, clean, and respectful HOME TO TAKE OFF THEIR SOCKS. Like the alcoholic who pops the cork on the champaign bottle, this All-America status is driven by other less-than-respectful intentions. If one checks, this award has no value or merit–akin to a foreign general who has never gone to war, yet wears multiple rows of colorful medals upon their chest. How unfortunate so many local people (many of whom I felt were more astute than this) were sucked into this mad mad world of creative Rancho Cordova imagery.
Wow Oz, I couldn’t disagree with you more. I have lived in this community my whole life. My father taught at Cordova for 35 years and is still very active in the community. My entire family has been active in this community since we moved here in 1975. While I will admit to not having rose colored glasses about some of the ways our budding new city has been run, I see positive overall.
For years Rancho Cordova was seen as “the ghetto” area. While in school if I told peers where I went to school they would wrinkle their noses and say “sorry.” I have however, always had pride in my community. Was it perfect??? Of course not! But I have traveled to enough places to know that there are problems everywhere. What this community has in abundance is people with heart. I’m sure those homeless children that project 680 helps would love to have homes as well as socks, but for today, I bet they are happy to have socks.
It would be lovely if we could wave our magic wands and fix the problems of the world and our community overnight, but be realistic. We must begin somewhere. Today it is with helping some homeless children have some of what they need. And today it is about bringing back some of the pride in our community.
Does it really matter if the title means anything other than pride. Every drop in the bucket counts! Eventually the bucket fills up. It will take some time. With your mentality why cover up the graffiti as it pops up? After all it is only the tip of the iceberg right? Because that day, that one building does not have graffiti.
What are you doing to help the homeless children? How are you personally helping the people in this community? What have you personally done to instill the pride for future generations of Rancho Cordovans? Since I have never in my life not been active in our community, even as a small child, I feel confident in saying…do better then. If you think you can make more of a difference in the lives of homeless children, go for it. If you think you can manage our great city better, by all means run for office. But don’t tear down the efforts of others. I think I stand with many of the people of Rancho in saying we are tired of people knocking our city. I don’t want my children to hesitate when people ask them where they live. And I for one am very pleased that our young city has won an award. Even if the only thing that award does is to give an added dose of pride to people that need it. But especially if it helps to showcase the good works of people like Ryan Lundquist and so many others. Here’s to drops!!!!!!
Oz, I couldnt agree more. How about the us as taxpayers paying for the trip to Kansas for all of the city hall people. SO we pay them and pay for the trip. In the mean time people are getting laid off and the economy is getting worse.
Oz, you sound like you have a heart for homeless children, so I welcome your efforts in Project 680. Please get involved. We need passionate locals to support homeless students in relevant and practical ways. And hopefully providing things like socks, underwear, and shoes will open doors for us to find other even bigger ways to support thees kids (that’s been happening and it’s an amazing thing). http://www.project680.org
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