By Kenneth Miller | Publisher
On a muggy hot humid Saturday in Inglewood at Darby Park, in a location where you can see SOFI Stadium, a small group of young adults gathered beneath the parking lot.
RIGHT THIS WAY_ Tristan Castillo invites the patrons at Darby Park in Inglewood to collect the free back to school supplies he donated on August 1. (KENNETH MILLER/PHOTO)
It was a rather obscure scene if not for kids and their parents lining up towards the eastbound parking lot, some wearing their Dodgers Dreamteam baseball uniforms and others decorated like, well it was hot in shorts and tops.
(KENNETH MILLER/PHOTO)
For the past six days, Tristan Castillo and a few of his friends had been planning to give away some back packs and school supplies, and suddenly decision what the heck let’s just go to Darby Park and pass them out.
“I have been trying to start an organization maybe about a year or so ago. This was just me trying to implement tutoring to the community, so I was offering free tutoring to the community. Essentially the mission is just love, peace, and unity for all, especially those in Inglewood. This is the community that I was raised in, that I was grew up in. And I feel like we’ve been put at a disadvantage for so many years. So why not, you know, get up, gather in some friends with me and, like, help out the community, essentially,” Castillo explained to South bay Black Journal.
(KENNETH MILLER/PHOTO)
Castillo and his friends accumulated over 100 backpacks and over hundreds of other items as such as notebooks, pencils, pens, crayons, color pencils, highlighters and donated them to the needy families that braved the sun to accept them.
“This is for students who are elementary, middle school, high school. We’re hoping to give out all of these items today, plus snacks, and then in the future continue to keep doing this.”
“We kind of were a little late. We only have had probably a week of promotion, maybe if that may be only six days of promotion. But we’ve kind of been putting this together for some time, but the promotion was just only six days. So, we were a little scared. We were like, oh, no, you know, how many people will get to come out here? But, you know, as you can see right now we have families out here, younger kids, older kids, moms, dads. So, yeah. So, it worked out. It worked out,” he added”
He credited his friends whom he said made it possible.
“I wouldn’t have been able to do it without the people who helped me organize this. Noel Franco, Ciara, more and Milan. I greatly appreciate them for helping me put all this together.
As the greatest promoter Don King would say, “Working Together Works!” and on the second weekend of August, just a few friends made a huge impact on families of color that will have a lasting impact.
