by Ruthie Love

I first met Lisa Nelson in the spring of 2006. I had been living in an economically challenged neighborhood of Sacramento, California called Oak Park. As an active volunteer with the Oak Park Neighborhood Association (OPNA), I could be found passing out water bottles and plates of food at McClatchy Park across the street from the offices of Mutual Housing of California, during many of OPNA’s ‘Celebrate Oak Park’ community-building events.

It was on one of my non-volunteering weekends that I looked out my front window to see a group of familiar-looking folks moving furniture into a house a few doors down. Ever the nosy neighbor, I ‘casually’ wandered out to the sidewalk to see if I actually knew any of the movers. Sure enough, I was passing acquaintances with several members of the moving crew. They were quick to introduce me to my new neighbor – Lisa Nelson. Before the sun set, Lisa and I were side-by-side on her newly moved piano bench, singing obscure 90’s alt-hits and giggling.

While we bonded right away, it took a little while for us to find our shared passion for Oak Park. Lisa was CFO of Mutual Housing of California and a founding member of Alchemist CDC, a group I knew very little about at the time. That would certainly change - over the years, Alchemist CDC has made itself clear as a tangible force for good in our beloved Oak Park.

The site of my own volunteer work, McClatchy Park, became the home of the Oak Park Farmer’s Market as presented by Alchemist CDC. Not only did Alchemist bring the healthy, fresh food to Oak Park, but they facilitated programs such as Market Match – a program that allows residents who qualify for CalFresh and EBT benefits to receive up to an additional $10 a day in fresh food from the Farmer’s Market. Often, farm-fresh food was available to struggling families at prices lower than at the discount grocery store a mile away. Alchemist’s Farmer’s Market created a vibrant, compassionate, and encouraging community event that persists to this day.

Alchemist has also facilitated several neighbor-created and resident-run Community Gardens and Green Spaces that have been reclaimed from blighted empty lots. Alchemist offers Business Incubator programs, teaching community members about the business of food. They offer a shared commercial kitchen to connect local entrepreneurs with legal commercial food preparation spaces. Alchemist has even gone so far as to promote community cooling stations, to help anyone experiencing Sacramento’s typical three-digit summer temperatures stay hydrated and healthy.

What started as a thought project between Lisa and two of her grad school cohorts almost twenty years ago has evolved into a strong Community Development program that continues to facilitate healthy living while nourishing the deep cultural identity of this unique and vibrant community.

Life has taken both Lisa and I far away from our beloved Oak Park, but the core values that we shared as community activists in our twenties still runs as an undercurrent in our daily lives, nearly twenty years later. Lisa’s time as CFO with Mutual Housing of California helped to sharpen her focus and develop a method for financial analysis that enables affordable housing non-profits to make the most of their investments in community. Both of us were lucky to learn the value of strong relationships from our time working with the Oak Park community, and we strive to bring that sense of collaboration and sustainability to every project we take on with Focus & Flow.