By Kyle Ching, 2025 CLA Intern
On the weekend of June 28th and 29th, I participated in two community events in DTLA.
Spring Street Park Clean-Up
On Saturday, I attended a Shine LA clean up event at Spring Street Park in Downtown LA, a few blocks away from my office at City Hall. This event was co-hosted by Mayor Karen Bass and my host office elected official Councilmember Ysabel Jurado. As part of the councilmember’s team at the event, I arrived bright and early at 7AM to help unload rakes, shovels, trash bags and other cleaning materials. Briefed by a member of the mayor’s office, our team helped to check in volunteers and assign them to different areas of the park that needed their attention.
The clean up consisted of shoveling dirt and sand out of walkways, wiping down the playground and exercise equipment, and picking up trash around the park. Despite the small size of the park, I was impressed by how many volunteers from the surrounding DTLA neighborhood showed up. Within minutes, the difference in the cleanliness of the park was noticeable thanks to the large team of volunteers.
After about an hour, Councilmember Jurado showed up to talk to community members, having attended another Shine LA event in El Pueblo earlier that day. I shadowed the councilmember as she talked to a variety of different constituents: the head of the DTLA Business Improvement District, members of the DTLA Neighborhood Council, and local business owners. The councilmember made a point to walk with local business owners along the streets surrounding the park as they explained the challenges they had been facing in the wake of federal ICE raids. The event concluded with the councilmember speaking to volunteers, telling them how she acknowledged what a difficult month it had been for DTLA and how she was committed to making sure DTLA survived and thrived in the wake of this hardship.
I left this event incredibly impressed by Councilmember Jurado and her commitment to her district. Not only did she meticulously listen to the needs of each and every one of the constituents that came up to her, she seemed to genuinely care about their concerns in a way that is not typical of every elected official. Working together with her field manager for DTLA, she and her team took careful note of each concern and promised to follow up with the constiutnet afterward. Back in the office on the following Tuesday, I could overhear her case team working hard and following through on those promises.
Umeya Mural Painting
On Sunday, I metro’d to Little Tokyo with my fellow CAUSE intern Rachel and we arrived at Terasaki Budokan, a public gymnasium and community center. At this event hosted by the Little Tokyo Service Center (LTSC), we painted a mural that will eventually hang on the Umeya Apartments, a 100 percent affordable housing project located between Little Tokyo and Skid Row.
Instructed by the lead mural artist Crusho Herring, Rachel and I painted white clouds on a 12 foot by 12 foot canvas. Despite my limited artistic experience, I had a lot of fun working on this with Rachel and my fellow volunteers. Compared to the previous day’s clean-up, this was a
much smaller event—there were only about six of us including me and Rachel-–but I still got the opportunity to meet some really cool people: one of the founders of LTSC, the previous owner of the Umeya Factory who had donated the land to be used for affordable housing, and a member of the Skid Row arts coalition.
I was so happy to work with LTSC, an organization I admire for its commitment to building affordable housing and developing DTLA for low-income residents. The mural painting demonstrated to me the amount of thoughtful, careful planning and grueling hard work that goes into each of their projects, and I cannot wait to see the final product be put on the Umeya Apartments in a few months.
Councilmember Jurado talks with volunteers from the DTLA neighborhood at the
Spring Street Park Clean Up.
Me painting clouds at the Umeya Mural project.
The views and opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not reflect the views or positions of CAUSE or the CAUSE network.
The CAUSE Leadership Academy (CLA) for students is a nine-week, paid, internship program that prepares college undergraduates to lead and advocate for the Asian Pacific Islander community on their campuses and beyond.