Adolfo Hernandez

                                                                               

COMMUNITY HERO

            There are many people in this world that care about the safety of others and that care about our community and about making a difference, and those people that care and try to make a difference are hero’s in my eyes and in many other people's eyes as well. A great example of a hero is a man named Adolfo Hernandez. Adolfo works as a manager in a Transportation Advocacy Organization which is non profit and is a volunteer job. Adolfo is one of many but few people that care about the safety and the community that we live in today. Adolfo volunteers and works with many organizations that in one way or another help our community and the people in our community be safe whether it is with keeping gangs off streets, or working with different parks, even with keeping the streets safe for people to ride bikes or walking or even crossing the streets.

            Mr. Hernandez volunteers at a transportation advocacy organization witch is an organization that helps keep all the streets in the city safe for people to walk and ride their bikes. The organization also works in trying to get more transit transportation such as trains and buses to get anywhere you need to go without having to drive. Adolfo's safety perspective is: he doesn’t want people getting hit by cars when walking or when riding bikes, he wants it to be easy to get around. He works in five specific points in our community which would be; Logan square, Humboldt Park, Garfield Park , North Lawndale, and Little Village where is were he grew up. These are places that are what's called a diverse community and his job is to see the similarities and bring them together. Adolfo says," It’s shown that Latinos and African American community's have the highest number of people  that are hit by cars that includes pedestrians and  bicycles ,kids and teens." Therefore he wants the streets to be as safe as they can, and that’s why he has been working for this non-profit organization for 4 years now. All in all Adolfo has been working in his community from six to seven years.

            Adolfo also works with keeping gangs off the streets. He works with a program called The Street Intervention Program in a YMCA which in other words is a Gang Intervention Program. The program includes playing basketball and helping kids that can’t get to school get to school on time. The program includes Friday and Saturday nights basketball program to help keep the specific two rival gangs off the street. The specific gangs were the Cobras and the Latin Kings and the founder of the program was actually an ex-Latin King and the people that were harried for this job were ex gang-members and for this program Adolfo was an exception.

            Adolfo Hernandez is a person that is hard working and that cares about his community and the safety of others, He is still in college, but he takes the time to care about his community and that’s something I can’t say for many people. Even though he has his studies to have in mind, he doesn’t forget about our community or the people in it, which is us, we are the community, we are what makes the community and like Adolfo says,” You are the future of tomorrow and it’s time for you to get involved”. Like many things Adolfo does, He brings people together to fight for what’s right, he brings people together to make the community a better place to live in and be around he tries to make the community better for everyone. With the help of LSNA which is another program that he is involved with in the community and also helping students with their studies and becoming more involved, they come together to help and to make changes.

Adolfo defines a community as the people in his community, the residents, the people that live in those residences, people that own businesses, and the people that work to make their neighborhoods better. His ideas for our neighborhood are to make it a better and safer and more importantly a cleaner environment. Would like to see more employment opportunities for the youth, he would also like to see for people to own homes and take care of the houses in their community, further more for people to be safe, have affordable housing, and more parks, play areas and even more importantly more green space. One important piece of advice that Adolfo expressed was,” You can’t always plan everything, move and adapt with what comes your way....And, don’t let curves and bumps in the road through you off from moving forward".

            Many people have heroes and even though most people have to dig in deep to find their's, they end up always having a hero. It doesn't matter if its fictional or non-fictional, someone always has a hero and Adolfo’s hero is a elderly lady that when he was young saved him from getting jumped and converted to being something that he never wanted to be while he was accompanied by one of his friends. That elderly lady became an important person to him because she stood up for someone that she didn’t even know at that time. She stood up for 2 little boys that needed someone’s help when  no one was there to help them and that to him was a heroic thing out of her part to do. The way Adolfo Hernandez defines a hero is "People who give more than they’re expected to and to try to help the people around them more than you have to!! You don’t have to be a big basketball player or a mayor to be a hero.” The older you get the more you realize that anything you do even if its small might have an affect on people." A hero is being a good friend, being a good family member, a good example to our generation and to the generations to come. A hero is being a good person as long as you are that you will be a hero to someone any one. Always be truthful and own up to what you do and in one way or another you will be a hero because that is a hero to me hero.....

            Adolfo is a hero in my eyes. He is a hero to me because he is a person that tries to make a difference and in one way or another accomplishes what he set out to accomplish. He shows me that nothing can get in your way if you put it in your self to accomplish it. A hero to me is a person that would help someone or something in there time of need or just someone that tries to lend a hand and make a difference when its needed, and Adolfo Hernandez is a great example of my definition of a hero. Therefore to me he is a Hero...

            Even though there are people that you see in this world that don’t care about the community or the people in the community, there is always going to be that one person or that group of people that are going to try and make a difference and even though you can’t see the difference right away they are there and sooner or later you will see those changes because patience its a virtue and those changes will come out to be what it's expected of them...

written by: Deisha Droz