Laura Gómez’s project is based on her experience as an immigrant. Right after moving to Macon, Laura started thinking about the need to create a city where the Hispanic population could enjoy and thrive. Her KECC project, Macon Para Todos, aims to make downtown Macon more accessible, enjoyable, and attractive to the Hispanic community.

To achieve this goal, she has set out to:

• Offer activities for Hispanics to enjoy downtown through arts, games and public space-based activities.
• Collect data to understand where Hispanics live and spend time in Macon, and what barriers they face to enjoying downtown Macon more.

The first six months of implementation of her project have been insightful and busy.

Laura Gómez at the KECC Toronto studio in 2024 with 8 80 Cities founder and chair, Gil Penalosa and fellow champion Jonathan Wetherbee.

The 3-day Studio in Toronto, organized and led by 8 80 Cities, helped me refine my project and meet with other champions.

After this impactful experience, she spent three months finding the support and permits she needed for her first activity. She recruited six volunteers, who helped her better understand the activities she wanted to implement and what to do on each activity. She also received support and guidance from Bike Walk Macon, a partner organization for her project.

She then decided to implement her first activity called “A pintar y a jugar” (Let’s paint and play) on December 7th. For three hours, Laura and her volunteers offered different activities for Hispanic families to have fun and reconnect with their roots. The activity occurred on Cotton Avenue Square, a renovated public space in Downtown Macon. She also offered snacks and discounts for local Hispanic restaurants so that people could stay downtown after the activity.

While activities occurred, Laura also collected data on Hispanic people’s interest in visiting Downtown Macon more often and their transportation preferences to understand other alternatives they would like to use.

Bike Walk Macon, led by Rachel Hollar-Umana, a former KECC alumn, supported the activity and provided brilliant ideas for the data collection and some of the game elements. Their support was crucial to making the activity a success.

In the six months since its launch, the project has helped:

• Make Hispanics visible: It is sometimes heard that there are no Hispanics in Macon. The activity proved there are many, and they are interested in participating in community activities. The project also has shown that talking about a Hispanic community may not be accurate, as Hispanics are a very diverse group. However, they still share values, interests, and language (mainly Spanish).
• Make use of public space and assets while promoting a new vision of public space: Cotton Avenue Square is a beautiful public space with benches, tables, and trees that need to be used more often. People in the public space, enjoying, doing physical activity, and meeting neighbors should be the raison d’être of the public space.
• Collect innovative data: Little data exists about Hispanics in Macon. The project is a first opportunity to understand more about this community’s needs, interests, and dreams.
• Contribute to Hispanic businesses: The participants enjoyed the products offered by some Hispanic businesses through the discounts they offered during the activity day.

As a snapshot of the impact so far:

• Around 50 people attended the activity and stayed for 3 hours. Several of them expressed interest in continuing to participate in the project activities.
• Children primarily benefited a lot from the activity.
• Six volunteers were part of the team, and two were Mercer Students.
• Three businesses were involved and benefited from the activity.
• Local media channels, such as QuePasa, Macon Melody, NotiVision, and 41NBC News, shared information about the project and its activities.
• A meeting with Wesleyan College students from the honor program to discuss the project occurred in November.

Permit management was a challenge, it changed the activity from its original form. The initial idea was to paint a few sidewalks with Hispanic-inspired designs, playground games (e.g., hopscotch), and shapes that made the public space more attractive and fun. The city administration didn’t allow permanent paint on the sidewalks, so the activity changed, but it had a positive outcome.

During the activity, collecting data was also challenging, as a person fully dedicated to collecting the surveys and using the map (a map had been printed for people to draw routes they would like to use to get to downtown in sustainable modes) was needed. The team capacity did not allow this.

Laura’s next activity will be a walking tour led in Spanish in March. The goal is to provide a walking activity in Spanish for participants to learn about Macon’s history and meet Hispanic businesses and the stories of their owners. Laura will partner with Visit Macon, Bike Walk Macon, and other organizations and individuals. She is still in the planning process for the activity.

Lastly, in late April, she wants to hold a public space event like the one in December, to celebrate “Children’s Day”. The details of this activity are to be confirmed.

A Year in Reflection

The Knight Emerging City Champion program was transformative for Laura. It positively impacted her personally and professionally, giving her confidence and inspiration as she adapted to her new city after relocating from Bogotá to Macon. The program provided the perfect opportunity for Laura to actively engage with her community and understand the needs of the Hispanic population.

Seeing families playing and enjoying the public space was particularly meaningful.

During her year as a champion, Laura implemented all the activities she had originally proposed, adapting them as needed to represent the voices of the Hispanic community. Her project, Macon Para Todos, created spaces for Hispanic individuals to spend quality time in Downtown Macon using games, art, and storytelling. She particularly enjoyed the first and third activities, “A pintar y a jugar” and the Children’s Day celebration, both held at Cotton Avenue Square, and the second activity, a Spanish-language walking tour highlighting Hispanic businesses and their contributions to the city.

The project directly engaged around 120 people, including 50 children, and involved 10 youth volunteers. Three Hispanic-owned businesses participated, and local media shared information about the activities throughout the year. Partners such as Bike Walk Macon, Visit Macon, Mercer University, and Wesleyan College supported the implementation of each activity.

The biggest challenge Laura faced was completing the final activity while pregnant, compounded by political shifts that made the Hispanic community, particularly immigrants, hesitant to participate in public spaces.

The use of public space to bring people together has been powerful.

Laura met the stated goals of her project by making downtown Macon more accessible, enjoyable, and welcoming for the Hispanic community. She also increased visibility for a growing ethnic group and highlighted their contributions to the city.

Looking ahead, Laura hopes to see her activities replicated regularly and expanded with continued support from current and new partners. She envisions a Macon where public spaces reflect the city’s growing diversity and provide opportunities for enjoyment, connection, and cultural celebration for everyone.

About Laura Gómez

Laura is a Latina who dreams about cities for everyone. She moved from Bogotá to Macon (GA) and faced a different reality regarding the possibility of enjoying the public space, using sustainable transportation modes, and finding other Hispanic people. As a road safety and sustainable mobility advocate, and with her background as a Political Scientist, she knows that public space allocation is a way of reinforcing power relationships, and that public space is an enabler of life quality and livability. The increasing presence of Hispanics in Macon, and the fact that its downtown has benefited from investment and improvements in the last few years, made her see the need to offer activities for Hispanic individuals to enjoy downtown and reconnect with their roots while connecting with others.

Follow the project @maconparatodos #MaconParaTodos