Hi. I’m Stephanie, your neighbor and new Cooper-Young Community Association executive director. I’m looking forward to working with y’all and wanted to tell you a little about me and what I care about.
I was a military brat and lived on base housing until I was 9, when we settled down in Collierville, where I lived until I graduated from high school there. I first moved to Memphis as a college student at the University of Memphis. I left for about a decade after college and moved to Boston, where I picked up my husband Carlos. We lived in a very diverse neighborhood there, but one where your local store clerk and diner server knew you by name. We later moved to Austin, Texas, where we had trouble finding the community feel I knew as a child, a teenager, and a young adult.
Close to three years ago, we decided to take the plunge and move back to Memphis. We began searching for a home in Cooper-Young because it had that traditional community feel that we longed for — porches where you could chat with your neighbors, businesses within walking distance, sidewalks for kids to ride their bikes to school on. We found all that and more when we bought our house on Oliver Avenue and started volunteering with the Cooper-Young Community Association. What started as just showing up to the monthly gatherings turned into writing for The Lamplighter then joining the Beerfest Planning Committee and now serving the neighborhood in a full-time role.
So if it’s not obvious by this point, what I care about is community, especially this one. We come from different walks of life and have different opinions, but we all care about doing what we think is right for Cooper-Young. One of the things I feel passionate about in my new role is making sure you all know about opportunities to get involved and expanding those opportunities. This community is what you make of it, so get involved and let’s work together! — Stephanie Gonzalez
