The Official Newsletter of the West Ridge Community Organization

November/December 2022

Congratulations to Asian Human Services and MIRA (Middle Eastern Immigrant and Refugee Alliance) on being selected to receive a grant through the City’s Neighborhood Access Program (NAP).   The NAP was created to support arts and cultural activities in all neighborhoods with a focus on those that have traditionally not received funding through DCASE’s Cultural Grants Program.  The West Ridge community will now receive funding! 

Asian Human Services, in collaboration with Silk Road Rising, will host EPIC Empathic Playwriting Intensive Course residencies for immigrants and refugees as part of their English language classes.  Students will create original short plays or monologues which will be read by professional actors and culminate in a professionally produced video.  Several West Ridge residents participated in a similar collaboration with Silk Road Rising in 2019 to produce the West Ridge Story Festival.   

MIRA will host a two-day Middle Eastern Cultural Festival in late summer 2023.  The event will celebrate music, dancing, poetry, food and crafts with contributions by Iraqi, Syrian, Afghan, and other Middle Eastern West Ridge Community members. 

Join us in saying thank you to Irv Loundy and Ashish Sen for the many years of service they gave to WRCO. Both men have been a source of wisdom and support for efforts to promote and improve the West Ridge Community.  While they are leaving the board, we know they will continue to be involved with Irv as President of the Chamber of Commerce and Ashish with his many interests.  Michael Frankenstein will be joining the board in  January.   

As we near the end of 2022 let us continue to celebrate the diversity we are fortunate to enjoy in the West Ridge Community.  In these difficult times when hate and violence are on the rise we need to support and protect each other – our Muslim neighbors, our Jewish neighbors, our Southeast Asian neighbors, our African neighbors, our Mexican neighbors, our immigrant families new and old, and refugees from so many countries too numerous to name.