Madison Park Neighborhood Association (MPNA), a city-formed association, has served community members in Southeast Santa Ana, California since 1987. In 2011 residents from the Madison Park Neighborhood Association founded Getting Residents Engaged in Exercise and Nutrition (GREEN). Between 2011 and 2017, GREEN and MPNA worked together as one organization in order to meet the immediate health, recreational and community clean up needs of the Madison Park Neighborhood. Residents from MPNA worked within GREEN to provide recreational opportunities, STEM youth programs like the Francisco Zaldivar Aspire, Learn, Mentor and Achieve Science Academy (ALMA), and our Wellness Wednesday health oriented educational workshops. Residents from GREEN and MPNA have had an outstanding impact on the community and the city of Santa Ana. Residents have created more green spaces around the Santa Ana Bike Trail through community organized clean ups, tree planting and other beautification measures. Residents from the Madison Park Neighborhood Association also founded and organized the annual Madison Park Walk-A-Thon and Resource Fair, which ran for over 20 years (2002-2023) making it one of the longest running neighborhood event organized by residents in the city of Santa Ana. 

 

In 2017, GREEN changed its name to Getting Residents Engaged in Empowering Neighborhoods. GREEN and MPNA residents were made aware of an South Coast Air Quality Management District permitting use of a mental plating industry in the neighborhood. This prompted a community response, organizing community members in environmental justice and community air monitoring. In 2020, GREEN organized community members to participate in the City of Santa Ana General Plan updates that included California State implementation of Senate Bill 1000, which requires city and counties to implement environmental land use policies in their General Plan. This organizing was in addition to serving the direct needs of the Madison Park Neighborhood during the COVID-19 pandemic. This work has shifted GREEN MPNA’s work, effectively changing the name of the organization to center civic engagement in our work. GREEN-MPNA now reflects the ongoing work focused on civic engagement and programming needs identified by Madison Park parents and youth, including (1) supporting youth and families to pursue educational and leadership opportunities and (2) improving health equity outcomes through wellness programs and environmental justice policy work.

 

GREEN-MPNA is fiscally sponsored by OneOC.