cases during COVID.<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cThere were a lot of nurses and health-care workers and food-service preparers who refused to work because obviously because of the fear of death,\u201d said Noel, who was raised in Manila.<\/p>\n
The community donated $75,000 for the project. Noel Gamboa<\/p>\n
\u201cBut not these people whom we are dedicating the park to.<\/p>\n
\u201cFilipino Americans, we have this tradition that, you know, we\u2019re, you know, we\u2019d like to be known as the very good caregivers. \u2026 We just want their story to be told because the ratio of deaths between these Filipino Americans and the rest of the world, it was very disproportionate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Noel, an architect, struck a deal with the state DOT to lease the property for just $1 per year under the condition that he share access to the community for free.<\/p>\n
But he and his wife were left on their own to build the park itself.<\/p>\n
The pair and other volunteers then spent two years applying for grants to pay for the benches, awnings, tools and other physical aspects of the park \u2014 but none were ever approved.<\/p>\n
Noel and Dori Gamboa, along with Pastor Joseph Mantovani, brought the dream of the park to a reality. Stefano Giovannini<\/p>\n
Instead, the community stepped up \u2014 with neighbors and friends donating more than $75,000 for the cause.<\/p>\n
Volunteers also spent countless hours clearing the brush and trash that had accumulated in the space over four decades and transforming it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s amazing how many partnerships and relationships can develop when you have one project and people, all these different skills and connections and networks, and whether it\u2019s elected officials or churches or community groups or people who live in the neighborhood who have something to contribute to this kind of project,\u201d said Pastor Joseph Mantovani, who was one of the main organizers of the park.<\/p>\n
Little Manila Park had been quietly open to the public for several weeks but was officially christened Saturday by Mantovani, a local Muslim group, and a dance blessing by the Cordilleran, a group of Filipinos who hail from the mountains.<\/p>\n
Fitness classes such as yoga will take place throughout the summer, and the Gamboas hope to schedule one big party per month for the community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A brand-new park was born over the weekend in one of the city\u2019s most barren neighborhoods thanks to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":266783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[5459,57,9,197,56,63,65,64,10649,21640,122,58,2615],"class_list":["post-266782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-department-of-transportation","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city-life","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-parks","tag-philippines","tag-queens","tag-us-news","tag-woodside"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}