Residents prepare meal for Cedar Valley Townhomes

CEDAR RAPIDS - For the past few days, Veronica Johnson and Effie McCollum have been cooking a meal for hundreds.

As members of the Cedar Valley Townhomes tenant council, Johnson, council president, and McCollum, vice president, plan on feeding the entire 3000 J Street apartment complex, which has more than 180 units - and most of which are home to families.

Serving a holiday meal at the Cedar Valley Townhomes' community center has become an annual tradition, but it's about more than just the food, Johnson said.

It's about getting to know neighbors and building a sense of community, she said.

'We do it because we're trying to keep our community together as a community, so everyone knows everyone,” Johnson said. 'It's a big family out here.”

Residents and neighbors are welcome to the event, which will run from 2 to 5 p.m. Saturday.

Johnson said the plan is to prepare the whole spread, including turkey, ham, green bean casserole, baked beans and desserts.

'We have all the fixings,” Johnson said. 'We make sure everybody can eat.”

The event started two years ago, McCollum said.

She said there have been setbacks, one being a shooting this past February at the apartment complex that left 25-year-old Joseph P. Perkins Jr. of Chicago dead.

'We have problems, like every other neighborhood, but it's getting much better,” McCollum said. 'We want to help protect the kids and try to keep them out of trouble ...

. We're trying to build a better community for our kids to group up in.”

In addition to neighbors, Sgt. Cristy Hamblin, community outreach officer with the Cedar Rapids Police Department, said a few of the city's beat officers plan to attend the event.

Hamblin said being at such events aligns with the department's focus on community policing and creating relationships between officers and the public through positive interactions.

'Whenever we have events like this Saturday, it's really just a chance for our officers to come face to face with our citizens and just have conversations,” Hamblin said. 'It's just building relationships.”

Hamblin said officers try to attend as many community gatherings as possible as well as host their own events such as National Night Out or Coffee with a Cop.

'Any time we get an invitation to come out to a neighborhood event or a community event, we try to make it happen,” she said.

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