There are those housing developments where people did decide that they were going to get the big house, but that really isn’t what constitutes the fabric of Medina.
I volunteer for the Community Services Center. We take care of people from all over the county. We run a big food pantry and supply clothing. Last year, we served 3,200 individuals.
The nicest compliment you could give a community is that we care about those who might otherwise fall through the cracks.
I’ve covered Medina as a cub reporter for theMedina Gazette, then as a reporter for theAkron Beacon Journal and then as an editor at theGazette. In most cases, I was very pleasantly surprised to see how good the government actually was.
There are just certain people that you meet in government that make you think that Thomas Jefferson wasn’t crazy, we can actually govern ourselves.
I think there’s a lot of civic pride. We joke about how people go get carried away with the whole historic preservation. It’s a run-down house, a jewel in the rough. That’s ultimately a good thing. It helps keep people focused on preserving what they’ve already got as opposed to tearing it all down and putting up a new strip mall.
I think Medina is the ideal size for people who want to live in a community and make a difference there. It’s not so big that it gets impersonal, but it’s not so small that it doesn’t have a lot of resources to draw on.
Ultimately, people are touched by the whole square and the neighboring houses because it’s one of those fantasies that we all have of returning to a simpler time. It’s fun to watch little ones play on the cannon on the square or watch an old couple walk hand in hand. Even the band concerts. Those are things that are gone in a lot of communities.
