Meet Your Neighbor: Christy Cerrone

Continuing our interviews to help neighbors get to know and appreciate one another. Christy Cerrone helped us get started on this project, and in fact wrote the set of questions that we use to guide these interviews. When I asked to interview her, we had to put it off for weeks because of her busy life. We ended up having Christy interview herself and send it in by email, using those same questions. – Bruce McDonald.

Christy: How long have you lived in Southern Gables?  Christy: 9 1/2 years.

What are a few things that you like the most about the Southern Gables community? Do you have a favorite memory with your Southern Gables neighbors?  What is the most neighborly experience you’ve had or seen in our neighborhood?

I am going to combine my answers to all three of these questions into one answer because it all comes together for me in a few ways.  Southern Gables has such great neighbors who really care about each other and care about our community. One way that I see this playing out and one thing that I particularly love about our neighborhood is that we are part of Lakewood’s Sustainable Neighborhood program. I have been lucky to be a volunteer with Sustainable Southern Gables since we were accepted into the program in 2013, and now I am so lucky to also get to work for the City of Lakewood as the Coordinator for the Sustainable Neighborhood program.  Sustainable Southern Gables is a group of volunteers from our neighborhood that plan and implement activities and projects related to sustainability topics. The topics are chosen by each volunteer based on whatever they are interested in and feel passionate about, and the city supports the neighborhoods in getting things done. We’ve done a lot of fun things like seed swaps, educational workshops, Bike to Work Day water stations, leaf composting, neighborhood luncheons, partnerships with the school, and so much more. Our Community Garden at Green Gables is probably the most visible project of Sustainable Southern Gables; after two years of fundraising, planning, and construction, the garden opened in the spring of 2017 and has been going strong ever since – we’re starting our sixth growing season this spring.

What are your hobbies? I love to ride my bike, work in the garden, and decorate for holidays.

What is your favorite quote or saying?  I am interested in so many things, so I tend to overcommit myself to activities, projects, opportunities, etc.  Given this, one quote from Stephen Covey that is always a good reminder to me:  “You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage – pleasantly, smiling, nonapologetically – to say ‘no’ to other things. And the way you do that is by having a bigger ‘yes’ burning inside.”

Is there anything else you want us to know about you?  I was born and raised in Lakewood and have lived here all of my life except for college (in Iowa) and graduate school (in Missouri). I think Lakewood is a great place to live (in particular in the summer and fall when the weather is warm)!

Contact [email protected] to nominate a candidate for the “Meet Your Neighbor” series.