were discouraged and began to question whether it was possible to have a thriving Peace Park. Mr. Caison was persistent, though. He and volunteers created a second Peace Park a year later, at 22nd and Jefferson Streets in the Sharswood neighborhood. “None of us know what we are made of until we are challenged,” he says. “Oftentimes you don’t see what you’re made of until you are tested.” Mr. Caison says the Peace Park teaches people all kinds of things, such as healthy lifestyle prac- tices, entrepreneurship, and design. A group of students wanted to build a pond, so now there’s a pond. A group of second and third graders came up with the idea of making a playground area called “imagination land.” So they built it out of tires and other materials available in the nearby environment. “Our whole park has been shaped by young people!” Mr. Caison says. Kids will walk by and proudly say, “Hey, I designed that.” “When you make the environment better, that’s like a plus for everybody,” he says. “The magic is working together as a collective—working together as a calm team.” Mr. Caison hopes the Peace Park becomes one of many. 7 “Take a space that is unproductive and make it productive, take a place that is boring and make it fun,” he says. Most important: “Choose positivity,” he says. “In everything you do in life you have choice. You may not feel like it sometimes, but you are in the driver’s seat of your life. The power is in your hands.” —By Healthy Bulldog staff AMY Northwest Illustration by Dominic Rivera, eighth grade, St. Veronica Healthy Hero