Sugar House
I live in the Sugar House area of Salt Lake City. I've lived there my whole life. Almost every part of my life takes place in Sugar House: from home and school, to shopping with my friends. If I didn't like my community, I'd be in trouble. I like my neighborhood because of the diversity and sense of unity.
I know a lot of people in my neighborhood. Many of them are my good friends. I go swimming in the little neighborhood pool with them in the summer and sled down the steep alley with them in the winter. Sometimes I shoot baskets with the middle-aged woman who lives next door.
There are also people I haven't met but that I feel like I know because I can look out my bedroom window and see them walking their dog, or riding their bike with their friends. There's the old woman across the street who sometimes comes out of her house in a bathrobe to call her cat, Gary. The man next door is a mechanic who always has some old-fashioned car parked in his driveway for fixing up. There are the two Jewish boys who race home from the synagogue with their ties flapping in the wind and their shirts untucked. My community would not be complete without any of them.
My parents sometimes send me down to Liberty Heights, which is the little market on the corner, to buy bread or salad. On my way there I pass the house of a member of my band. I can hear him playing ping-pong in the back yard. I pass the alley that we sled down in the winter. I pass the house that I've decided I'm going to live in when I grow up. And finally I pass the grocery store owned by polygamists where I used to buy my candy.
My community is very diverse. In a few blocks, there are Catholics, Jews, and Mormons. Everyone gets along and no one cares about differences.
I can't see myself ever leaving and adjusting to another, different community. I love my community. My community is my home.
---
Maddie Rice is a seventh-grade student at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic School.
Mt. Carmel
By Dallen Esplin
My community is very small. It is on Highway 89. Most of the houses are very close to the road, with fields behind the houses. I really like my community because I never hear guns shooting, or people screaming. I feel very safe here.
The three main jobs are farming, ranching and tourism.
A neat thing about my community is that I live very close to Zion National Park. People from all over the world come to see it. I get to meet many of them because my family has a cabin by our house that people rent to stay in when they come to see the park.
Some of these people have said we are lucky to be able to see so many stars at night. It made me think how lucky I am to live in a community small enough that lights and smog don't block our view to the stars.
Another neat thing about my community is the Historic Old Rock Church, which is right across the highway from my house. My Grandpa went to church there until he went into the Army. Now it is a visitors' center for the tourists. People in the community use it for weddings and receptions, or family reunions.
Every year at Christmas we have a party in the Old Rock Church. We have a potluck dinner, Santa comes, and we play musical chairs.
I've lived in this community all of my life. I am the fifth generation of my family to live here. My dad used to live in the house I live in right now. The farm my dad works on received an award for being in the same family for one hundred years or more. It's called a Centennial Farm.
There is a hill by Highway 89 that my friends and I play on. We have built a treehouse and many other huts up on that hill. Sometimes our Moms have to honk the car horn to tell us that it's time to come home.
I ride a bus to school, which is two miles away. We have just one class per grade, and there are about 30 students in each class. My school is mostly made out of bricks, and has been getting bigger for a few months. The students and teachers are all really excited about the new addition to our school.
There might be some disadvantages to living in a small community, but the good things make it worth it.
---
Dallen Esplin is a fourth-grade student at Valley Elementary in Orderville, Utah. He lives in Mt. Carmel.
