Local artist Jozimar Matimano (center with hat), who came to the United States from Uganda in 2016, instructs the group on the painting of the mural at Keach Park on Saturday, June 25, 2022 as part of the Umuganda, a Kinyarwandan word that means “coming together for a common purpose to achieve an outcome.” GEOFF FORESTER—Monitor staff

Adam Hassan, left, helps with a garden in front of the tennis courts at Keach Park on Saturday, June 25, 2022. GEOFF FORESTER—Monitor staff

Artist Jozimar Matimano (center), who came to the United States from Uganda in 2016, instructs the group on the painting of the mural at Keach Park on Saturday. GEOFF FORESTER / Monitor staff

ABOVE: Cousins Amira Liozetter, 2, and Omayma Ali, 5, hug while watching residents build a garden in front of the tennis courts at Keach Park on Saturday. GEOFF FORESTER / Monitor staff

Adam Hassan and his daughter, Amira, 2, help establish a garden in front of the tennis courts at Keach Park on Saturday during a day of service led by the Overcomers Refugee Service in Concord. GEOFF FORESTER / Monitor staff

The mural being filled in at Keach Park on Saturday, June 25, 2022 as part of the Umuganda, a Kinyarwandan word that means “coming together for a common purpose to achieve an outcome.” GEOFF FORESTER—Monitor staff

LEFT: Artist Jozimar Matimano stands in front of the painting of the mural at Keach Park on Saturday during Umuganda, which means €œcoming together for a common purpose to achieve an outcome. GEOFF FORESTER / Monitor staff

Local artist Jozimar Matimano, who came to the United States from Uganda in 2016, stands in front of the painting of the mural at Keach Park on Saturday, June 25, 2022 as part of the Umuganda, a Kinyarwandan word that means “coming together for a common purpose to achieve an outcome.” GEOFF FORESTER—Monitor staff

For Adam Hassan, Umuganda is a chance to show his 2-year-old daughter a slice of life from home. Gathering to do community activities, like the gardening and painting that happened in Keach Park on Saturday, is a frequent feat in his home country of Sudan.

“I wanted to show her,” he said, pointing to his daughter, Amira Liozetter. “Back in Africa, all the time we do community stuff like this.”

As Liozetter played in the dirt of the new pollinator garden looking for blue slugs, Omayma Ali, Hassan’s 5-year-old niece, ran around wanting to get involved. She said Umuganda reminded her of field day at her kindergarten.

Hassan, who has lived in Concord for seven years, was one of many gathered in Keach Park to participate in Umuganda, a day dedicated to service and community building.

When Emmanuer Kalangnwe arrived at the park, he didn’t expect to meet so many new people. For him, Umuganda is about relationships.

“It can make this community together. White and darker people making the same goal together to do things together, like the garden,” he said.

Kalangnwe, who moved to Concord five years ago from Congo, says Saturday was a welcoming day for people to get to know each other in their new community.

At one point, with paint brushes in hand, more than 20 children lined up to add to a new mural.

That’s exactly what artist Jozimar Matimano had hoped when he designed the mural – to see people young and old, from all different backgrounds, coming together to paint.

The mural design features an outline of the United States filled with a rainbow paint. The outline is surrounded by different plants and objects, like a saxophone and a basketball. Matimano wants it to represent people’s dreams in America.

“We are trying to show that America is the land of opportunities,” he said. “There are all these opportunities here that we can get and we can appreciate.”

Standing on a ladder above the children, Morgan Greene filled in rainbow colors on the mural. She came across Umuganda after following Project S.T.O.R.Y., a group that works to support New American children in Concord.

Last summer Greene, who is 23 years old, worked at Kimball Jenkins summer camp, where she was first introduced to Project S.T.O.R.Y. participants. At Keach Park this weekend, she painted alongside those children as they worked on the mural.

For her, the day provided a combination of her favorite activities.

“I like painting, and saw Jozimar (Matimano ) was going to be here and I love his work,” she said. “And they’re doing the pollinator garden and I love bees. So really this was the ideal thing for me to do today.”

As Ann Podlinpy observed Umuganda, it was a full circle moment. She had stopped by Keach Park en route to see friends who lived one street over who are moving to Pennsylvania.

She remembers first meeting her friends, a family who came to Concord from a refugee came in Nepal, almost 12 years ago. They had arrived each with $20 dollars in their pockets. Now, they have saved enough money to buy a new house.

Podlinpy, who has worked with refugees and immigrants through Lutheran Social Services, appreciates the effort Umuganda brings to integrate the community.

“When more people come it creates a sense of community and friendship,” she said.

“It builds us together and gives all of us a chance to understand each other better.”

Two-year-old Amira followed the action and wanted to climb a ladder to paint with her cousin. Eileen Kane, a volunteer for Overcomers Refugee Service in Concord, helped her down as she raced to find a paint brush.

Kane, who helps New Americans with tasks like deciphering their tax bills or studying for their citizenship test, got to work alongside many of her previous clients during the day’s events.

“I thought this was such a great community project,” she said. “I love the idea of communities coming together to beautify the park.”

At the pollinator garden across the field, Leslie van Berkum, who designed the layout, gave instructions on how to plant the flowers in the soil. She explained in English, holding up flowers as examples showing those gathered how to dig a small hole, rough the roots of the pant, and then insert it in the soil.

Clement Kigugu, the executive director of Overcomers Refugee Service, stepped in to translate the directions to Swahili. The crowd began to plant.

Michaela Towfighi is a Report for America corps member covering the Two New Hampshires for the Monitor. She graduated from Duke University with a degree in public policy and journalism and media studies in 2022. At Duke she covered education, COVID-19, the 2020 election and helped edit stories about the Durham County Courthouse for The 9th Street Journal and the triangle area's alt-weekly Indy Week. Her story about a family grappling with a delayed trial for a fatal car accident in Concord won first place in Duke’s Melcher Family Award for Excellence in Journalism. Towfighi is an American expat who calls London, England, home despite being born in Boston.

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