For the third and final installment of our podcast series of interviews with winners of the Yolanda Garcia Community Planner (YGCP) award, Eve Baron, Director of the MAS Planning Center, speaks with Yolanda Garcia’s daughter, Yolanda Gonzalez. Gonzalez succeeded her mother, for whom the award is named, as Executive Director of We Stay/Nos Quedamos, a community organization in the South Bronx that developed an alternative plan for Melrose Commons in the 1990s, and now oversees the plan’s implementation. Baron and Gonzalez discuss the plan’s creation, and the challenges and victories of community organizing in the South Bronx. The YGCP award jury is currently in the process of choosing the 2009 winner. This year’s award will be presented at MAS’ annual meeting in July.

The image above shows Yolanda Gonzalez, center, joined by her family and South Bronx elected officials, at a street renaming ceremony in honor of her mother, Yolanda Garcia in February of this year. Third Avenue between 156th and 157th Streets is now known as “Yolanda Garcia Way.”

Visit www.mas.org/ygcpa for more information about the Yolanda Garcia Community Planner Award and past year’s recipients.