Advocacy groups No Hate Here, Newburgh Matters and Hudson Valley Black Lives Matter have teamed together to create a monthly “Newburgh Community Circle,” where residents are welcome to join an open discussion on the issues that affect the community.

The first Newburgh Community Circle was on Sunday, August 23 at Downing Park.

Newburgh residents Cynthia Gilkeson and Micha Miranda founded Newburgh Matters in early August.

“We were trying to organize around Black lives,” said Gilkeson. “And we sat down and I said we should have a community circle where we ask people what changes they’d like to see.”
Around 25 people attended Sunday’s community circle.

“We want to involve the community and form a network for neighbors to get together and take care of their city,” said Miranda.

Caryn Sobel, founder of No Hate Here, said, “It’s more than just marching. We need to take next steps and that’s why we wanted to come together as a community and figure it out.”

After Gilkeson, Miranda and Sobel made a quick introduction at the community circle, attendees were split up into four groups to answer an assigned question.

The questions included what does it mean to defund the police in Newburgh, how has poverty impacted the community here, what kinds of changes does Newburgh need, and how can we keep Newburgh’s street clean?

In addition to each group answering one of those questions, they also answered the questions what is gentrification and how does it affect Newburgh.

The small groups had around 30 minutes to discuss where ideas were then brought to a larger discussion.

Attendees expressed their concern regarding Newburgh’s police department, poverty, cost of housing, lack of transparency and more.

The crowd consisted of advocates, with many being a part of other organizations as well. There were individuals from We Are Newburgh, Together We Can, 845 Unity and more.
Orange County legislator Kevindaryán Luján was also in attendance.

“Next steps would be to try and inform people about city politics,” said Gilkeson. “That’s going to involve us communicating with local politicians, so that we can influence legislation and try to bring about real change in the city.”

Newburgh Matters can be found on Facebook, where they will be posting future events and information on the next community circle, as the date has not yet been set.