Originally published on SaportaReport.
By Hannah E. Jones, Park Pride’s Marketing & Communications Manager
Home, community, resilience, a place to dream – these are just a few words that neighbors use to describe Four Corners Park.
Four Corners Park is a nearly five-acre park nestled in Atlanta’s Peoplestown neighborhood. The park is home to the Rick McDevitt Youth Center, a playground, a pavilion, two basketball courts, and a community garden.
Over the years, the park and its Youth Center have become vital spaces for neighbors to connect, participate in programming, receive needed resources and simply have fun.
Four Corners Park is a beloved community asset yet it’s sorely under-resourced, and that’s why Park Pride is proud to have awarded the Friends of the Park group with a significant, vision-advancing grant – the single largest grant in the 2025 Grant Cycle.
The grant will fund a new playground, pavilion and walking path, which were included in the 2023 comprehensive park plan that was created in collaboration with the Park Pride Visioning team, the Friends of Four Corners Park and the Peoplestown neighbors.
“[This grant] has a significant impact for us and to know that we have friends like Park Pride, who recognize the work we’ve been doing and our commitment, it’s great,” said Columbus Ward, a lifelong Peoplestown resident who is heavily involved with the Friends of Four Corners Park and Peoplestown Revitalization Corporation.
He added, “This is real now.”
When Ward was a kid, the park was a vacant lot that he and his friends would visit to play softball. The City of Atlanta later installed a playground and, about 20 years ago, additional parcels were acquired to expand the park. Since then, the park has remained largely untouched.
The City was also previously managing the recreation center but, in the late 1980s, it was slated to be demolished. Ward was among the group of neighbors that banded together to save the Rick McDevitt Youth Center. They worked out an agreement to spare the building if the community manages the space. And this has been no easy feat. There have been times the community has had to cover the cost of utilities, funded through community donations and a partnership with T-Mobile.
Sustaining the Youth Center for nearly 40 years is a true testament to the dedication of the Peoplestown residents, the importance of the Center and the power of community.
That’s why neighbors worked with Park Pride’s Visioning team for nearly a year to create a new park plan, with the goal of transforming the park into a space that reflects the neighborhood’s needs and desires.
“I think Park Pride recognized that it’s time. We really appreciate the funding,” said George Epps, a Peoplestown native and the Program & Facility Manager for Community Care, Inc., which is housed in the Rick McDevitt Youth Center. “We dedicated almost a year to the Vision Plan because people want to see it come to fruition.”
Sherise Brown, a community organizer and Peoplestown resident for over 30 years, added, “I have to give a lot to Park Pride because once they started coming over, they stayed connected. We’re on a first-name basis. I’d like to applaud them for investing in our community and staying true. A lot of people come around and say what they would like to do and then we don’t see them anymore. But Park Pride stayed true.”
On any given day, there could be a whole host of activities at the Youth Center – community meetings, family celebrations, after-school programs, senior activities, sports games, cookouts – and that’s just to name a few. The Friends group also creates opportunities for intergenerational learning, including a program where neighborhood kids are paired with seniors to teach them tech skills like how to use a cell phone, set up an email and more.
And the secret sauce? Everyone gets treated like family.
“Not everybody is family, but the Center brings everyone together like family,” said CJ Jones, a Peoplestown native and founder of Dream Builders of Atlanta, a nonprofit based in the Youth Center that offers skill-building and vocational training to underserved youths.
This is a full-circle moment. When he was younger, Jones was mentored by others in his community and now, he’s moved from mentee to mentor.
“CJ is a product of the community, our mentorship and the youth programs that we’ve provided,” Epps said. “I’m grateful to have young folks come back and thrive and continue to try to give back to their neighborhood.”
The Friends of Four Corners Park are an incredible testament to the power of parks and their essential role in strengthening our social fabric. While other things may drag us down, our parks and greenspaces lift us back up.
“A lot of people would be lost without this space,” Brown said. “Bottom line. From youth to seniors – this is our hub. It’s home away from home.”
