Say His Name "Jeffery Hamilton Skate Park"

On Tuesday, May 1, 2018, I attended Hanford’s City Council Meeting. It was one of those evenings that I felt that I should attend. I soon found out why I was supposed to be there. When it came to the staff reports, Craig Miller spoke of the Skate Park 20-year Celebration that was held on the 28th of April.
My heart broke into pieces. In March my friend, Carolyn spoke to Armando da Silva and Craig Miller about honoring Jeffery Hamilton who was instrumental in having the skate park built. Jeffery Hamilton was 19 years old when he saw the need to have a place where skate boarders and in-line skaters could skate. He spent countless hours at city hall with Cathy Gregory and Mickey Stoddard while planning for this park. He did the Ribbon Cutting and on the weekends he would have me, his mother, Paula Massey, take him to the park to pick up trash because he wanted it to remain a clean and safe environment for the youth and young adults to play. Jeffery worked for the City of Hanford’s Recreation Department in the Summer Parks Program for several years. He was called upon to head the park program at Coe Park which had very few children attending. I remember one day while riding down Douty Street toward downtown, I saw a long, and I mean long, line of children walking. To my surprise they were being led by my son, Jeffery Hamilton. I mentioned to my friend, he was like the Pied Piper of Hanford, leading the children to the Library.
Jeffery volunteered at the Library as a story book reader. He would dress up in costume and act out a story for the children. Jeffery was a Ready Tutor in the After-School Program at Roosevelt Elementary School. He performed positive Rap at the Thursday Night Market Place.
My son developed Educational Reading and Math games. He would volunteer at the schools and teach and share with the children about the Japanese Culture. Japanese was his foreign language in High School. He was home schooled.
He became ill with Valley Fever. He became sick in 2010 and was not diagnosed until 2012. A year later he started having seizures which affected his brain and the way he functioned.
I shared with the City Council that I was hurt and disappointed that there was no call to me to let me know when the event would be. They told us that they would call and they could do something in his name. I let them know that it is important that when the citizens in this community contribute so much to better the community in which we live in, there should be recognition.