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LHENA History
The Lowry Hill East Neighborhood Association, or LHENA (pronounced LEE-nah), can trace its history back to the 1970s. At that time, neighbors came together to form an organization to build community, plan home tours, and host ice cream socials. As the hub of neighborhood activity, LHENA started one of the city’s first neighborhood newspapers. The Wedge was a multi-page newspaper fielding advertisements from local businesses and stories from volunteer writers. The success of this paper and the founding of a neighborhood association inspired the creation of many others in the city. Though the last paper was published in 2012, LHENA continues to evolve in the age of social media and is still the center of neighborhood news and activities.
As funding and asks of LHENA have changed, so too have the foci of the organization. In the 1990s and early 2000s, the neighborhood developed Neighborhood Revitalization Program priorities, and throughout the 2010s, it created Community Participation Program priority plans. Noting the strengths and weaknesses of these previous plans and processes, the 2018/19 LHENA board decided to undergo a strategic planning process that will carry the organization through the end of 2020. |