Ryan Hunt is director of communications and engagement for the city of Cathedral City and can be reached at rhunt@cathedralcity.gov or 540-664-8556.

For decades, Cathedral City’s Dream Homes neighborhood had nearly everything a community needs — except a place to gather. One of the oldest neighborhoods in the Coachella Valley, Dream Homes had long watched playgrounds open in other parts of town while their own children played in the street. That changed in May 2025, when the city opened Esperanza Park — 7.5 acres of ball fields, dog runs, and shaded picnic tables built almost entirely from a design the neighborhood drew itself.

The park is the visible part of a much longer story. The push began in 2014, but it rested on decades of the city showing up to neighborhood meetings, public safety efforts, and steady partnerships with trusted community partners, including Agua Caliente Elementary School and the Desert Healthcare District. None of that work made headlines. All of it made the park possible.

“This park started from a blank slate,” says John Corella, the city’s director of public works. “Residents sat down and told us what they wanted, and a decade later that is what got built — not a version of it. There were stretches where nobody could say where the funding would come from, and this neighborhood never once wavered.”

Even so, the planning hit trouble. Traditional outreach drew the same faces — retirees, homeowners, and people with free evenings — while the working parents and children who would actually use the park stayed home. Then the pandemic closed the door to in-person meetings entirely, right as the design phase began.

Rather than waiting the pandemic out, staff turned to Agua Caliente Elementary and folded park planning into the school’s distance learning lessons. For eight days, students spent part of their day talking about what belonged in a park. Teachers led the discussions. Parents listened in from kitchen tables. City staff shared design concepts over video calls and gathered feedback through online surveys and social media.

Over 1,000 comments came back — far more than any community-room workshop had ever produced, and from exactly the people the city had been missing.

The name of the new park worked the same way. Members of the city’s Parks and Community Events Commission went door to door collecting suggestions. Surveys went out to every household, with drop boxes at city hall and the public library. Students, teachers, and the Agua Caliente Elementary principal weighed in. Nearly 500 responses came back, and one word kept surfacing: esperanza. Hope.

“This is something that they want, and it’s come full circle through hope,” says Evett PerezGil, a Dream Homes community member who also represents the Desert Healthcare District. “Through hope of a community that has been able to stick together and build resiliency.”

The park that opened is the one those families described. Dog parks, large and small. Soccer and basketball. Shade everywhere, because a desert park without shade is a park nobody visits in July. And a connection to the CV Link, the regional pathway toward the Salton Sea, so residents can reach the park without a car.

“It takes courage to invest in a neighborhood that has waited too long, and trust that the work being done today will lift this community tomorrow,” says Mayor Raymond Gregory. “Esperanza Park is what that looks like. Parks like this one transform lives.”

Nearly $8.5 million came from the Statewide Park Program, secured with the help of former Asm. Eduardo Garcia, with the city funding the remaining $3.1 million. A partnership with the Desert Recreation District, made possible after voters approved Measure W with 74% support, keeps programming running year-round.

The approach has spread beyond parks. For other projects, the city now goes out into the community — into schools, neighborhood gatherings, and events residents already attend — rather than waiting for people to come to city hall.

“The best ideas in that park came from the neighborhood itself,” says City Manager Andrew Firestine. “Once the conversation moved into classrooms and living rooms, participation went up tenfold. Esperanza Park changed how we think about reaching people, and we have carried that approach into other projects since.”

The work didn’t stop at the ribbon-cutting. In 2026, the city ran Esperanza Rising, a four-part art and culture series on the park grounds. Residents picked the park’s mural from 58 concepts and then helped paint it. “Rooted in Hope,” by Coachella Valley artist Autumn Martino, was unveiled in October on the wall facing the CV Link.

A decade in, the habit of asking first has stuck.

Cathedral City received a 2026 Helen Putnam Award of Excellence in the Enhancing Public Trust, Ethics, and Community Involvement category.