Youths from the neighborhood around Central Avenue Park play a game of basketball on one of the courts at the park.

The Providence Journal / Frieda Squires

EAST PROVIDENCE

With pink sneakers securely tied with purple laces, the scared, early-teen tomboy waited on the rusted picnic bench for the right mix of boys to play with. They needed to be open enough to share the basketball court with a girl, but cocky enough to think they couldn’t lose to a girl.

It was one of my earliest battles with self-esteem.

I learned what humility was at the Central Avenue Playground as well. In front of all my friends and crushes, my older cousin announced no one was allowed to date me if they wanted to stay alive.

And then there was a crash course in financial planning. A small allowance, couch change and the money leftover from playing your grandfather’s lottery numbers couldn’t possible pay for my daily Palagi’s ice cream fix and shoe rentals for duckpin bowling.

Although I didn’t realize them then, the educational benefits of being a Central Park kid were invaluable.

“I raised my five kids here,” Onna Moniz-John, the city’s former affirmative action officer, said yesterday. Pointing at her previous McCausland Avenue home, which borders the park, she continued with a chuckle, “They thought this was their park.”

She believes ownership is the key reason the area has survived.

“The park was never rehabbed for 25 years,” she said recalling the late 1980s. “There wasn’t any upkeep and it was falling apart. The kids [all the neighborhood kids and not just her own] were angry.”

Moniz-John urged them to fight. They wrote petitions and canvassed the streets for support before making a presentation to the then-City Council members.

And it worked. The council moved $25,000 that was earmarked for maintenance and improvements for the Kent Heights recreation site park to Central. The Planning Board also applied for several state and federal grants. East Providence had $135,000 to spend on the neglected playground when it was all said and done.

The kids were even allowed to design the present playground. Manny Oliveira picked the gigantic boat to replace the rickety merry-go-round. A mini basketball court to improve one’s dunking ability. A walking, biking, skateboard path instead of another apparatus. New swings to jump off and be a daredevil. And of course, completely new basketball courts.

It was hard to dribble around the weeds that sprouted up through the cracks. That’s my excuse for being a gunner — someone who prefers to ball hog and shoot every trip down the court instead of passing and being a team player.

The renovations were celebrated with a Neighborhood Day. It is now a packed annual event always held on the third Saturday in August. People come from as far as St. Croix, California and Florida to attend.

The 16th celebration is tomorrow, beginning with a memorial walk at 9 a.m. Area residents who have died are remembered each year for simply being a Central Park kid or neighbor.

“You don’t have to be a hero,” Moniz-John said. “You just have to love the park.”

This year’s four honorees are: Fernando Resendes, who lived across the street and often came to Moniz-John’s for a meal; Jamal Jackson, of McCausland Avenue, who died at 30 in April while taking an agility test to be a correctional officer at the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility, in Central Falls; Donald Delgado, a first generation parker; and Natasha Gonsalves, a former Miss Teen USA participant who was stabbed to death in March. The 18-year-old was the daughter of Mark Gonsalves, who lives on nearby Payette Street, Moniz-John said.

Up until this year, Moniz-John spearheaded a committee of more than a dozen folk who organized all of the day’s activities — a deejay, food, dance presentations, kiddie competitions and so much more. The basketball invitational and dunk contest clearly takes the spotlight. Local college greats like God Shammgod, Percy Davis, Tony Robinson have all competed here. And Sly Williams and Austin Croshere, who both went on to the NBA, participated too.

The basketball was also a chance for the teenagers and younger adults to have positive moments with the city’s police officers, who with the firefighters, always put a team in the invitational, which will be named after Jackson from this point forward. Moniz-John and then Chief Gary Dias — who never missed a year while he was chief — believed it was the best way to improve police relations.

The kids, myself included, always felt the cruisers came by more than necessary. We are a proud bunch.

“Our park kids go back three generations,” Moniz-John said. “This is the first park where the neighborhood feels ownership. Adults who used to be kids now bring their kids and pick up the glass and trash along the way.”

An impressed Elmer Pina, the new affirmative action officer, said, “I can see this is truly, truly a tradition.”

Although it is his first time running Neighborhood Day, the Providence-raised Pina — who is not related to me — played in previous basketball tournaments at Central Park.

He was hired for the city’s substance-abuse task force in May 2005 and shortly thereafter, Moniz-John took him “under her wing,” Pina said.

“She had a plan for me and I just didn’t know it,” Pina said. He was officially hired to replace her last month, but he had been filling in when the city needed it ever since she retired last year. “When she told me once, I said, ‘Yeah, OK, right.’ How can I be the next Onna Moniz. I consider her the sensei.”

He agreed this is her “baby,” a project she did each year out of love and a sense of pride for her neighborhood.

Said Pina, “That’s why I don’t want to drop the ball.”

Yet as soon as Moniz-John arrived, she congratulated him for getting new lines drawn on the basketball courts. Her vision, which she thinks should be Pina’s now, is to have Neighborhood Day citywide every year on the third Saturday in August.

“Neighborhood Day means a lot because what it does is keeps the people attached to the park,” she said. “It has turned into a huge community reunion where everyone has a park story to tell.”

Moniz-John’s fondest memory is too personal to share, but I’ll never forget the first day I brought my husband — who wasn’t my husband then — there. We were using car headlights to play kickball with my niece, nephews and other Central Park kids.

I was asked to do a back flip, which I did often in the park when I was younger and thinner. But the tomboy in me, always wanting to impress, couldn’t resist the request. My arms weren’t as strong as they used to be and I fell on my head. I laughed it off and did it better the next time.

To this day, he tells people that was the moment he knew I was a “keeper.”

East Providence High school alumni planning Balloon Day1

EAST PROVIDENCE — Another community event this weekend is the Townie Balloon Day at Larisa Park on Sunday.

The event, sponsored by the East Providence High School Alumni Association, will “demonstrate that as sons and daughters of EPHS, we are proud and grateful for our experiences and what we have been given,” wrote association president John Butler, a 2007 graduate, in a recent news release.

Butler continued, “And by establishing a community-based context for the Alumni Association, we are once again strengthening the bond between alma mater and the people she nourishes.”

Balloon Day — which was spearheaded by Arnie McConnell, Class of 1967 and a former high school teacher — starts at 2 p.m. and admission is free. The association encourages all to bring a picnic lunch. The group said all children will also receive a free “EP” balloon, which was financed by fundraising from last month’s Heritage Festival.

“There is a great deal of affection for East Providence High School,” Butler said. “By holding events like this, we seek to unite Townie alumni and cultivate this affection for a greater good, namely the hallowed bond between EPHS alumni.”

The Alumni Association is continually in search of more members. For more information about joining or Balloon Day, contact Butler at ephsalumni@yahoo.com

apina@projo.com