On April 24, 2026, We Broke Ground on The Source
For those of us who have been dreaming about this space for years — who have watched our young people navigate a community that didn’t always have enough room for them — it doesn’t feel like a small thing. It feels like a declaration.
From Erika Chavarria, executive director of Columbia Community Care:
At the groundbreaking for The Source, I shared something that a colleague said to me recently — something that has stuck. Kelly Clark, Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer for the Howard County Library System, told me: “We are living in someone else’s imagination.” Every space we enter — a school, a home, a gathering place — was once an idea in someone’s mind.
But I want to take that further. We are not just living in someone else’s imagination. We are living in their intention, their motivation, their goals. And that raises a question worth sitting with: whose imagination are we choosing to live in?
The Source is our answer to that question.
It is not one person’s vision. It is our collective imagination — built from the shared dreams and hopes of this community, and what our youth leader and partner Matthew Vaughn-Smith calls our collective freedom dream.
Earlier that same morning, I was at a gathering hosted by WE OUR US, an organization doing powerful community safety work in Baltimore City. Their motto has stayed with me all day: We all we got. We all we need.
That is the spirit of The Source.
We didn’t wait for someone else to come build what we knew our young people deserved. We came together — with what we have, with who we are — and we are building it ourselves.
I want to say directly to the young people from STAND, Homewood, and PUSH: you are the reason we are here. Every design decision, every conversation, every year of planning — it has all been done with you in mind and because of you. This space is yours.
I also want to acknowledge the people who made this possible: our CCC Board, our extraordinary volunteer leadership team, our community partners, the Howard County school system, County Executive Calvin Ball, developer Brian Kim and the Columbia Concepts team, and our architects at KGD. This has truly been a community effort — and that’s exactly how it should be.
One moment I didn’t expect to feel as deeply as I did: offering a blessing over the hands that will build this place. To every construction worker who will step onto this site, we are grateful for you. We pray for your safety and your strength. May every beam lifted and every foundation poured carry the spirit of what this space is meant to be.
The Source is us saying: we are enough.
It is us building something that reflects who we are and who we believe our young people can become. A place where Howard County families are safe, supported, and seen.
Today was not just a groundbreaking. It was a declaration.
And we are just getting started.
