What D-Well Means To Me…

 

“It’s easier to say what D-Well has done for me than it is to say what I have done for D-Well, but being a part of such an incredible group of people empowers me every day. Being surrounded by so many creative and innovative minds makes me dream more, and strive for more as a whole. As the newest member, I’ve immediately seen my quality of life improve and my overall happiness. My outlook on life has expanded further in a positive direction and I see endless opportunities. In life itself. I can honestly say that life is extremely better in all aspects, and I am incredibly grateful for it each and every day. I have lived in the Las Vegas Valley for over 15 years, and this is the first time I have felt the safest in my home, especially being young and outside of my family’s jurisdiction for the last 4-6 years. Being a part of the D-Well program also makes it possible to live a sustainable life in one of the most beautiful parts of Las Vegas. It is such a pleasure to be a part of this program and the community that lives and thrives here in the 211 apartments. Though you live in a studio apart independently, you never feel alone or forgotten here. I’m more than happy to share my thoughts and appreciation for the D-Well program with anyone, and look forward to continuing to grow personally and professionally here.” – Moee Turbin

 

D-well has allowed an opportunity to continue and expand both my personal arts practice and community based work. Living among the community in the 211 and downtown makes it easy and enjoyable to cultivate relationships and take part in various events in our community. In my experience D-well has been, and continues to be, an excellent platform for personal, professional and communal growth. – Chase McCurdy

 

“As a marketer and a creative at heart, D-Well has given me a space to nurture my passions and strengths. This program has given me a community platform to network with diverse groups and share my knowledge. In the same way, D-Well has also challenged me to push beyond my comfort zone and explore my interests. I often find myself immersed in uncharted territory, continuously allowing me to challenge my creativity.” – Desiree De Costa

 

“The D-Well program is instrumental in my personal development. It has surrounded myself with creatives and entrepreneurs whom stimulate my creativity & connect me with others in my community. We are a bunch of like minded individuals though because we come from different backgrounds and life experiences, each person brings something unique to the table. Since we all live in a nearby environment opportunities for collisions, co-learning and connectedness happen frequently. I am sincerely grateful for this opportunity to be a part of this program.” – Brent Buffone

 

“As a designer or even musician, I tackle problems in a very structured way. I use that logic in a parallel way in every aspect of my life. In D-Well we focus on co-living, making “impact”. In times before I felt like i wanted it to be more – of what I wasn’t sure. But at the end of the day this community has taken me back to a time before I felt like I “learned too much”. It challenges me to go back to earlier memories like in grade school where we were put together for a group project. Only this time it’s not for a grade, it’s a real life scenario. To have the opportunity to make an actual impact in people’s lives. It holds a great responsibility which means a lot to me. We all have our own projects, collectively traveling in the same direction. Forward. It is a work in progress. But I believe if we all hold the grand purpose close to us that it can become far greater, bigger than any of us individually and that excites me.” – Lucas Ybarra 

 

“D-Well is my backyard, my community, my group of friends, and my accountability partners to do positive work for our community, and our life goals. As a millennial entrepreneur, D-Well is helping me discover the balance of business metrics like revenue and expenses with social impact for my local community; while creating opportunities to make that positive social impact. I love my fellows in the D-Well cohort, and I’m grateful to be part of a community that I can count on. The #1 benefit of the program is being neighbors with a diverse group of friends that support one another in our own pursuit of making a positive impact on our community through our work. This support comes in the form of collaboration, networking, volunteering, and friendship. ” – Elias Benjelloun

 

This past year at The 211 has been a big transformation for me in ways I never imagined. When I first started I had this really high expectation for myself and the group. I thought we were going to change Las Vegas together forever, and it was hard at first. I put a lot of pressure on us, and I didn’t really understand why we weren’t working together more. I couldn’t even articulate what the D-Well program was. I started to realize that we were all just so busy and had different schedules, so it was going to be impossible for everyone to do everything together. That’s what I thought I wanted for us, and the idea that I had of D-Well in my head.  I just kind of fell into this thought process of, ‘well, this is going to be whatever I make of it,’ you know? It can be really helpful if I take advantage of the opportunities being presented to me, but there won’t be much growth if I just keep doing what I am doing while living in a different place. It took me several months to realize that we were being rewarded and recognized because we already were change-makers, and that the path to change Las Vegas together was already happening because of our connection.
 
It took some time to build up our repose with one another, which I was so anxious to do because I wanted to collaborate with everyone in some way at some point. That didn’t happen exactly, but I want to share a few things that did!
 
Brent Buffone, a D-Well resident, was really inspired by all the plants that I had in my room (I think everyone is, a little), and he reached out to me to start a community garden. Brent is great at communicating with everyone; a social butterfly for sure. I thought it was a great way for us to make a change, even if it was only at The 211. He brought over his parents’ compost. I got us some planters donated. He bought some dirt. I bought some dirt. We got a bunch of seeds together and planted different things. Then we ended up going to Star Nursery and getting a bunch of veggies to plant. Everyone at The 211 loved it. We brought the backyard to life! Now, The 211 has received permission and plans to create an even better garden with an irrigation system and everything. So, it’s really exciting to me to see how just two people can have such a great impact on their community just by making things green.
 
The next big project I did was inspired by Alison Yanez, the D-Well manager. She was telling me about how she wanted to get Hispanic children involved in theater, and we were talking about maybe doing children’s theatre in Spanish, and my mind popped. I have been doing theatre in Las Vegas for about fifteen years now, and I had never heard of anyone doing a play in Spanish. Now, I have come to realize that it does happen, but not very often, but I wanted to really tap into that idea of doing a Spanish play. Well, I have habit of setting ambitious goals for myself, so in that moment of talking with Alison I decided I was going to do Romeo and Juliet in Spanish at the Las Vegas Fringe Festival. But that wasn’t enough, I had to do my version of the play that I had been working on for six years, which is backwards. It starts with their death scene and ends with their first kiss. It’s the story about what happens after they die, and how they find each other in the after-life and move on to Heaven together. I translated my adaptation using an archaic Spanish version of the play, and I hired a director, and we had auditions at The 211, and Lucas Ybarra, a D-Well resident, ended up running sound for the show. It turned out, as a music producer, he had always wanted to create a soundtrack for a film, so he got to experience that in a way, and I was happy to be able to give him that opportunity. It was probably the most stressful thing I have ever done, but I can say now that I successfully produced the first Spanish play at the Las Vegas Fringe Festival in 2018.
 
As a person I have grown as well. I got a great job at the Mob Museum, started going to church, paying off my student loans, my traffic tickets, got my driver’s license, got a car, even got my hands on a little space I turned into a black box theater during the summer that let the community use for free. We even threw a successful D-Well event there. Which was what I had been craving for us the whole time. Brent interviewed another D-Well member, Chase McCurdy, in front of his awesome art presentation, and we all had things to share, and engaged with people who were interested in the program.
 
I signed on board for another year in D-Well,  and I can’t wait to see what else I do. D-Well really helped me get things together. I don’t think I would be the same person without these people. I am truly thankful. I am currently working on learning blockchain technology, and how to incorporate it with theatre. Oh, and I think I might join the police academy. I don’t know where I am going or where I am headed, but I’m really excited to be apart of D-Well. – Oliver Jones