On the outskirts of Kern County lies the community of Lamont. It is an unincorporated area 10 miles southeast of Bakersfield home to over 15,000 people. This corner of the county is made up of migrant farm workers, small business owners, and immigrant families, majority Hispanic. Despite this community’s rich agricultural production of cotton, potatoes, and grapes, many neighborhoods are without sidewalks. In neighborhoods that do have them, the concrete is often deteriorating and dangerous. Now, after years of planning, a handful of local nonprofits are working together to make Lamont streets safer and friendlier to its pedestrians. On the corner of Panama Road and Elmco Avenue in east Lamont sits a street lined not with lush trees but orange construction cones. “It looks like they are starting to do some work. They started marking the areas that will need the sidewalks and I think marking those areas that will stay. It’s going to look good,” said Gustavo Aguirre, Director of
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