Hayden Conner Ashworth, a resident of Windsor Square, was elected to chair the Greater Wilshire Neighborhood Council’s Outreach Committee at the committee’s August 1st meeting. His election was ratified last night by the GWNC board at it monthly meeting. Ashworth takes over from Max Kirkham, who served as chair for the past several years. Kirkham is now serving as Vice President of the GWNC Board. Ashworth was elected as the Renters representative to the board in April of last year.
“I think I found out about getting involved in the neighborhood council from the Larchmont Buzz,” recalled Ashworth. An LA native, Ashworth has lived in various neighborhoods in the city but says he has really found a community in the Greater Wilshire area, where he has lived for the last four years. Â He moved to the neighborhood to be closer to Hollywood, where he used to work as a free-lance producer…but recently he’s changed gears.
After the pandemic shut down all filming and production, Ashworth contacted City Councilmember David Ryu’s office to see how he could volunteer to help. CD4 staff connected him to L.A. Works, a non-profit, volunteer action center that connects volunteers with projects throughout the city, and Ashworth started working as a volunteer doing COVID-19 testing at LAUSD.
“I was looking for a way to get involved and was willing to work in a higher risk situation,” explained Ashworth. “I started as a volunteer, registering people and doing the actual testing. Now I am working on the staff managing the mobile teams that go out to underserved neighborhoods and bring the testing to people who can’t drive to a testing center.”
When we spoke to Ashworth yesterday, he told us he is planning to open a walk-in testing site in Echo Park at the end of this week. He is also working with the Los Angeles Fire Department to test fire fighters who are being deployed to fires around the state and beyond as fire season gets underway.
Ashworth told the Buzz that he hopes the Outreach Committee will find more ways to connect with the community. For example, you might see volunteers showing up a few Sundays a month at the Larchmont Farmers Market to answer questions about the work of the neighborhood council.
“I hope we can increase awareness of the council and work with other committee chairs to get the community more involved and reach out to the diverse neighborhood in the district,” said Ashworth.
The next meeting of the GWNC’s Outreach Committee is this Saturday at 9:30 a.m. Visit the GWNC website for more information.
