I was a good Catholic girl and then I’ve only moved once and that’s when my husband and I bought our home. They were both professionals who came to work for Martin Marietta, bought their house here in Central Florida. My dad is Colombian, my mom’s from Argentina. Mayra Uribe: Well, I think we’ve become more diverse. Your dad worked for Martin Marietta, which Lockheed Martin has a big presence in this area. I mean, you say, ‘we look different than we did 50 years ago,’ but you grew up here. Lisa Bell: This area does seem like people who live and work in this area have a lot of commonalities.
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Mayra Uribe: We look different than we did 50 years ago, but we’re embracing everyone and everyone is welcome. Uribe says the population in 32825 has evolved over the decades, but the strong sense of community continues. She says many subdivisions have group chats, alerting each other about suspicious activity, sharing doorbell videos and keeping an eye out for one another. Uribe says those neighborhoods are also great partners with law enforcement because neighbors know their neighbors. I mean, nowadays unfortunately, when a development goes up, it automatically has an HOA because there’s all these risks and liabilities and all that, but when you see voluntary, that means somebody cares, and even right behind us Rio Pinar Woods, voluntary, they have one of the best National Night Outs. When you say ‘voluntarily’ they donate to this pool (of money) and they have trunk-or-treats and Easter get-togethers and things like that and that says a lot because that means they care about where they live. Sometimes they’re revved up about issues and we do have issues, we can’t ignore that that, you know, growth and development does come with a cost, but what’s true is that commitment to each other, neighbor to neighbor, how they came together during difficult times, during COVID, during the hurricanes, they were there for each other and they support each other and they really try to be in a consensus. Mayra Uribe: I love that because you’ve got Peppertree across the street, you’ve got Rio Pinar, they meet once a year, they’re all excited. Who does that? Who volunteers to join an HOA, right? There’s a lot of pride, even the HOAs are voluntary. Lisa Bell: Subdivisions here in 32825 have been here for decades and they are pretty tight-knit. So it’s a community with lots of character and lots of love and a lot of dedication. You’ve got the phenomenal Rio Pinar, you’ve got Don Julios, you’ve got all these neighborhoods: Peppertree, Azalea Park in this area, which really attribute also to the older schools like Colonial High School, and what they call Roberto Clemente that used to be Stonewall, when you talk to folks they went to Colonial 40, 50, 60 years ago. It’s kind of where everything was built first and then everything moved out. I say District Three is the heart of Orange County.
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Lisa Bell: For people who have not visited this area, what is it like? News 6 Anchor Lisa Bell recently sat down with Commissioner Uribe at Don Julio’s Mexican Kitchen and Tequila Bar to learn more about 32825. Many people who live in the 32825 ZIP code grew up there, including the area’s county commissioner, Mayra Uribe. – While many parts of Central Florida are transforming right before our eyes, one thing that makes 32825 unique is its rich history and neighborhood roots.