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Dear friend,
Last week Conexión Américas lost a special friend and neighbor and I lost one of the key people who helped me find home in Nashville and fully embraced me as a Nashvillian.
Jim Ridley touched my life in ways he didn't know. He wrote the most beautiful words about Casa Azafrán after the grand opening in December 2012: “At Casa Azafrán's grand opening, the culturally interlaced Nashville of the future arrives early." He had a gift for seeing deeper and for seeing things before others. As personally and intimately invested as I was in the making of this community center, Jim Ridley understood what it meant to Nashville—and to his own neighborhood—in ways that I could have never articulated. His words became, to me, a prophetic challenge to fulfill. I hope Casa Azafrán becomes some of the potential he saw in it. And just the trying and striving to achieve it are part of Jim Ridley's legacy to me, to Conexión Américas, and to Nashville. I hope you will read more about Jim's life and legacy in the Nashville Scene. We will miss Jim terribly. We send our sincere sympathy to his family and to the Nashville Scene team.
