Category Archives: Intentional Communities

WACO, TX Children are our future and their well-being is vital to their roles in the community. United Way Waco-McLennan County conducted a Child Well-Being report to support the improvement of life for children and families in the area.

The year-long study found that a third of children live in poverty, looking between the ages of 0-5.

"Were at 29% of children under the age of 5 who are living in poverty," said Tiffani Johnson, Senior Director of Impact and Engagement.

Looking at those at a young age, Johnson says it's important to enhance their quality of life at an early age and you have to help the entire community to help them.

"We know that we ensure that resources are getting to communities that really could use them and that we are providing greater resources to those areas we will see greater outcomes," Johnson said.

There are many organizations working to fight for our children, one of them being Caritas, a non-profit food pantry that gives pounds of food to families daily.

"One in four kids have the potential of going to bed hungry tonight," said Alicia Jallah, Co-Executive Director.

20% of their clientele are children, with the pandemic, it's made finding food for families even harder. Their numbers have gone down since the height of the pandemic but there are still many in need.

"All of the food is going out to meet that need who are having a hard time right now with our families," Jallah said.

Texas is near the bottom of the list, at number 43 when it comes to overall child well-being. The state's even worse in regards to family and community well-being ranked 47th.

The United Way is working to improve those rankings in a few different ways. That includes; engaging the community, focusing on equity and intersectionality, emphasizing a two-generation approach to support families and being more intentional about cross-sector community involvement.

Johnson says it's about listening to those in need, hearing their stories and trying to make a change.

"When we better understand what the experience is we can understand also what the community's aspiration is for change and that's where we want to go," Johnson said.

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United Way conducts study to learn the well being of children in McLennan County - KXXV News Channel 25

The economic crisis triggered by COVID-19 pummeled small businesses across the nation, especially those without safety nets and access to credit. To alleviate those struggles, Congress established the Paycheck Protection Program, designed to provide forgivable loans to needy businesses at no interest.

The federal government intended the program, which started in March 2020 and sunset last month, to prioritize businesses in underserved markets, including socially and economically disadvantaged areas.

But the initial rollout neglected the neediest of small businesses, especially those in underserved communities, with many lenders hurrying first to aid their wealthier customer base. The U.S. Small Business Administration introduced reform measures in response, which led to more businesses in lower-income and diverse neighborhoods getting loans in subsequent rounds of funding.

The damage, though, had already been done, said Paulina Gonzalez-Brito, executive director of the California Reinvestment Coalition, a nonprofit group advocating for banking equality and accountability. Many minority-owned businesses had shuttered, unable to weather the storm without help.

That first phase was critical, and unfortunately, the government and banks did what they have been doing for a long time, which is redlining, she said, referring to the historical and systematic denial of services, including banking and housing, to certain communities through discriminatory tactics.

The same disparities were apparent in the Bay Area, according to a Chronicle analysis of more than 100,000 PPP loans. It showed some lenders processing a much larger share of PPP loans to businesses in higher-income neighborhoods or predominantly white Census tracts, when compared to areas that are lower-income or had a higher percentage of Black and Hispanic residents.

The review was based on the records of 66 lenders who administered 100 or more Bay Area loans and granted at least one loan to a business in each of the Bay Areas nine counties. These top lenders accounted for more than 90% of all loans in the Bay Area. Census tracts are small geographical areas that generally have a population between 1,200 and 8,000 people. The Chronicle designated higher-income tracts as areas with a household income of $150,000 or higher, and lower-income tracts as those with an income of $75,000 or lower.

The data offer a glimpse into which businesses these banks typically serve, as firms with existing banking relationships tended to be prioritized by banks for PPP loans, according to analysts and economists across the country. This was especially true in the early stages of the program, before many of the reform measures were instituted.

Experts say the data reflects generational failures of certain banks and their regulators to tighten the ever-widening gaps in lending and credit inequality, which the pandemic only served to exacerbate. Solutions to the disproportionate ways in which businesses were helped and not helped through PPP lie far beyond understanding this one program, but navigating the complexities of the root causes, they say.

I dont think any of us who have studied this issue for a long time were surprised (at) what happened with the banks, Gonzalez-Brito said. The banking industry has historically discriminated against people of color, she said, and the pandemic exacerbated these inequities.

The lenders who administered the greatest share of loans to higher-income Census tracts were Silicon Valley Bank at 37% and First Republic Bank at 34%, compared with 22% for all banks.

Silicon Valley Bank is a specialty bank that works with innovation economy entrepreneurs, investors and the premium wine industry, said spokesperson Eileen Nolan. We are not a retail bank and we work almost exclusively with companies in the tech and life sciences industries.

When PPP first became available, the bank surveyed its clients to determine need and eligibility, and extended loans based on that analysis, she said. It also invited non-clients to become clients and apply for a PPP loan. However, We recommended companies work with their existing banks for speed.

Nolan said the banks own analysis of PPP data from 2020 showed that 64.5% of loans in the Bay Area were made to businesses in predominantly minority Census tracts. Similar trends can be observed in The Chronicles analysis, which shows the bank was one of the top lenders to businesses in predominantly Asian tracts.

Because our technology and life science clients in the Bay Area tend to be based in higher-income Census tracts, we are actively working to expand our support to more diverse audiences and geographies within and beyond the sectors we serve, Nolan said.

Major national banks, including Bank of America, Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase, also awarded loans at disparate rates. Bank of America was responsible for the most loans in the Bay Area, processing more than 20,000 for $1.8 billion. The bank, the data show, delivered a higher-than-average percentage of loans to businesses in higher-income Census tracts, but a lower-than-average share of loans to predominantly white tracts.

In their efforts to reach underserved communities, though, these and other major banks lent their borrowing power to Community Development Financial Institutions, or CDFIs, which are smaller financial institutions dedicated to helping disadvantaged communities but dont have the same capacity. These efforts dont show up in their PPP data.

The way that the (PPP) program was structured, you could almost predict that ... those outcomes would have happened, at least initially, said Jeff Bellisario, executive director of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute. With banks put in charge of quickly disbursing an enormous amount of federal dollars, he said, People didnt know how to access them or they just didnt have the connections to really make the process easy.

A Bank of America spokesman, Bill Halldin, said the company provided more than $800 million in lending power to CDFIs. He noted that the bank was the first major one in the country to accept PPP applications and received 100,000 online on the first day.

Christina Della Buono, a Chase spokesperson, said that more than 32% of the banks PPP loans nationwide in 2020 went to small businesses in communities of color. The bank did Spanish-language marketing to boost applications, including in the San Francisco-based El Reportero.

David Kennedy, a Wells Fargo spokesperson, said that in addition to the banks PPP participation, it engaged in philanthropic efforts in the Bay Area to support underserved small businesses, including by contributing to Mayor London Breeds Give2SF Fund in March 2020.

What weve learned from the pandemic is how important it is for the entire financial system to work together to reach those in need the larger banks, the nonprofit lenders, and nonprofits that serve small businesses all have a role to play in helping owners stay open and we can scale up to meet the need if we collaborate, he said.

Existing banking relationships, which low-income and minority business owners are far less likely to have, played a key role in which communities were served by certain banks and which werent, economists and analysts said.

You almost needed to have an existing banking relationship in order to really have good access to the initial tranche of available loans, Bellisario of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute said. It was incumbent on the banks to get the dollars out. So many of those initial dollars went into entities that had initial existing banking relationships.

Meanwhile, the federal agencies charged with overseeing the process the Small Business Administration and the Department of the Treasury failed to issue meaningful guidance to lenders on prioritizing underserved markets until the first round of the program was almost over, the congressional subcommittee investigation found.

Without that guidance, many lenders served bigger loans to wealthy customers first, in some cases at more than twice the speed of smaller loans for the neediest of businesses, according to the investigation. As a result, small businesses that were truly in need of financial support during the economic crisis often faced longer waits and more obstacles to receiving PPP funding than larger, wealthier companies.

At San Francisco-based First Republic Bank, managing relationships with customers has been a crucial and celebrated part of its success. The private bank and wealth management company caters to a high net-worth clientele, providing concierge-style services.

In 2020, First Republic Bank sent about $913 million in PPP loans to more than 4,500 Bay Area businesses, 34% of which went to Census tracts with a median household income of $150,000 or more second-highest of the 66 banks The Chronicle analyzed.

First Republic was also among the lenders to have sent the largest percentage of loans to predominantly white areas and the smallest share to areas where more Black, Hispanic and low-income residents live. Data show the businesses that received the most loans through First Republic Bank were lawyers offices, software publishers, real estate agents and brokers, and consultants.

Through a spokesperson, the bank declined to comment.

Some other lenders stood out in the data for having sent a significantly larger-than-average share of their PPP loans to the least diverse Census tracts. These include San Rafael-based Westamerica Bank and Redwood Credit Union of Santa Rosa.

Both banks regional banks with locations in less diverse counties sent 65% of their Bay Area loans to Census tracts where 60% or more residents are white, compared to an average of 30% among all PPP lenders serving the region.

A Westamerica Bank spokesperson, Rob Thorson, told The Chronicle that the Federal Reserve has found the banks lending practices in general to be satisfactory. He said that through internal compliance reviews, Weve concluded that our PPP lending improved the level of our community development loans.

Redwood Credit Union approved nearly all of the eligible PPP applications it received, Tracy Condron, a spokeswoman, said in a statement. Our loan approval process was the same for all applicants and all communities, she said, And the vast majority of applicants did not state their ethnic background.

From the beginning, the complexity of applying for PPP loans was not matched by the outreach necessary to make the process accessible and understandable for underserved businesses, said Jacob Denney, economic justice policy director for SPUR, a nonprofit policy research organization based in San Francisco.

Every time we go through these economic shocks, whether its the pandemic or the Great Recession, whats exposed over and over again is the fact that the whole country takes a step back, and in communities of color that are exposed to the greatest economic harm, they take 10 steps back, he said.

Losses were felt across the board during the early stages of COVID-19, but Black businesses were hit the hardest, according to research by UC Santa Cruz economist Robert Fairlie. The number of Black-owned businesses dropped by 41% nationwide, while Latinx-owned businesses fell by 32%, compared with a 17% drop in white-owned businesses.

These findings of early-stage losses to small businesses have important policy implications and may portend longer-term ramifications for job losses and economic inequality, the report said.

The Small Business Administration said it has taken many measures to increase disadvantaged communities access to the Paycheck Protection Program, some of which have resulted in improvements.

One of the biggest ways in which the Small Business Administration and lenders sought to lessen disparities was by empowering and giving lending capacity to Community Development Financial Institutions. An example from the Bay Area is Opportunity Fund Community Development, which distributed 32% of its loans to areas with a higher concentration of Black residents tracts where 7% or more of the residents are Black and 36% to Hispanic 30% or more of the residents are Hispanic areas, compared with averages of 19% and 20%, respectively.

Supporting CDFIs helped, but they are but a small part of the ecosystem, experts said. Short-term lump sum investments into those institutions do not help address structural inequalities in the banking system. Whats needed are meaningful long-term investments in programs to help reverse generations-long trends, explained Denney of SPUR.

There isnt a silver bullet to this, because what were talking about is generations of exclusion and harm of really intentional economic harm that has deprived communities of color from accessing resources and achieving economic stability, he said. And you cant fix that with one program.

Methodology: The Chronicle analyzed data from Geocodio, a geocoding service, that geocoded business addresses from the PPP loan data provided by the Small Business Administration, as of Dec. 1, 2020.

We filtered this dataset to businesses located in the nine Bay Area counties, and further filtered to analyze lenders that distributed 100 or more loans to Bay Area businesses and to businesses in each of the nine counties. This resulted in 66 lenders.

Yoohyun Jung and Nami Sumida are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: yoohyun.jung@sfchronicle.com, nami.sumida@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @yoohyun_jung, @namisumida

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These big banks were the least likely to serve Bay Area communities of color with PPP loans - San Francisco Chronicle

Juneteenth is a day that commemorates the ending of slavery, more specifically the liberation of enslaved peoples in the state of Texas on June 19, 1865.

The day also will be celebrated in Utah with numerous Juneteenth celebrations, including ones in Ogden, Salt Lake City and Provo.

Tamu Smith, the Utah County Juneteenth coordinator, is looking forward to the upcoming celebration in Provo, but was quick to point to the history of Juneteenth in Utah as a whole. She credited Betty Sawyer with bringing Juneteenth to Utah, hosting a celebration in Ogden for over 20 years.

The Ogden event has since expanded, making its way into Salt Lake City and now into Utah County and Provo.

Smith said that this years event will be history-based while also spotlighting Black businesses in the community. The history aspect will revolve around Black pioneers from the state of Utah, as well as some global Black pioneers.

Some of that history includes Green Flake, an enslaved Latter-day Saint who came to Utah with Brigham Young and would prepare homes for those on their way to the Salt Lake Valley, according to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints website.

With Brigham Young ill, Flake would drive the first wagon through Emigration Canyon, and by the time Young made it to the valley, Flake had already planted crops to help feed the pioneers.

Other historical Black people from Utah will be portrayed at the event, including a historical selfie booth. Smith said it is all in an effort to establish that Black people helped settle the state of Utah.

Its important that we start to marry our history by sharing these unknown stories regarding Utahs history," said Smith. "Were creating opportunities for the community to become aware of the contributions that Blacks made here. And, considering the social turbulence that others were dealing with during that time Utah felt like a fairly safe place to raise a black family."

With this focus on Black history, Smith said it is especially for the Utah County event because the Black community is separated by location.

After raising six children in Utah County, and being a resident for 20 years, Smith said she had to be intentional about having her children involved in the Black community.

Having this opportunity to bring the community together, having opportunities for kids to be in the community with each other and see each other is important and valuable, Smith said.

For the business aspect, the event is aimed to be an amazing opportunity to highlight businesses that have been unrecognized. Smith added that people in Utah are beginning to see how important it is to maintain some of those Black-owned businesses.

While the Black community knows these businesses, according to Smith, people need to be intentional in helping those businesses stay open. This platform for the businesses will make them better competitors, evening the playing field to some extent.

I hope that people will come here and walk away wanting to learn more about communities that have been marginalized, not just the Black community but other communities, Smith said. I want them to walk away with more information, more knowledge, and also with more of an open heart and seeing who is a part of their community, not just what people look like but seeing who is actually a part of their community, what they have to offer, and how they can support.

There will be performances, speakers, an art exhibit, an African-American museum bus, and more at the event on Saturday. Smith expects it to be a fun event where people are lending their names, time and talents to help the event come together.

While there have been Juneteenth barbecues in the past, this will be the first large event to commemorate the day in Utah County. With that, Smith said that the city of Provo has been supportive of the celebrations.

It can be a daunting experience to have to do this and put this together without support but when you know that you have support from your city in doing something like this, it definitely makes walking uphill a lot easier, Smith said.

While Provo and Orem have been listed as two of the least diverse cities in the country for 2021, according to a WalletHub report, Smith said that while the cities lack diversity, they are willing to have difficult discussions. That lack of diversity has not stopped the two cities from having difficult conversations, according to Smith.

To learn more about the Utah County Juneteenth celebration, or the Salt Lake Juneteenth celebration, visit saltlakejuneteenth.org.

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Provo Juneteenth event to feature Black businesses, history in Utah - Daily Herald

Chris Bournea| ThisWeek USA TODAY Network

A series of recommended updates to Bexleys city charter is headed to the November ballot after City Council voted 7-0 on June 8 to approve an ordinance which outlines updates.

The proposed changes include the appointment and removal process for city officials, the composition of city boards and commissions, and promoting diversity, equity and inclusion in city operations and the community at large.

This has been the work of a 15-member charter review commission that has suggested amendments to our council, said Monique Lampke, chair of councils strategic and judiciary committee.

In early 2021, the commission completed more than a year of work to review every section of the city charter and submitted its recommendations to council. Over the past few months, a council subcommittee that consisted of Lampke, council President Lori Ann Feibel and council member Matt Klingler evaluated each of the commissions recommendations.

At councils two previous readings of the ordinance, city officials discussed the proposed charter updates. At the third reading June 8, council discussed the wording of the first section of the ordinance, titled Recognition and Intent, which addresses the citys efforts to promote diversity, equity and inclusion.

The section begins with a sentence that says the city recognizes that institutional racism and discrimination exist and have a painful, historic legacy in our community and in this country, the effects of which continue to place the health and well-being of minority residents at risk.

Council member Richard Sharp introduced an amendment that would have changed the wording of the Recognition and Intentsection to: It is the intent of the city of Bexley to value and serve all its residents equally and as such, seeks to work with community groups, organizations and individuals to confront institutional racism and discrimination in order to promote diversity, equity, expression of thought, and inclusion.

Sharp said hes concerned that the original language could leave the city open to legal liability.

There are activist organizations around the country that like to pick communities such as Bexley to be shining stars for their agenda, Sharp said. Because the words are not defined institutional racism isnt really defined - it can be subject to whatever people feel that means to them.

Chelsea Avenue resident Bethany Hahn-Ambrosius said she served on the charter review commission but addressed council on her own behalf in reference to the Recognition and Intent section.

I promise you all of the language in section one was thoroughly researched, thoroughly debated and very intentional, Hahn-Ambrosius said. Recognition of our past horrific indiscretions, not just in Bexley but as a nation, is crucial in moving forward to a more equitable future.

Council member Jessica Saad said she appreciated Sharp encouraging council members to give serious thought to the Recognition and Intentsectionswording, butsaid conversations with community members led her to believe the original language should remain.

This work that the ... commission did to put in the Recognition and Intent,these are words that are very powerful, Saad said. Its a powerful message to the history of where weve been and where were going.

Lampke said she sat in on some of the commissions meetings and is confident that the members painstakingly chose the wording of the section.

By adopting the language as the commission wrote it, I think that we are saying in a very significant and meaningful way to our community that this council supports all residents of our community, including and especially our minority population, Lampke said.

editorial@thisweeknews.com

@ThisWeekNews

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Bexley charter amendments headed to November ballot - ThisWeek Community News

The time has come Disney World is officially ending its face mask requirement for fully vaccinated Guests beginning on June 15.

Just last month, Disney World had recently changed their outdoor face mask policy, saying theme park Guests would not be required to wear their face masks at outdoor locations, but Disney Worlds newest mandate update allows park Guests to remove their face masks indoors as well.

Disney has been closely following the updates from the CDC Centers For Disease Control and Prevention and local health authorities, and the company made the following update on its website regarding the face mask policy at their Florida theme parks.

Within our communities, were encouraged that COVID-19 guidelines have been adjusted and eased by public health and government officials, paving the path for many businesses and industries to take positive steps forward. As we have done since reopening, weve been very intentional and gradual in our approach to our COVID-19 health and safety protocols. Based on recent trends and guidance, Walt Disney World Resort will be making more adjustments to these measures, including physical distancing and face coverings. Beginning June 15, you will start to notice the following changes:

FACE COVERINGS Face coverings will be optional for fully vaccinated Guests in most areas. Face coverings will still be required of all Guests on Disney transportation, including Disney buses, monorails and Disney Skyliner. While we will not require proof of vaccination, we expect Guests who are not fully vaccinated to continue wearing face coverings in all indoor locations, and upon entering and throughout all attractions and transportation. Guests must observe current policies on face coverings until June 15.

PHYSICAL DISTANCING We will be relaxing physical distancing guidelines for Guests. This will be visible in places like queues, shops, restaurants, attraction boarding, transportation and our theaters. Its important to remember that some experiences and entertainment may still be operating with limited capacity or may remain temporarily unavailable. Were not quite ready to bring back everything yet, but we are optimistic and look forward to the day when Disney pals and princesses are able to hug once again.

CLEANING We will continue the high standards for cleanliness and sanitation weve always set for ourselves. Cleaning supplies and hand sanitizer stations will still be available.

We encourage people to get vaccinated.

While Disney World may be eliminating its face mask requirement for Guests, the theme parks are still encouraging Guests to maintain proper physical distancing and use enhanced touchless experiences, such as Mobile Ordering and Disneys new Magic Mobile.

It is important to note that Disney is allowing fully vaccinated Guests to remove their face masks in most indoor and outdoor theme park locations with mask mandates remaining in place for all Disney transportation. Face masks are expected to be worn by Guests who are not fully vaccinated, though Disney is not requiring proof of vaccination.

Are you excited to see Disney World eliminate its mask mandate for fully vaccinated Guests? Let us know in the comments!

To get started booking your Disney World vacation with our friends at Academy Travel, CLICK HERE!

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Face Masks Optional at Disney World Starting NEXT WEEK! - Inside the Magic

Each year the Iowa & Minnesota Campus Compact awards are given to individuals and organizations who exemplify outstanding civic and community engagement within 27 higher education campuses. This year, Carleton students, alumni, professors, and community partners are among the recipients of these awards.

Eunice Valenzuela 21: 2021 Presidents Student Leadership Award

Carleton Center for Community and Civic Engagement (CCCE) fellow Eunice Valenzuela 21 is one of this years recipients of the Presidents Student Leadership Award for her work developing the website for Carletons Participatory and Action Research (PAR) project.

Valenzuela explained that PAR research centers around the belief that the people who have knowledge are not just academics, but also community members. As a result, community members should be involved in problem solving and research.

PAR research came to Carleton in October of 2018 when the college received a grant from the Corporation for National and Community service to implement a PAR project in collaboration with community partners in Faribault, MN. Over the past two years, the grant has funded five community research groups that have brought together college faculty and staff alongside Faribault students, parents, teachers and administrators. So far, the groups have collected information about the experiences of Somali and Latinx students and parents in Faribault and developed action plans to enact positive change in the community combating systems of inequality.

Valenzuela first got involved with PAR when she worked for CCCE in the summer of 2020 and has continued her work this year as a CCCE fellow. Her main focus has been compiling important resources about PAR onto the website and translating resources into Spanish.

Because research and academic work tends to be in English, clear sources about PAR and research and methodologies are hard to find in Spanish, said Valenzuela. A lot of PAR projects tend to involve members of minority communities, so to not have resources in their language, even though it is about something they are a part of, is strange.

Valenzuela was surprised to have received the award but is thankful for the recognition for all her hard work.

Sometimes it did not feel tangible, but actually getting a reward for it is pretty great, she said.

After graduating this June, Valenzuela hopes to become a teacher and implement PAR methodologies in her classroom. She explained that students in the classroom are much like community members in that they know what is a problem and what isnt and what went well and what didnt.

I think being a teacher and including students in conversations about how to improve their learning experience would be really cool, said Valenzuela.

Professor Kelly Connole and Professor Susannah Ottaway: 2021 Presidents Civic Engagement Leadership Awards

History professor Susannah Ottaway (left) and art and art history professor Kelly Connole are among this years recipients of the 2021 Presidents Civic Engagement Leadership awards for their roles as co-directors of Public Works: Arts & Humanities Connecting Communities.

Public Works is a four-year initiative (20172021) funded by a Mellon Foundation grant to enhance Carletons engagement in public scholarship and civic engagement. Ottaway explains that the goals of the program include providing continued support to ongoing public-facing projects and scholarship while also increasing participation and visibility.

Additionally, through the initiative, the college approved a digital arts and humanities minor. Ottaway said the minor explicitly connects all the digital humanities work that has been going on on campus into a really clear set of curricular pathways.

Some examples of the research and scholarship which have emerged from this initiative include Religions MN, co-run by religion professor Michael McNally and research associate Shana Sippy, and The Wandering House, started by cinema and media studies professor Cecilia Cornejo.

COVID-19 restrictions have impacted some of the initiatives activities and extended the grant through winter of 2022.

I feel lucky that we already had three years under our belt before the pandemic because it allowed us to build upon those relationships that had already been established, said Connole. We are an initiative that is about arts and humanities connecting communities.

Nevertheless, the pandemic means making new connections has been difficult. Connole explained that due to social distancing it has been a lot more difficult to create connections through casual interactions and small group conversations.

On the flip side, Ottaway explained the really substantial benefit of the pandemic is that weve had to slow down some of our programming. For example, one of the culmination events of the initiative, the exhibit Why Treaties Matter, was supposed to take place in Fall 2020 but has been moved to Fall 2021. As a result, Ottaway said they have had a year of incredible intentional programming about indigenous history and treaties rights, including zoom study groups attended by over 160 students, faculty and staff.

Instead of having that exhibit kick off some intentional conversations about land acknowledgement and history and what this palace means, now the treaties exhibit is going to come on top of all of this programming and increased interest and will be able to take it from there, said Ottaway. That is incredibly exciting. It allows us to think of this exhibit not only as a step in the right direction but truly transformational as a whole.

Both Ottaway and Connole were happy to have received the recognition for the Public Works initiative and are thankful for the support they received along the way. In particular, Public Works administrative assistant Terra Krebsbach, program associate Elizabeth Budd 19, and the staff in academic technology at the library.

Community Action Center of Northfield: 2021 Presidents Community Partner Award

Northfields Community Action Center (CAC) received the Campus Compact Presidents Community Partner Award. The partnership between Carletons Center for Community and Civic Engagement (CCCE) and the CAC has provided many opportunities for Carleton students to contribute to food justice work and housing issues in Rice County. The partnership includes work with academic civic engagement classes across many disciplines and a deep collaboration with the student-led Food Recovery Network to help combat food insecurity by recovering extra food from Bon Appetit on campus and produce from local grocery stores and farmers for distribution through the CAC. The CAC also hosts Carleton students as summer interns.

Natalie Jacobson 18: Presidents Civic Engagement Leadership Award

Carleton alumna, Natalie Jacobson 18, is one of the recipients of the Presidents Civic Engagement and Leadership Award for her work as coordinator of Augsburg Universitys Campus Kitchen program.

At Carleton, Jacobson was an environmental fellow at the CCCE and director for the Food Recovery Network her sophomore, junior, and senior years. She said working with Food Recovery is how I got excited and energized about food justice, while the CCCE taught her the importance of connecting with colleges wider neighborhoods.

After graduating from Carleton in 2018, Jacobson built off of her Carleton career by participating in the Lutheran Volunteer Corps program, which pairs individuals with organizations focused on social justice and change. For her placement, Jacobson worked at Augsburg Universitys civic engagement office the Sabo Center for Democracy and Citizenship.

When the year-long program finished, Jacobson continued working at Augsburg as the coordinator of their Campus Kitchen program. Jacobson explained that Campus Kitchen used to be a nationwide organization, with chapters on college campuses, but has since disbanded. The program continues to exist at Augsburg.

We are a program that works to make healthy food more accessible to folks that live in the Cedar Riverside neighborhood, as well as making healthy food more accessible to students on Augsburgs campus, said Jacobson.

In order to accomplish these goals, Campus Kitchen collaborates with neighborhood youth, senior citizens, and other community partners to organize healthy food distribution and programming. For Augsburg students, Campus Kitchen has grown a community garden and organized a campus food shelf.

As the Campus Kithcens coordinator, Jacobson oversees student workers and helps plan all their programming. During COVID-19, Jacobson and Campus Kitchen had to modify their work in order to comply with social distancing requirements.

Its been a really, really hard year and Ive been proud of myself and my whole team, especially the students, for cranking things up a notch during the pandemic instead of taking things back, she said. Weve been distributing a ton of food at a time when people are struggling with food insecurity more than ever.

Normally, Jacobson and her team would bring food to community centers and would talk with youth and senior citizens while they ate. With COVID-19, these programs have been substituted with food distribution and those relationships and conversations havent happened. However, Jacobson is happy that they have been able to increase the amount of food they are distributing since the pandemic started and hopes to continue building relationships again soon.

Having received the award, Jacobson says it feels good to be acknowledged and appreciated. She is thankful for her team of dedicated workers and proud of the work they have been able to accomplish in this challenging time.

Learn more about the 2021 Campus Compact award winners.

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Carleton students, faculty and alumni among recipients of the 2021 Campus Compact awards - Carleton College News

The pandemic has altered several aspects of our lifestyle. It has also accelerated many trends that were expected to go mainstream a few years into the future. Multi-generational co-living is one such global trend.

Right from senior citizens and retirees to middle-aged couples and new parents to migrant youth, generations are seeing the benefits of opting for co-living residences catering to a multigenerational community rather than owning or renting houses. Affordability, short-term commitment, thoughtfully-designed spaces, safe environments, and easy access to relevant hyper-local ecosystems are just some factors driving this transformation.

New normal

Unlike co-living 1.0, which was seen as a way of life by digital nomads, single women, entrepreneurs, live-in couples, and students, co-living in the new normal is about multi-generational communities. Think co-living spaces designed for interdependent living arrangements for the young and old.

In India, co-living has seen massive adoption owing to the pandemic. Houses that offer maximum comfort and convenience at minimal cost and commitment are no longer just great alternatives, but necessities as we emerge from uncertain times. This reality is acute when we consider that affordable housing has been a consistent challenge in India, and 65% of its population is under 35 young and always-on-the-move.

Non-resident Indians too, unable to fly down and offer emotional assurance to their parents in times of crisis, have found a safety net for the seniors in multi-generational co-living spaces. All of these have led to the rise of cross-generational residences within the emerging co-living ecosystem.

Sense of community

The pressures of daily work life, social isolation, and financial stress are just some key factors that have given further rise to the trend in the last one year. Working professionals, especially young parents, have been finding it challenging balancing household chores while working from home more so in the absence of familial support systems.

Globally, these new realities are seeing stressed professionals, living away from their extended families, finding a helping hand in co-living community members. Aged individuals and couples have found comfort in home-cooked meals from their co-living companions. Co-living is in its true sense forming an intentional community wherein the purpose is to share resources, create family-oriented neighborhoods, and live an ecologically sustainable lifestyle.

The Covid-19 outbreak has seen the older populations struggling with growing loneliness, anxiety, and elevated health risks, coupled with limited adoption of technology, while younger people have been battling financial stress as well as personal and professional angst. The newfound interdependency offered by multi-generational co-living is a win-win - there is room for choice as well as the excitement of building new bonds. Unlike our ancestors who were mostly duty-bound to spend their lives in multi-generational homes without much say, co-living urban Indians are building communities rooted in flexibility and mutual respect.

Room for growth

Even after the pandemic wanes, work from home and a hyper-local preference are expected to become part of mainstream preferences. This is where co-living spaces will offer significant advantage over other forms of housing.

In the case of white-collar migrants, the appeal of housing that offers multi-generational community living, professional networking opportunities, walk-to-work convenience, and the option of moving and packing overnight to turn up in a new city for the next big career opportunity, will be stronger than ever before. Other generations too, will have their reasons to consider co-living. For example, senior citizens will continue to spend more time indoors and hence seek housing options that are safe, and will allow them to bond with other people.

These benefits become even more obvious when we consider the challenges with traditional rental housing alternatives leased houses and the unorganised PG system. Renting a house translates into high rentals, huge capital investment, and long-term commitment. Additionally, the houses are often in bad shape, unsafe, and unappealing to the upper-middle class Indians sense of aesthetics.

Shaping the future

Countries like the United States and Finland were among the first to see the merit in investing in multi-generational co-living spaces, much before the pandemic kicked-in. The global trend augurs well for a growing preference for multi-generational living.

Indias pre-existing housing challenges, along with the new pandemic realities, are poised to make co-living a smart solution to Indias residential woes. Future growth in this evolving segment will be led by co-living spaces that address social rental housing, need-based rental housing, and market-based rental housing demands to cater to diverse mindsets, multiple generations, and different workforces.

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Multi-generational living: A new wave in the co-living ecosystem - Construction Week Online India

When New Level Sports Ministries and Pastor Chris McCoy first drew up plans for a Youth Village more than a decade ago,the vision for change was ambitious.

The idea was to build generational wealth and support youth development in the Washington Heights neighborhood.

Murals adorn New Level Sports Ministries on Wednesday, June 9, 2021 in Battle Creek, Mich.(Photo: Alyssa Keown )

Now, years later, as the community emerges from the strain of a globalpandemic, the vision for The Village has grown and gainednew momentum.

In partnership with the United Way of the Battle Creek and Kalamazoo Region, McCoy and other community leaders have worked together to develop The Village Reemergence Plan.It's designed as an opportunity for all people of color in Battle Creek to use philanthropy to become agents of change where they live.

Partners include the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Voces, the Burma Center, the Southwest Michigan Urban League, the A. Phillip Randolph Institute,Reintegration to Support and Empower (R.I.S.E), Bronson and New Level Sports Ministries, among others.

The Village is a 10-year initiative that will bringresources to communities of color in Battle Creek, including new meeting spaces, improved food access, additional support for small businesses and education and acommunity-owned credit union.

The plangrew out of grant work being done by theUnited Way, said Nakia Baylis, senior director of data and equitable systems at United Way of the Battle Creek and Kalamazoo Region.

"We knew that we want to do good. We know that we want to unite our community, but were our policies and practice aligned with that intent?" Baylissaid. "What we found was we were grant-making equitably.... but not intentionally equitable."

As a result, the organization started working with community leaders to understand how it could better invest money to create opportunity and lasting change.

"We've got to get away from putting a Band-Aid on things with money. We can't keep investing the same way and expecting something different," Baylissaid. "We're trying to show that if you do invest differently, the benefits to the entire community can be profound."

Damon Brown, Kelley Blythe and Kevin Adams from the Battle Creek nonprofit, R.I.S.E., distribute food during economic hardship brought upon by the COVID-19 pandemic on Friday, April 10, 2020 at Washington Heights Methodist Church.(Photo: Alyssa Keown | The Battle Creek Enquirer)

Funded by a $610,000 Catalysing Community Giving grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, The Village will provide structure for work thatpromotes improved, sustainable economic outcomes in food and industry, health and wellness, education, and growth and advocacy.

The direction of the initiative will be driven by the needs of Battle Creek's Black, Burmese and Latino communities as defined by community members.

We learned throughthese planningprocessesand by listening to our community, that wemustcontrol our future. We needed to build a Villageone in which we are leading designand implementation, instead ofallowingothers to design it for us,McCoy said. "I didn't expect it to be built out this large, but it's not new. I think if you look at it, the way The Village is designed, it's designed to share."

Pastor Christopher McCoy from New Level Sports Ministries stands for a portrait on Thursday, Jan. 21, 2021 in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Battle Creek, Mich. The City Commission planned to sell a plot of land in the neighborhood to a housing development company, but after hearing concerns about the proposed project from McCoy and other community members, the city is putting a pause on the sale.(Photo: Alyssa Keown | The Battle Creek Enquirer)

Through community conversations, infrastructure development and community collaboration, The Village's goal is to chip away at systemic inequities and remove barriers to economic development.

"What we want to do is have collective movement towards a shared vision, and that is a vision of really a revitalized Battle Creek," Baylissaid.

Baylis will provideorganizational support for The Village steering committee, chaired by McCoy. He will also oversee development in the food and industry sectors. Jose Orozco, executive director ofVoces,a nonprofit organization supporting Latinos in the Battle Creek area, will oversee development related to education. Health and wellness development will be overseen by Tha Par, executive director of the Burma Center, and Pastor Richard Baileyof Truth in Action Ministries will oversee personal growth and advocacy.

The Burma Center is photographed on Wednesday, June 9, 2021 in Springfield, Mich.(Photo: Alyssa Keown )

A management team will assist the steering committee, consisting of Damon Brown of R.I.S.E. Corp., Kyra Wallace of the Southwestern Michigan Urban League, Elishae Johnson of Bronson HelpNet and Deboraha Sallee of the A. Philip Randolph Institute.

As the initiative grows, organizers will be incorporating workforce development partners and established programs within the city.

"What we don't want to do is reinvent anything," Baylis said.

The first step is understanding what changes the community wants to see. Steering committee members areorganizing conversations to discuss what a better Battle Creek would look like in the four pillar areas.

Damon Brown holds his daughter Khloe Brown, 5, during the Let's Get Real Series on Aug. 31, 2020 at Friendship Park in Battle Creek, Mich. The Southwestern Michigan Urban League and the African American Collaborative, in partnership with the city of Battle Creek, debuted the Let's Get Real Series Monday, which involved community conversations with the city manager and police chief. (Photo: Alyssa Keown | The Battle Creek Enquirer)

For example, this summer, Battle Creek Public Schools Superintendent Kim Carter will participate in community conversations about education. Baylis said that The Village would like to host similar events with other area superintendents.

The conversations are intended to build accountability.

"The community is holding our leaders and our trusted members of our community accountable for moving the actions that they have articulated forward," Baylis said. "Now, we have a greater system of participation, of engagement and of interest."

The nextmeeting is being hosted by Voces for the Latino community on June 17 from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. to discuss education.

Voces Executive Director Jose Luis Orozco Jr. and Fernanda Reyes share a laugh on Tuesday, May 19, 2020 at their office in Battle Creek, Mich. Voces is a non-profit that serves the Latino and Hispanic community in Calhoun County.(Photo: Alyssa Keown | The Battle Creek Enquirer)

"Education is the foundation of true systemic change," said Orozco. "Through this effort, we are demonstrating to our young people how shared goals can be reached with and for all communities of color."

Future meeting dates and times will be shared online through social media and The Village's website, changethestory.org/village.

Organizers are going to be tracking several metrics to measure the success of The Village, but how well the initiative builds wealth in the community will be a key indicator.

"We look at all of these things as being intersectional to the ultimate goal of building assets and wealth," Baylis said. "In order to leverage that power, we need to own our future."

Through its multifaceted approach, The Village aims tolift every household of color in Battle Creek above the state's ALICE threshold, which is the minimum income level necessary for survival.

In turn, that economic prosperity will benefit the entire city.

"Every resident, regardless of race, gender or identity," Baylis said. "This project actually allows us to scale effort to support a prosperous, thriving city where everyone is actually participating in our local economy."

By lifting every household in the state above the ALICE threshold, Baylis said that Michigan's GDP would increase by nearly $98 billion.

"The ALICE data shows us that the statistics per capita in Battle Creek within the county are similar to that of our state per capita," she said. "It doesn't take a statistician to scale that in your mind to what we can achieve here in Battle Creek."

Growing The Village will take intentional collaboration, but organizers believe in the community's ability to create meaningful change together.

"Together, we have and hope to continue to leverage our diversity to create a wide community that view everything through an equitable lens to address systematic barriers so that our communities are healthy and thriving," Par said.

Organizers hope the approach developed in Battle Creek can be expanded to other communities in the state and across the nation.

Tha Par, executive director for the Burma Center in Battle Creek, speaks to hundreds at the Sojourner Truth Monument on Wednesday, Feb. 3, 2021. The demonstration took place in response to the military of Myanmar seizing control of the government after allegations of election fraud during the countrys November election.(Photo: Alyssa Keown | The Battle Creek Enquirer)

"It's time to trust our leaders of color," Baylis said. "We're encouraging our partners, we're leaning in, and we're trying to share what we are learning as an organization."

The progress made in the last year aloneis proof of what can be achieved, Baylis said.

"We don't take for granted that this is indeed an ambitious effort involving multiple organizations and communities," she said. "And yet the way these leaders have been able to respond to our communities of color during a worldwide pandemic, reassures us that what we intend to do can be accomplished. It will take a village."

To learn more about The Village and upcoming community meetings visit changethestory.org/village.

Contact reporter Elena Durnbaugh at (269) 243-5938 or edurnbaugh@battlecreekenquirer.com. Follow her on Twitter at @ElenaDurnbaugh.

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The Village: New initiative will take a systemic approach to inequities in Battle Creek - Battle Creek Enquirer

Kaiser Permanente has announced a slew of new COVID-19 vaccine outreach and incentive programs to support the White Houses goal of 70% of adults with at least partial coverage by July 4.

Chief among these initiatives is $10 million in new grants to 100 schools, churches, community centers and other organizations that can promote vaccination to a broad swath of people, which a representative said are being finalized and distributed this week.

Kaiser Permanente kicked off an online influencer and social media campaign aimed at younger adults ages 18 to 30 that will be conducted with existing partners such as Cloud9, a professional esports team.

On the incentive side, Kaiser Permanente has begun enrolling all its vaccinated members and nonmembers who received a vaccine through the nonprofit into the ImmUNITY sweepstakes that will run through July 9. The program will be awarding 1,000 people with prizes like wellness retreats, gym memberships, home meal deliveries and trips to theme and national parks.

RELATED: CMS boosts Medicare payments for providers for administering at-home COVID-19 vaccinations

Each of these new programs will be conducted alongside targeted and population-level outreach the system has been conducting for months, Stephen Parodi, M.D., executive vice president of The Permanente Federation, told Fierce Healthcare.

The unvaccinated individuals the health system is targeting are anything but uniform, he said. Some are opposed to the vaccines on an ideological level, while others havent yet been exposed to reliable information from a source they trust or just dont see the need to carve out time for an appointment.

As an integrated health system, Kaiser has an opportunity to leverage its EHRs and other data to identify those who havent yet been vaccinated, understand their demographics or other contributing characteristics and then craft targeted outreach that has a stronger chance of persuading holdouts, Parodi said.

These data can inform Kaiser clinicians and other partners strategies when encountering unvaccinated individuals as patients or in the community, he said. The information also formed the basis of the programs unveiled this week.

We think you need to have different strategies for all these different groups of people, he said. Thats been our experience with different populations, and thats the advantage to the integrated healthcare system point of view. Were seeing people in our clinics [and] our communities and we get to hear all these different stories.

RELATED: Kaiser Permanente generates $2B profit for Q1, rebounding from 2020 loss

Parodi pointed to Kaiser Permanentes geographic reach across eight states and Washington, D.C., as both an advantage and a hurdle for the organization as it targets the Fourth of July goal line. While its size increases the volume of patient data that can be employed, it also means the system needs to keep track of which outreach strategies will translate across different regions.

Those [areas] all have different population characteristics, and so were really intentional about bringing together people from each of the different areas in our footprint because what may work in California might not work in Georgia, he said. We need to have all those different perspectives.

That collective, collaborative mindset will continue to be key for the organization as it moves forward with its newest initiatives, Parodi stressed.

Kaiser Permanente has already leaned on the multidisciplinary experts employed across its organizations, such as front-line clinicians, communications teams and employer benefits specialists. The system has also coordinated its vaccine efforts with government leaders at the local, state and federal levels, Parodi said, and is now looking to support like-minded healthcare organizations with the recent release of its internal vaccine confidence toolkit (PDF).

However, whats become clear to Parodi and his organization is that mass vaccination and other top-level initiatives wont be enough to hit President Joe Bidens short-term goal or to protect against potential variants of the disease in the coming years.

RELATED: In Missouri and other states, flawed data make it hard to track vaccine equity

He stressed that grassroots-level support and community collaboration will be mandatory as government programs, health systems, payers and other private sector companies design new programs to increase access and incentivize vaccination.

All of these vaccination efforts need to meet people where they are, Parodi said. We need to remove the barriers we hear from our members and our community, and we need to support the care team on the ground so they can do that groundwork at the individual level, removing those last bits of barrier. I think its so exciting to see this national-level mobilization where you have multiple industries, multiple employers, multiple health systems coming together to make this a reality.

Kaiser Permanentes new initiatives werent the only rallying cry to come out of major healthcare industry names this week.

Centene announced it would be teaming up with its network providers on a new call campaign that will offer assistance to members who have not been vaccinated. The Blue Cross and Blue Shield Government-wide Service Benefit Plan will be launching its own incentive program June 11 that will reward members with credit toward payments for certain medical expenses.

Biden himself outlined a number of federal and private sector vaccine incentive programs during a White House press event held last week. These ranged fromfree childcare for parents booking a vaccination appointment or recovering from its aftereffects to free Anheuser-Busch beer for all U.S. adults should the country reach its 70% goal.

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Kaiser Permanente is leveraging its wealth of member and community data to craft new vaccine promotion programs - FierceHealthcare

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A Memphis-based youth development organization has secured a multimillion-dollar investment and is looking to use it to jump-start a new program in Shelby County.

Seeding Success, a 10-year-old nonprofit thatsecured $8.5 million in funding from its partners, is in the midst of an 18-month, virtual planning process. The process, according to Mark Sturgis, the organization's CEO, consists of community members and partners voicing their lived experiences in Memphis.

"We were really intentional about bringing young people, students, formerly incarcerated individuals, people who live in some of our communities that are experiencing poverty, folks from the business community, and CEO levelfolks together.There are also governmental partners. So people from the county, cityand in the school systems all come to the table to talk about these issues," Sturgis said.

Mark Sturgis from Seeding Success talks about the improvement in test numbers for kids attending early childhood programs during a talks at the Shelby County Pre-K Summit Wednesday morning at the Kroc Center.(Photo: Jim Weber/The Commercial Appeal)

The issues being discussed revolve around how to make education and economic development, among other things, equitable in Memphis.The group's end goal is to craft a wide-reaching program with strategies that will help to bridge socio-economicgaps throughout Shelby County's numerous neighborhoods.

The program willalso set a foundation for Seeding Success to receive more funding in the future. Sturgis said the organization has an "internal goal of [around] $200 million to be invested in the strategies" that Seeding Success is currently working to establish.

The year and a half-long planning process does not reduce the sense of urgency that Sturgis feels. As important as being certain about the route that the group takes is for him, the racial inequalities that have been pushed to the forefront over the past year have opened up a window that is important for the success of the program.

"There's a real urgency to the now. This is a moment, a unique moment, where we've got a critical focus on racial equity in this country," he said.

That inequity was best emphasized and translated to Memphians, according to Sturgis, by researchfrom Dr.Raj Chetty, an economist who teaches at Harvard University. Chetty's current research focuses on economic mobility among disadvantaged Americans. His organization, Opportunity Insights, provides a localized map of economic mobility and places Memphis as a low mobility area. This means that there is under a 5 percent chance thatthose born into the lowest fifth of the income bracket will ever rise to the upper fifth.

This data is, in part, what led Blue Meridian Partners to joinSeeding Success and be among the many local, statewide and national donors.

"I came to know a long time ago, even from my own experience, thatgeography is destiny," said Tomeka Hart Wigginton, a managing director at Blue Meridian and native Memphian. "If we're really going to have change in this community...it has to be driven by the people who are the voices of the community."

The long-term effects of the program that Seeding Success is working to build may not be felt immediately, but Sturgis believes that the model they use will provide innovative techniques for investing in disenfranchised communities in Shelby County going forward.

"We will be looking to really prioritize those communities that have been traditionally divested in, or faced inequality and poverty because of the history of segregation.

"This feels like a moment to capture andto really look beyond what Memphis can be.This is a powerful and beautiful place if we really invest in the people here. And I think that's where this process really brings a new lens toother planning work that has happened in the community."

MORE: Killed on D-Day, buried in Normandy: How search for family of MS soldier united strangers

Bringing people and organizationstogether, according to Sturgis, is what makes Seeding Success different from a traditional nonprofit. The organization acts as a sort of glue between its partners, working to create intersectionality between nonprofits, the private sector and governmental bodies.

"We are a support organization," he said. "We don't do the work itself, but we bring the partners together andwe use data to help them make informed decisions.We try to work collaboratively around the solutions. And we try to listen to the voices of the community as well, so weactually meet the needs of the community versusjust looking at national data or evidence."

Once Seeding Success found community members and partners for their planning committee, it was time for the individuals to get to work. Over thelast few months the design board beganmeeting virtually to narrow down what aspects of inequality would best be helped with the funding.

During the process, the group honed in on six categories that they call buckets. They are planning to address education and youth development, health and wellbeing, economic development, justice and safety, community development, and culture. These buckets contain several "sub-buckets" and the group has found that previous attempts to invest in underdeveloped communities have hadbuckets that are "too large to attack at one time."

This is an issue that the group has also run into and is working to address, according to Teresena Medlock, a member of the design committee for Seeding Success. She is also the director of special education at the Memphis Lift Parent Institute where she helps parents and students navigate the education field. As a member of the Memphis Lift organization, Medlock believes that she brings expertise in community outreach to the Seeding Success committee.

MORE: A spending boom, but for whom?Lower-income Americans feel left behind

Even with her own expertise, she said the conversations that the committee have had were challenging. She describes the experience as "re-molding" for not only the way she views issues like poverty and racism but also for how she views some of her own experiences.

"We were able to voice opinions in a way in which I've never seenopinions be voiced," she said. "It's so empowering to see how we can be so passionate and be so understanding at the same time.It was a respectful challenge. We were able to educate one another about why we felt the way that we felt and then we were able to open the minds of everyone."

Oftentimes overlooked, the younger generation of Memphis hastwo seats at the table during the planning phase. Zahra Chowdhury occupies one of those seats. She has been a member Bridge Builders, a group that empowers youth to be leaders in their communities, for over three years and jumped on the opportunity to have her voice heard.

"A lot of important decisions that are made about our city that directly impact youth neverget the youth's opinion," said the 17-year-old Memphian. "So it means a lot to me that youth are in a place where decisions are being made, and that their opinions are being taken into account.

"I think that we don't give the youth enough credit. We're doing alot of great things in the city.We're the future, butI think we're the present too."

As a change fellow with Bridge Builders, the highest level of engagement the organization offers, she had experienced how impactful voices from her generation can be. Seeding Success offered Chowdhury a new outlook on what a nonprofit can be, calling the group's planning committee "intersectional, but alsointergenerational."

Although still in the planning phase, Seeding Success set aside $1 million of its investments for "immediate pandemic relief." In line with the way the organization works, the CEO saidthat they immediately partnered with the Community Foundation which has an existing pandemic relief fund. The Community Foundation then used that money to fund other organizations that are working to address the critical needs of individuals and small businesses in Memphis communities.

There is, however, some money remaining in that fund. Sturgis said that Seeding Success is researching early investment strategies for that money.

"We want this to feel different. Sowe'll be making investments as we go and identifying resources that can get deployed and leveraged into communities to meet their needs now," Sturgis said."Experience really equals trustand I think if we're going to build a trusted process, then folks need to experience some change at the levels we can accommodate."

Those wanting tolearn more or sign up to receive updates about Seeding Success' initiative, can visit http://www.seeding-success.org.

Lucas Finton is a news intern at the Commercial Appeal. He can be reached at lucas.finton@commercialappeal.com or on Twitter @LucasFinton.

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From formerly incarcerated to CEOs, a diverse group is working on a plan to ease inequities in Memphis - Commercial Appeal