ONE Carolina Community Collaborative Hosts Initial Partner Interest Meeting – A First Step Towards an August Launch. Over 40 Greenville-Pitt Orgs Attend.
On May 25th at East Carolina University’s new Biotechnology Building, a broad collection of individuals & organizations, including nonprofits, community members and community-based organizations, as well as academic professionals and local government leaders came together with an interest in improving collaboration across Pitt County for the purpose of strengthening local vulnerable communities, altogether forming The ONE Carolina Community Collaborative. Organizations represented included City of Greenville Recreation & Parks, The Greenville Museum of Arts, Pitt County Schools, Democracy NC, North of the River Association, HeARToscope, TEDI BEAR & BRACE, 100 Black Men of Eastern NC, The Greenville Police Department & The PAL program, Pitt Community College, Phi Beta Sigma, Exquisite Cheer & Dance Co., Greenville City Council, A Time for Science, ICARE Professional Services, AMEXCAN, NC CIVIL, and East Carolina University’s Water Resources Center & CoPe Project.
The discussion focused on improving engagement with area youth, families, and residents in our most vulnerable communities, and building on that improved engagement with improved collaboration across organizations and agencies to support community empowerment strategies as well as capacity-building for participating orgs.
Dr. Stephen Moysey, ECU Professor and Director of the Water Resources Center presented on the event-sponsoring NSF Coastlines & People (CoPe) project, which he is also director of. Jermaine McNair, who serves as the Founding Director of NC CIVIL, ECU Sociology faculty member, President of the 100 Black Men of Eastern NC, and member of the CoPe project team presented on the “Community Centered Programming” model that will serve as the guiding engagement and community impact strategy for the project. The event hosted 2 sessions – 1 from 12:00 – 2:00 pm and another from 6:00 – 8:00 pm for the convenience of attendees, provided information, answered questions, and gathered input from attendees.
While this project’s strategy will focus on engagement, collaboration, and co designing multisectoral support around grassroots upstream activism, this first session included a heavy presence of area institutions to ensure early systemwide communication and long-term structural support for the project’s community-centered focus. A more robust community launch event is being planned for late August/early September. The event will aim to bring out area youth and their families for a local resource fest that will promote local youth programs and activities and recruit parents and residents to take their place at the center of the collaborative and help drive the work in their respective communities.
In the time leading up to the launch, the project’s partners will participate in a series of pre-launch workshops to focus on building partner capacity and collaborative infrastructure to support this newly developing wave of community activism. Please consider becoming a part of ONE Carolina and joining our upcoming Partner Workshops.