Community Members Join Local Team To Share Ideas
Several months ago, the Lancaster County Community Foundation chose two areas in which to pilot Project Activate, a program designed to bring about positive change by building a more inclusive community. Southeast Lancaster city and Paradise were selected as pilot areas. The Paradise design team began meeting at the Together Community Center (TCC), home of The Factory Ministries, in September.
After completing two days of training and a number of weeks of research, the design team held a Community Idea Gathering at TCC, 3293 Lincoln Highway East, Paradise, on Nov. 2 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. During the event, members of the community joined the team to share suggestions about ways to resolve nine issues facing the area. Issues were presented on boards arranged in the TCC gym area.
Each board featured an idea prompt, an insight into the problem, a question about how the problem might be solved, and stories from the research that design team members had completed. Issues were divided into groups. One group spotlighted problems with a lack of affordable housing in the area, such as the need to increase awareness among area residents about how to offer affordable housing, trust issues between landlords and potential renters, and financial issues surrounding the development of affordable housing. Another group highlighted issues often faced by seniors, such as transportation, isolation, and communication. A third area focused on disseminating information in the area. Display boards were dedicated to communication methods, a lack of places to gather, and how community members are marginalized when they are not informed about upcoming events. On a table beside each board, attendees could write their own ideas about how issues might be resolved.
Before the design team met with area residents who attended, Aaron Spangler, communications manager with the Community Foundation, advised the team to encourage attendees to share their ideas. "We are not looking for confirmation of what we think," he said. "We want to know what they think."
Tracy Cutler, executive vice president of the Community Foundation, agreed. "The idea is to give the community a chance to be engaged so we can build shared ownership," Cutler noted.
A number of area residents attended the event, where they had opportunities to vote on ideas that had been presented as well as make their own suggestions.
Adam Nagle, who became director of The Factory Ministries over the summer, took time out from his Saturday to attend. "This is awesome," said Nagle, after having completed the circuit of display boards. "It's really cool to see the issues that are legitimate barriers to sustainable community and to see them surface with people who live in the community and have (members of the public here) to engage with this." Nagle noted that Project Activate is welcome in the area because it raises grassroots-level awareness of issues Paradise residents face.
The Paradise Project Activate design group compiled the ideas that were gathered during the event and began the work of moving forward to the next phase. The dozen team members, who include people who live and work in Paradise, will hold another event to share progress and gather community input at TCC on Saturday, Jan. 25, 2020, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
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