A Culture of Health fosters growth that ensures economic opportunities for all
by prioritizing affordability, accessibility and a voice for residents.
These prize-winners are keeping community
at the heart of community development.
Howard County is a very high cost of living place.
Housing and child care remains
one of the highest cost centers for families.
So this is why we
have our Moderate-Income Housing Unit Program.
People not only are able to own a home,
but able to do it in a dignified way,
and no one in the neighborhood knows which one is the MIH unit.
It has changed my life completely,
I could not have imagined my dream realized this soon
without the program.
The ideals of Howard County, where the fact that
the janitor of an organization
that could live next door to its CEO and the respect
and the sense of community would always be here.
Having Freetown Farm is helping us to create
a better future for ourselves, a future based on community engagement,
sustainability and environmental stewardship.
We're also teaching people to grow and sustain food,
but also making it accessible to all income levels
and all races regardless and all abilities.
I would say having equity and inclusion
really strengthens the fabric of a community.
Because that's what it comes down to,
is changing outcomes for the better for our community.
Good job!
We created the Addison Early Childhood Collaborative
because we know from the
research that early intervention matters.
whether it's physical, mental health needs, learning needs
if we're able to intervene early,
the outcomes are much more favorable for the child going forward.
With heavy involvement from the elementary school,
it involves connecting families with young children
to the resources that are available.
It's another example of a need that was identified,
several agencies coming together to work together to serve the families
together at a higher level.
From a learning standpoint as well,
as much intervention that can happen prior to the student entering kindergarten
we know just in vocabulary development, that the outcomes
are that much higher.
The YES Program stands for Youth Equity Stewardship,
and it is a program to foster more belonging
for our students on campus,
from that lens of artistic expression that allowed students
to find their voice,
in many diverse ways, they call it artivism.
[singing]
It is a very emotional experience for them.
We have a lot of students that through this process
are accessing things in their backgrounds,
in their story, that maybe have been painful.
And so, they just respond in a way where they
they kind of surround the student, in an effort to comfort them,
but also to say, I'm with you.
If you're hurting, I'm hurting,
we're together in this.
[singing]
The common thread is a love for the outdoors that people can and do find-
an outdoor RX and the health benefits
that lower the cortisol levels when you experience time on dirt,
when you are surrounded by a tree canopy.
It's about creating a sense of place
and creating community spaces
out of these natural resources that people feel welcome,
they feel a part of - they had a voice in creating.
The mission of the Local Foods Coalition
is to foster an equitable local food system
that restores the health of the people,
the community, the economy and the ecosystem.
When something is community driven,
some of the value-added benefits are that it creates more jobs,
it attracts more businesses to want to be a part of the community.
All these collaborations work to keep people's dignity intact
and help them achieve some sense of control.
So, you know, an equal thought
in other industries, ideas on the economy.
But I do a lot of law, a
approach to see our island saying, Okay,
I Premiere Pro I had them look out at me as if I them in
in this regard that it's the Mugabe Mugabe.
The opportunity that
some Dukakis supporters are worthless proposals,
luckiest person to get them.
Indianapolis Iraqi.
One of the things that we dreamed about when all of this first got started
is to get some of these dilapidated houses torn down.
We applied for the Blight Elimination Grant,
and we got that Blight Elimination Grant
and we got about another 20 of the houses down.
The neighbors saw the houses, and they began to express hope.
So they're interested in having an environment
that looks good and taking away the look of poverty.
I've got some plans up for housing for Drew that we could look at.
We’re working with city leadership,
business leaders, nonprofits, churches to form coalitions
to identify strategic key priority projects
and then to attract funding to those projects.
We wanted recreation for our children,
so we went to a funder and said,
“Can you help us get Kaboom playground?”
This is a place where people don't have access to healthcare.
And so, one day someone showed up in my office
and she said, “I'm interested in doing free
mobile clinics in the Mississippi Delta.”
Drew has been a great example to many of the local
and regional nonprofits and municipal leaders
on how to self-organize, identify priority projects,
get them financed, and just to continue to persevere.
I want people to see that we are a community on the go,
that we're rising and that we're developing
and that we're not satisfied with the status quo.