@GRASSROOTS.ORG/The Rustbelt

Friday, May 09, 2008

SEARCH:

GROUPS THAT CHANGE COMMUNITIES

THE RUSTBELT

One of the nation's top community-development corporations, restoring quality homes and businesses to a Chicago neighborhood devastated by "white flight."
Breakthrough Urban Ministries

Varied services for homeless people, highlighted by a profit-making neighborhood cleanup business that trains people for jobs and hires them for cash.
Heifer Project International - Urban Project

A worldwide agricultural program brings its agricultural development concept to the inner city.
Lakefront SRO

One of the nation's best efforts at turning urban "fleabags" back into decent, inexpensive housing.
Suburban Job-Link

The jobs are in the suburbs. Willing workers without transportation live in the city. This simple initiative makes the obvious connection.

INDIANA
The Calumet Project

Jobs are fleeing Northwest Indiana's decaying industrial belt, but this organizing project does its best to keep them home.
The Heartland Center

Conducts serious research into regional poverty issues, and promotes change by making its findings public.
Wesley Community Services/Survival Skills

Teaching "Survival Skills" to welfare mothers in urban Indianapolis.

MICHIGAN
Community Farm of Ann Arbor

Both a demonstration farm teaching organic gardening and a successful "community supported agriculture" program forging links between those who grow the crops and those who eat them.
Detroit Self-Employment Project

Training program with a startling track record for providing welfare recipients the tools they need to become self-reliant by owning and operating their own businesses.
Focus: HOPE

The nation's first and most successful "teaching factory," turning inner-city youngsters into high-skill, high-tech workers for the 21st century.
Genessee Area Skills Center

Battered Flint, home of "Roger and Me," houses one of the most innovative high schools in America.
Hispanic Center of Western Michigan

Serving Southwestern Michigan's Spanish-speaking migrants, this creative program pays its own way by selling translation services in many languages.
Inner City Christian Federation (ICCF)

Renovates housing in Grand Rapids neighborhoods and gives the people who live there the information and resources they need to keep up their property ... and their payments.
Neighborhoods Inc. of Battle Creek

Turning around Battle Creek's most dilapidated neighborhoods, this program doesn't just work house by house but block by block.
Small Business Development Center (SBDC)

Proving that disabled people are just as capable as able-bodied Americans of supporting themselves, if they are simply given the tools to do so.
Warren-Conner Development Coalition

Non-profit coalition organizes neighbors to create employment and train workers in East Side Detroit.

OHIO
Appalachian Center For Economic Networks (ACENet)

Creating economic development in Ohio's Appalachian southeastern corner through "flexible manufacturing networks," creating groups of small businesses in specialty markets that work jointly yet individually for mutual profit.
Association for Better Community Development Inc. (ABCD)

Organizing communities and creating jobs by building firms that provide needed community services in Akron.
Cleveland Works

First they train workers. Then they get them jobs. By the thousands.
Ohio Hunger Task Force

Statewide anti-hunger organization provides both advocacy, conducting research and publicizing hunger and poverty issues, and direct service, channeling government food and funds to family day-care operations.
The Open Shelter

The charismatic leadership of creative director Kent Beittel makes this Columbus institution one of the nation's most innovative shelters for homeless men.
Rural Action

Twenty-year-old activist organization in rural eastern Ohio builds housing, creates jobs and shines a light on community problems. One unique model: It runs an office-supply store in college-town Athens as a job-training and money-making resource.
Women's Entrepreneurial Growth Organization (WEGO)

Down-to-earth training in entrepreneurship to turn welfare mothers into business owners.

PENNSYLVANIA
ASSETS (A Service for Self-Employment, Training and Support)

Boosting the economy of rural Lancaster, Pa., by teaching unemployed people how to run their own businesses, then helping them get the financing and ongoing support they need to make it happen.
The Bernardine Center (Supercupboard)

A shining light in one of the East Coast's worst slums, this center goes beyond handouts as an innovator of the innovative Supercupboard program, which gives poor women and families practical assistance in such important basics as budgeting, cooking and nutrition.
Neighborhood Development Project of West Philadelphia

Combines entrepreneurial training and community organizing to boost the neighborhood economy and get people working together for the common good.
Philadelphia Citizens for Children and Youth (PCCY)

City-wide advocacy group investigates problems involving children and youth, then seeks practical solutions and works to build support for them.
Supercupboard II

After Supercupboard (see Bernadine Center above), what next? Helping recipients move from welfare to work.
Women's Opportunities Resource Center (WORC)

One of the most effective entrepreneurial-training programs for women, it succeeds by sticking with its graduates, helping them find venture capital, and helping them through the difficult early months and years of operating a small business.

WISCONSIN
Community Action Coalition

A '60s Community Action Agency that stayed, the CAC provides both emergency help and self-reliance building for affluent Madison's "invisible poor."
Esperanza Unida

One of the most innovative programs in the nation, "United Hope" started as a non-profit auto-repair shop earning its own way while training young men for high-paying jobs as auto mechanics, and has spun off dozens of equally creative concepts.
Institute for Research On Poverty

Housed at the University of Wisconsin and federally funded, the Institute is the nation's leading center for the serious, scientific study of poverty-related issues.