@GRASSROOTS.ORG/The South

Friday, May 09, 2008

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GROUPS THAT CHANGE COMMUNITIES

THE SOUTH

Many innovative services, including a cannery for surplus food and a system in which churches build inexpensive, solar-heated houses for homeless families.
Life Enrichment Center Inc.

A day center for indigent elderly people, complete with human and animal friends.

ARKANSAS
Good Faith Fund

One of the nation's most successful microdevelopment lending circles after the Bangladeshi "Grameen Bank" model.
Southern Development Bankcorp.

A commercial bank converted into an economic-development generator for rural business.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
Columbia Road Health Services

Innovative medical clinic brings quality health care to a low-income, immigrant neighborhood.
DC Central Kitchen

One of the nation's most creative hunger programs: Collects usable leftover food, redistributes it as nutritious meals, and creates jobs and training for homeless people in the process.
CFLS/Third and Eats

Operates a quality coffee shop as job-training setting and revenue generator, along with many other community and housing programs.
Latin American Youth Center

Provides worthwhile educational and recreational activities as an alternative to street life for Latino youngsters.

FLORIDA
Farm Share Inc.

Brokers huge quantities of farm produce that would be wasted and channels them as donations to emergency-feeding programs.
Farmworkers Self-Help

Broad range of self-reliance and assistance services in a desperately poor orange-grove town.
Health Care Center for the Homeless

Model medical clinic for homeless people mobilizes voluntarism in Orlando.
InDios Cooperative

Guatemalan immigrant women earn self-sufficiency making liturgical garments in a sewing cooperative.
Miccosukee Wellness Center/Health Department

Providing quality health care on a rural Indian reservation in the Everglades.
Neighborhood Housing Services of Jacksonville Inc.

Rebuilding a neighborhood one block at a time.
New Hope Community/Holy Cross School

Turning around the lives of an entire generation of immigrants through education and service.
Redlands Christian Migrant Association

Outstanding day-care operation builds community among immigrant children ... and their parents.

GEORGIA
Atlanta Inn for Children

Atlanta's hotel industry unites to provide safe, affordable day care for the families of hospitality workers.
Cafe 458

A soup kitchen that looks like a fancy bistro builds on relationships to turn around the lives of the most "hopeless" homeless.
Habitat For Humanity International Inc.

Not just Jimmy Carter's favorite charity but a world-wide model for helping families build their own homes.
Men Stopping Violence

Making men who abuse women take the responsibility for their violence.
Prison Ministries With Women

It started with one, and now helps hundreds of ex-offenders straighten out their lives.

KENTUCKY
Community Farm Alliance

Organizes small farmers to stay on the farm and to work together for their economic survival.
Cranks Creek Survival Center

In one of the bleakest hollows of Appalachia, residents work together to give their neighbors a hand.

Erik Bendl

A man, a globe and an idea.
Livingston Economic Alternatives in Progress (LEAP)

Innovative economic-development efforts seek to improve the lives of farmers and rural folks in the Appalachian foothills.
New Directions Housing

From the kitchen table of a small urban church to millions of dollars in quality, affordable housing.

LOUISIANA
Access to Real Choices (ARC) Unlimited

Moving mentally retarded individuals as far into the mainstream as they can go through creative job training, development and support.
Crescent City Farmer's Market

Fresh produce for city folks means fresh income for local farmers.
Hope House

Providing loving care and helping support to residents of one of the nation's most vicious public-housing projects.
Southern Mutual Help Association

A quarter of a century of inspiring neighbors in hardscrabble Cajun country to work together to help themselves.

MARYLAND
Casa de Maryland

Moving Latino immigrants into the community while ensuring their rights and justice.
Light Street Housing Corp.

Practical affordable-housing initiatives in Baltimore's inner harbor are coupled with innovative job-training opportunities for homeless men.
The Love Center, Maryland.

In a very poor Baltimore neighborhood, creates programs that not only feed people but help empower them. Now developing a full-service community center in an old industrial building.
Maryland Food Committee

Statewide hunger advocacy group seeks to influence state law and policy about hunger and homelessness, and "networks" with local organizations to improve resources and services.
Northwest Baltimore Corporation

Provides resources and technical assistance for more than 70 community organizations that form its membership in Baltimore's Park Heights neighborhood.
United H.O.P.E. Community Organization

Dynamic local group doesn't wait for funding to find constructive outlets for neighborhood youth, from dramatics to dance to gardening.
Women Entrepreneurs of Baltimore (WEB)

One of the nation's most effective programs for turning welfare recipients into productive owners of their own small businesses.

MISSISSIPPI
The Initiative Inc.

A creative marriage of transitional housing and job training for rural homeless families.
Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians

Once mired in poverty, this Indian Nation has enriched itself and all its neighbors through the development of a major industrial park.
Operation Shoestring

A variety of efforts from youth development to day care brighten the lives of Jackson's poorest neighborhoods.
Stewpot Community Services

This caring soup kitchen goes far beyond lunch to provide indigent people the tools they need to turn their lives around.
Voice of Calvary Ministries

Seeks to build a generation of young leaders who'll create a better community for themselves and their families.

MISSOURI
Grace Hill Neighborhood Services

Health, housing, day care and building community: Fighting to bring its neighborhood back, this church-based St. Louis group does it all.
Hosea House

It has grown from a simple clothes closet to a soup kitchen to a full-service community center, a national model for meeting urban needs.

NORTH CAROLINA
Cities in Schools of Charlotte/Mecklenburg County

Regenerating urban school systems by mobilizing volunteer assistance and support.
Community of Readers

An unusual partnership between an urban library and its readers makes reading fun.
Grassroots Leadership

Provides statewide technical assistance and networking for local groups working to organize their communities.
Helping Hands Center

Organizes poultry-factory workers around workplace rights and mobilizes public opinion in support of that quest.
Janus Farms Institute

Teaches low-income rural families to grow raised-bed gardens to feed themselves, and to pass on thie knowledge to their neighbors.
Literacy South

Each one teach one: Trains staff of poverty organizations to go back home and teach volunteer literacy instructors.
The Rural Advancement Foundation International USA (RAFI-USA)

Promotes sustainable agriculture and food security through local initiatives and national coalitions.
Self-Help

Both a credit union and a venture-capital organization, serves as the credit source of last resort for would-be homeowners and entrepreneurs priced out of the commercial system.
Watermark Association of Artisans Inc.

Cooperative venture mobilizes and markets for some 700 artists and artisans, creating livelihoods for hundreds and pumping income into the community's economy.

SOUTH CAROLINA
Charleston Affordable Housing Inc.

Rising out of the ruins of Hurricane Hugo, this agency creates decent housing that low-income families can afford.
Charleston Crisis Ministries

The state's largest "one-stop shopping" provider of services to homeless people.
The Cooperative Ministry

Mobilizes Columbia's church community to provide a full range of services to homeless people, from emergency help to jobs and self-reliance.
Eau Claire Shalom

Model example of a United Methodist program aimed at mobilizing churches in low-income neighborhoods to identify and address community needs.
South Carolina United Action

Tough, no-nonsense community organizing in some of the South's poorest rural sections.
Trinity Housing Corp.

Effective church-based effort to provide safe, affordable transitional housing for homeless families and support services to the people who live there.

TENNESSEE
The Church Health Center

Charismatic Memphis doctor volunteers his life -- and mobilizes hundreds more -- to provide inexpensive medical care to those who can't afford insurance.
Downtown Clinic/Service Center

In Nashville, this innovative medical and service center for the homeless proved too good for the city to lose.
The Elephant Men

Two guys from the Memphis projects are mentoring youngsters in an inspiring and effective effort to keep kids off the streets and out of gangs.
Highlander Research and Education Center

Teaching community organizing to activists nationwide for generations.
Memphis Culinary Academy - Prison Program

A skilled classic chef gives a little back to the community by teaching inmates culinary skills they can use to get honest jobs.
Project R.A.P. (Responsible Adolescent Parenting)

In-school program offers Memphis youngsters a potent combination of skills and self-esteem.
Room in the Inn

Nashville's churches work together to provide organized, economical winter shelter for the homeless by taking turns doing the job.
Shop & Ride

Simple, effective program pays the fare for poor families who take the bus to the grocery store.

TEXAS
Communities Organized for Public Service (COPS)

One of the nation's most well-known and effective community-organizing efforts has literally changed the face of San Antonio.
La Mujer Obrera (The Woman Worker)

Workplace-organizing project gives Spanish-speaking women a voice in El Paso's tough garment industry.
Project Quest

Top national job-training model works with major corporations to provide serious training for high-skill jobs.
Projecto Azteca

By building their own small houses while organizing their communities, Rio Grande Valley families turn traditional "colonias" from rural slums into livable communities.
Sin Fronteras Border Agricultural Workers Project

Labor union straddles the U.S.-Mexico border to ensure decent conditions and a livable wage for chile-pepper pickers.
South Plains Food Bank

One of the nation's most innovative food banks and its inspired (if troublesome) effort to make dehydrated produce a staple for America's homeless.
Trinity Ministry to the Poor

Creative organization in Dallas provides everything from food to jobs for homeless people.

VIRGINIA
The Carver Promise

College students get involved, "promising" inner-city pupils both mentoring and friendship all the way through high school.
First Nations Development Institute

National organization provides technical assistance and funding for American Indian economic-development projects across the U.S.
Homebase of the Virginia Peninsula

Based in Newport News, this central non-profit agency ensures efficient, effective response by consolidating all the community's resources and services for homeless people.
The University of Richmond

If every college in the U.S. did half as much to encourage community activism by its students, there probably wouldn't be a poverty problem.

WEST VIRGINIA
Center for Economic Options

Remarkable organization creates jobs with initiatives that range from a sewing cooperative to teaching women to operate heavy road-construction equipment.
Robert C. Byrd Institute for Advanced Flexible Manufacturing Systems

Marshall University's "teaching factory" demonstrates high-tech, computerized manufacturing equipment and shows employees how to use it.