West Boulevard Neighborhood Coalition

Accomplishments

• The west boulevard coalition is a grassroots, volunteer led organization. most of the current board members are residents of the west boulevard corridor which is comprised of 18 neighborhoods including historically african american neighborhoods. key highlights from 2019 community engagement: we regularly involve the residents in a wide range of community engagement opportunities to ensure that our path forward is what our community wants and values. we are unique in that we have developed a strategic plan for our community's priorities with our residents and are implementing and executing the plan with positive results. in 2019, we held bi-monthly corridor-wide meetings to provide updates on progress and challenges. in the last year, participation in these meetings has doubled with intentional efforts to improve consistency in communications, visibility and engagement to allow community voices to be heard. we use our urban farm as the site for our large-scale community engagement activities. in the spring of 2019 wbnc sponsored an easter extravaganza event, which attracted approximately 400 residents. wbnc also partnered with the indian association to complete a public art focused - bus stop beautification -at west boulevard and romare bearden drive, adjacent to west boulevard library. in august 2019, wbnc sponsored our annual national night out event. national night out engaged some 400 people, and featured approximately 46 city/county vendors, small business vendors, and nonprofit vendors. throughout 2019, wbnc in partnership with city planning department help eight community planning workshops, which resulted in the development of the west boulevard corridor economic development playbook. the primary strategies recommendations resulting from these corridor wide planning activities focused on (1) full implementation of westside community land trust housing strategy, (2) focused on three sisters coop market development, and focused on recommendation to improve business climate in wb corridor through the establishment of a west boulevard merchant association. these large scale events were balanced with our regular community engagement efforts. our social media presence, organizational marketing and website presence have all been improved. organizational development and capacity building we continue to strengthen our organization with intentional investments in capacity building. in december 2019, wbnc secured funding to hire a full- time executive director. we now have two outside financial experts to assist our volunteer board in critical financial management. our board now includes members with expertise in the areas of law, accounting, engineering/planning, childhood education, community engagement, human services, farming, and business. additionally, in 2019 four wbnc board members were selected to participate in united way/knight foundation sponsored duke nonprofit management training. seeds for change seeds for change is our multi-tiered strategy to address a multitude of resident aspirations within the corridor. overall, the initiative goals are to (1) improve public health; (2) enhance educational opportunities; (3) increase economic development; and (4) create a community-driven, community-owned, and community-operated project. after decades of living in a food desert, residents have organized to develop a comprehensive, grassroots strategy to bring healthy food to their communities. s4c not only aims to address the lack of access to healthy food, but other initiative components such as the urban farm, youth program, and learning lab will enhance educational outcomes for participants. specifically in 2019, wbnc received close family foundation grant and bcbs grant to continue our urban farm growing seasons, farmers market and our youth program. we had increasing groups of volunteers as well as expanding the paid opportunities for local youth. we now accept snap and ebt payments at the farmer's market and are also approved for the double-up bucks program, increasing people's buying power for fresh vegetables. Expenses 0.