COMMUNITY ORGANIZING

Since sustainable impacts on health, crime, and other community issues can only be achieved with community support and organization, community organizing is at the heart of COPC efforts. North Nashville communities have a history of organizing both through formal organizations such as our COPC partners Hadley Park Neighborhood Association and Tomorrow’s Hope Neighborhood Association, as well as through short-term responses to community crises.

The return of Preston Taylor residents to their new Hope VI homes is a prime opportunity for that neighborhood to establish a formal organizational structure and for all our North Nashville community organizations and residents to increase their capacity to proactively advocate together, as well as individually. A key component for the COPC Community Organizing Committee is to support the Hadley Park Neighborhood Association, the Tomorrow’s Hope Neighborhood Association, and the Preston Taylor Resident Association as each matures and encourages residents to live, grow, play, and go to school in a healthy environment.

Current, past, and planned community organizing activities include:

• Pot-luck dinners
• Creating a neighborhood playground
• Getting a full-service grocery store (or stores) selling healthy foods into the community
• A "Food Chain" project to connect the neighborhood with garden produce
• Family Empowerment Day
• Juneteenth Celebration
• Home ownership workshops
• Legal Aid assistance
• Youth leadership and finance programming
• Connecting youth to the arts
• Child safety belt education events

Beverly Jacobs (beverly.jacobs@vanderbilt.edu) is the chair of the Community Organizing Committee.