The Turning the Tide on Poverty Action Forum and Resource Fair attracted a large crowd to the Pine Bluff Convention Center Monday morning where organizers offered information about community programs and applications for utility bill assistance.
The event was sponsored by the Southern Rural Development Center, in conjunction with a coalition of state and federal agencies and foundations.
The event combined an update on the local progress of the SRDC-sponsored anti-poverty initiative with a resource fair that brought together social services organizations to educate low-income residents about available programs.
Attendees were able to apply for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which assists households with home energy and heating bills.
“This is a wonderful opportunity for Pine Bluff residents who may be struggling to pay their energy bill right now to not only get that needed assistance but also to be a part of this huge event,” said David Knight, executive director of the Pine Bluff/Jefferson County Economic Opportunities Commission.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
The resource fair included information on voter registration, housing, health, education and free tax preparation services.
Active community participation
Turning the Tide on Poverty was kicked off locally in October by the Jefferson County Cooperative Extension Service with an initiative to get residents to become part of several community circles. They met for five weeks to come up with action items for improving the standard of living of city residents.
Monday’s action forum provided circle members with the opportunity to present their community action items to residents.
Rita Conley, an instructor with the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff School of Agriculture, summarized the work of the community circles.
“This project was intended to bring people together to be able to say what they wanted to see in their community,” Conley said. “We met for five weeks in the community circles and after we met those five times everybody came up with the things that they wanted to do. We invited the residents of Pine Bluff to discuss ideas and now it is time to move to action.”
Aaron Brunson with the University Park community circle summarized his group’s efforts.
“Our circle came up with three action items, including a mentoring program, a community resource program and a food and survival resource program,” Brunson said. “The food resource program would include classes on cooking, nutrition and family budgeting as well as providing people with information on where they can go if they need food assistance. The community resource program would include a senior citizen referral service and a resource directory for people to get help when they need it.”
Brunson said that the mentoring program would work to provide young people with adult role models, provide parenting classes and offer classes to teach young people appropriate interpersonal skills.
Furonda Brasfield with the Central Park community circle said their first action item was about the need to get jobs back in Pine Bluff.
“We determined that there is a need in the community to expand the use of the work-ready skills test to attract employers to the area,” Brasfield said. “We need to expand accessibility to the career readiness test and need to recruit students for the Workforce Alliance for Growth in the Economy program.”
“We also decided that we as a community need to expand community service programs to include more youth,” Brasfield said. “In addition, we determined that we need to come up with ways to bring about awareness of the positive things that are happening in the community. Some people can’t afford cable TV or the newspaper so we need to do things like advertise on billboards and go on radio talk shows to perpetuate the message that Pine Bluff is a positive place.”
Brasfield said that another action item that her group came up with is working to foster more home ownership in Pine Bluff and improving the residential infrastructure in town.
“There are no sidewalks in some of our poorer neighborhoods,” Brasfield said. “We need sidewalks to provide young people with a place to safely walk. People should also report abandoned buildings in their neighborhoods to the city so that we can get rid of them. This will help to increase property values. We also need to have mortgage and credit counseling services because many people don’t know how to go about buying a house.”
Implementation stage
Dennis Bailey, County Extension Agent and Staff Chair with the Jefferson County Cooperative Extension Service, said that as people move forward to attempt to implement action items, they should remember that the work is a gradual process but one that with perseverance can yield positive results.
“I’m willing to bet that when the civil rights movement under the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., got started, it often involved groups as small as two or three people,” Bailey said. “What we are doing here is not much different than any other strategic planning process. When I was living in McCurtain County, Okla., a federal health clinic was located there only after a long process of discussion. These types of strategic planning exercises are what can get things done. Where you go from here is exactly where you want to take it.”
Knight said that the ultimate goal for the day’s events was to create opportunities for all of Pine Bluff’s residents.
“With the cuts that we are receiving to our programs,” Knight said, “we have to say to ourselves, what is Pine Bluff going to do for Pine Bluff?”
“Pine Bluff has so many resources,” Knight said. “This action forum is about finding out what we need to do and deciding how to get those things done. The question is, what do you want your neighborhood to look like? Then you have to ask, how am I going to make that happen? What does my neighbor need and how can I help them get there?”
“Our resources are continuing to get more and more thin,” Knight said. “We can’t wait on Washington, D.C., or Little Rock. We have to be able to get things done ourselves. We can’t continue to sit around and wait.”
Organizers said that the community circles would meet again in six to eight months to present reports on what they have been able to accomplish.