Knowing the priorities and causes a community champions can be beneficial to those moving into the area as well as those already living there.
Renee Sanders, director for United Way of Lowndes and Noxubee and member of the leadership and vision task force with Lowndes County Foundation, said Wednesday her group is working on a strategic plan through 2040 that includes compiling a database of the projects and initiatives funded by LCF.
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“This is all contingent on what the other task groups are doing,” Sanders said. “It’ll be a good database. Once we get it up digitally, it’ll be on the Lowndes County site, the city of Columbus site, the Visit Columbus site. It’ll be where anyone moving to the community could look this up.”
Task force groups for the Lowndes County Foundation met for a working luncheon at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday at Lion Hills Center.
Lowndes Community Foundation is a community affiliate of the CREATE Foundation, which is based in Tupelo and was founded in 1972 by George McLean and his wife, Anna Keirsey McLean.
CREATE serves 17 northern counties of Mississippi through grants the foundation receives funding for through donations. There are currently 16 community affiliates that serve as the liaison between donors and recipients for funds raised in specific communities.
In 2018, members of LCF created five task forces after prioritizing areas in the community in need — crime and addiction, community involvement, education, leadership and vision and poverty.
The task forces will be responsible for allocating $25,000 to various community groups and initiatives. Wednesday was the first time the task forces met together individually since before COVID-19, but LCF met in October 2022 to discuss where they were when they left off.
Of the five groups, four met Wednesday to begin discussions on which issues each should focus on for fund allocation. The only task force group that did not meet was the one centering on poverty and homelessness.
John Almond, director for the Dream Center Golden Triangle, serves on the community involvement group. He said his task force discussed the way certain groups of people are involved in the community and noted a lack of community engagement from area churches.
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“I talked with the group about the challenge of getting the church, the collective group of the Christian community regardless of denomination or cultural heritages, engaged,” Almond said. “We are doing it successfully, but we haven’t even scratched the surface with the potential the church brings to providing volunteerism, to apply to all of the things we’re engaged in. … I don’t know if this is a true number, but I asked Siri how many churches there are in the Golden Triangle, and there are 430. Only a few from all 430 creates a massive army for good.”
Another point the community involvement task force recognized is how active businesses and other community action groups like Junior Auxiliary are regarding community engagement. Almond said they noticed the community needs consistency from nonprofits.
LCF Executive Director Jan Eastman said the crime and addiction group has previously had success in getting kratom banned in Lowndes County. Now the group has turned toward getting tianeptine banned immediately in the county, Sheriff Eddie Hawkins said.
Some members will speak to the Lowndes County Board of Supervisors on April 3 during the public hearing about banning the substance in the county following the city’s immediate ban in February.
District 2 Supervisor Trip Hairston said the task force has also turned attention to helping those currently incarcerated be prepared for life outside of jail or prison to prevent recidivism.
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“We talked about from the standpoint of inmates that are within the system as they approach getting out, what we can do to help them, equip them to not be recidivists,” Hairston said. “That would mean … better education, teaching them how to be dads, teaching them how to do family life, how to manage a checkbook. There are programs in other parts of the state that really provide a blueprint that we could look at for doing here.”
Before COVID-19, the education task force was focused on trying to get Excel by 5, an early childhood education program that emphasizes community involvement, in as many schools as possible in the county.
Because Excel by 5 has funding, the education task force decided to explore other options.
The task force noted parents and guardians don’t always know what is available for their children during the summers, so its members are working toward compiling resources and researching the best ways to get the information to who needs it.
The task force group meetings are open to the public, and there will be two more meetings at Lion Hills — one April 19, one May 10 from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. There is no cost to attend, and those interested should email Eastman at [email protected] to confirm their attendance.
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