FirstWorks@TheCorners: The Asset-Based Approach Making a Difference In Highland Heights
You can hear the passion, the sincerity, and love that emanates from Amy Pearson, Executive Director of FirstWorks - a tutoring program in the Highland Heights community. She takes a moment to speak candidly regarding the great work that FirstWorks@The Corners does as part of Communities of Shalom. Moreover, she highlights the amazing gifts, assets, and potential that are so alive and vibrant in this historic neighborhood.
It's All About Sharing Experience, Knowledge, Love, and Making Friends
Carl Awsumb was so excited on that Saturday in July, when more children showed up than ever before. With fifteen to twenty children and few adults it was almost too much of a good thing. They picked one hundred pints of blackberries – the most ever – and sold them at a local Farmers’ Market with the help of GrowMemphis. One might think it is the profit share of up to five dollars an hour that keeps the children from the local Binghampton neighborhood coming back to McMerton
FirstWorks at The Corners Thrives by Building on Community Assets
The Corners of Highland Heights Community of Shalom faced a difficult decision last summer when it looked like FirstWorks, a long running after-school program, would not re-open with the new school year. Recognizing what an important asset that the program was for the neighborhood, The Corners was determined to save FirstWorks. According to Fred Morton, The Corners' Shalom Zone coordinator, “The Corners’ purpose included strengthening the education of the children in our nei
Living an Attitude of Abundance is Indeed a Paradigm Shift - Exploring a different vision for creati
“Whatever the problem, community is the answer.”
This quote from Margaret Wheatley could have been the mantra for “Engaging Community. Narrating Change.” last fall with John McKnight, Peter Block and Walter Brueggemann and continues to be the mantra for the people who seek to create community everywhere in their daily lives.
Building upon what 350+ Memphians learned about creating community last November, Center for Transforming Communities (CTC) invited participants to
Does rugged individualism limit our ability to build community? - Possibilities through the lens of
This week I had the pleasure of a visit from Stanley Gitari Imunya and Mary Karimi Gitari of Kenya. Our mutual acquaintance, Susan Hillebert, organized our meeting believing that our respective work, though 8,000 miles apart, had much in common and that there are things we can learn from each other.
Indeed, I was very intrigued about the work of Zoe Ministries which uses community as the basic building block that nurtures the ability of aids orphans to become self-sufficie
Developing eyes to see what God sees - Prayer Walking: a practice for shalom-seekers in the neighbor
This is the third Lenten season that The Corners of HighlandHeights Community of Shalom has coordinated a weekly prayer walk in their community. Each Tuesday they meet at a different church in Highland Heights and the surrounding area. From their starting point, they walk in small teams to the school, along the commercial corridor, and in residential pockets where gangs and violence are threatening the neighborhood. I joined them this past Tuesday as they walked, met shopke
Connecting friends through gifts, passions and knowledge - Binghampton United Methodist Church mappi
The gifts, skills, passion and knowledge of the Binghampton United Methodist Church (BUMC) congregation and its neighbors are converging in ways that church members hope will catalyze new possibilities in the neighborhood through expanded relationships. People working in ministry can sometimes be seen as doing “for” someone as opposed to “with” someone, says BUMC lay leader Barbara Vann, so the congregation is always on the lookout for new ways to come alongside people in
Competition gives way to cooperation in Hickory Hill - Diverse group comes together for community tr
If the Center for Transforming Communities (CTC) is a spark to help ignite strengths and gifts in neighborhoods of Memphis, then the collaborative spirit Dianne Love sees in Hickory Hill is a sign of that fire burning brighter every day. Competition gives way to cooperation in this part of Memphis as people from all walks of life gather under the auspices of Communities of Shalom to envision what is possible in the neighborhood while working together to make that vision a
Faith and the Great Transition - Interview with Jay Van Groningen, Communities First Association
We’re hearing more and more of this economic and social shift afoot, what some are calling the great transition or the great turning. A critical field of action some have identified in this shift is that of what might be called the faith community or faith system.
Axiom News, through its work with the Center for Transforming Communities (CTC), spoke withCommunities First Association executive director Jay Van Groningen recently on the question of a possible new role for fa
1,000 examples of community strength in The Heights - Reflections on what’s possible through coopera
While 1,000 people were coming and going during a back-to-school party at Treadwell Middle School in September, Anna Terry had a chance to speak with one of the security guards who works there.
He grew up in The Heights and played basketball at Treadwell, he told her, and as he spoke to her about his younger years and his connection to the neighborhood, a look of pure nostalgia was written upon his face.
He was thankful to see the spirit of community alive and well th
