11-10 Develop our community PDF Print E-mail

   Working to develop our community  

Camden News 11-10-09

By DONNA COLLINS Staff Writer     

    About 50 Ouachita and Calhoun county residents shared success stories and collaborated in making a list of community assets Monday during the first of two events designed to produce a community development plan. The process continues at 6:30 p.m. today at the Ross Center and event facilitators want residents who were unable to attend Monday to know there’s plenty left to do and all contributions are welcomed.
   "Ark of the Ouachita" is being sponsored by Ouachita Partnership for Economic Development and Southern Arkansas University Tech.
   "It’s a very good turnout," said community development consultant Dianne Williams.
   Williams and co-facilitator Freeman McKindra, president of McKindra Development Institute in Little Rock, conducted a similar event earlier this year at SAU Tech as part of a regional contribution to the state’s strategic planning process currently under way at the Economic Development Commission.
   The goal of the local meetings is to assess assets and opportunities, connect people, programs and organizations and identify issues to be included in a planning process that will begin in 2010.
   In an effort to determine "what works" in Ouachita and Calhoun counties, several residents shared stories of their experiences as part of local and area volunteer groups.
   Participants were asked to relate high points defined by facilitators as "a time when joining with others, on behalf of a greater good that has been especially satisfying."
   Volunteer groups mentioned by participants Monday ranged from the Camden Business and Professional Women, who have sponsored the BPW Barn Sale from more than 40 years, making the annual event into one of the southeast United States’ premiere arts and crafts fair to the Ouachita and Calhoun Counties Local Emergency Planning Committee, the only LEPC group in the state that includes two counties working as one.


   Williams and McKindra agreed that many of the area’s successes are built on the strength of volunteerism. 
"We can tackle anything we want to deal with," Williams told the crowd. "Successful communities are built from within. It takes everybody."
   After a short break. Williams and McKindra asked participants to identify the community’s capital, defined as assets that are available to build on to reach desired goals.
   Participants were asked to write a community asset on a piece of paper, then place each on a board that listed seven different kinds of community capital:       • Financial - funds from banks, grants, foundations, etc.
   • Political - access to and influence of local, state and federal officials.
   • Social - connections to people and organizations.
   • Cultural - heritage, values, festivals, work ethic.
   • Natural - parks, farm land, nature and amenities.
   • Human - skills, leadership, education, crafts people.
   • Built - infrastructure and utilities.
   During tonight’s session participants will be asked to match assets to the issues believed to be in need of addressing in order to achieve community success.
   "You’ll learn to use familiar assets in new ways," Williams said, before encouraging those in attendance to return with a friend for tonight’s session or to send a friend in their place if they are unable to attend. For more information about the session call OPED at 836-2210.