Okolona Kid’s Community Park

The Okolona Kid’s Community Park team, lead by sparkplug Shirley Giddens (third from the right) find shade in the gazebo they incorporated into their project with the first round of funding.  The group is currently working to install bathrooms and a drinking fountain!  The park, the site of the first black school in the community, had been neglected for years prior to the group’s ACLP funding.  They have since replaced the fence, landscaped the park area, installed the gazebo and held fundraisers which have brought in more than $4,000!  About 50 kids use the park daily!

ACLP MS update

16 Appalachian Community Learning Project (ACLP) communities met at Waverly Waters in West Point, Mississippi on January 20, 2009 to share their project results and learnings.  Here’s what two of our Sparkplugs were able to do with a $3000 investment by the Appalachian Regional Commission:

Mantee, Mississippi - Mississippi’s Mayberry

This group’s targets were to improve the economic status of the community by building a structure that could be used for fundraising events and to improve the appearance of the town.  Here’s what the project’s sparkplugs achieved:

Sherman - SWAT- SideWalks Around Town

The Sherman sparkplugs wanted to improve the look of the town.  Their targets speak for themselves!

• 3 blocks of sidewalk removed and rebuilt
• 3 new houses constructed and sold
• 5 fundraising events planned and executed, bringing more than $18,000 into the community

Here’s what a few of our Sparkplugs had to say from the ACLP Learning Conference Fall-Winter 2008:

 

Brandi Betts - Vinton County, A Stitch in Time

A Stitch in Time set out to increase the number of Quilt Barn Squares within Vinton County, Ohio (adding fourteen to the six that already existed) in an effort to boost tourism and increase involvement in the community.

Vinton County, A Stitch in Time Project results:

• 894 volunteers contributed to the project
• 21 new blocks selected, painted and hung in Vinton County adding to the Ohio Quilt Barn Trail
• $16,046.20 in donated time and supplies

Pictured below, Brandi Betts in attendance at the ACLP Learning Celebration at the Dairy Barn in Athens, Ohio. 

“Donna Sue Groves is the reason we have quilt barns [in Vinton County].  After talking to her, we decided this would be a great way to bring people to our community.  We originally came to the ACLP workshop talk about a quilt barn festival, but realized we needed more barns.   

[The ACLP] is absolutely a wonderful experience, and if you’re thinking about it, drop what your doing and go for it. The neat thing about what the Rensselaerville Institute does is they bring us into a room and help us create something that is far better than what we thought of.  Doing something with Rensselaerville just opens up the world. 

[What I would share with future sparkplugs is] in recruiting volunteers, the best way to do this is to identify something you would find to be of specific interest with that person.  Once you get them on board, you give them their specific task.  They always ask if there something else they can do to help, and you can bring them in to the bigger project.” 

Cornelia Dettmer - Manchester Weekends in the Park

The Manchester sparkplugs envisioned a clean safe park that offered activities for visitors of all ages and attracted more people to the downtown area.  The group cleaned up their park, built a stage with a backdrop that would serve as a movie screen and scheduled a number of events.  While they are currently working to raise the fund needed to install a Splashpad in their park.

“I had a project that I wanted to do and no funding.  When the ACLP opportunity came along, I jumped on it.  We had wanted to do projects in the park, but had no way to move it forward.  This was the perfect thing to start it off.  The concept, if people can really get it, works beautifully.   

The role of the sparkplug is to get everybody else organized to do everything.  The secret is getting the right Sparkplug for each part of the project.  We got completely different people for the different projects- for our boat run fundraiser, for example, we turned to boat people.  Those same people would not have had an interest in the park.”

Here are the Manchester project results:

• 1701 people participated in community events
• 98 volunteers contributed to the project
• 2 new services offered by local merchants
• 10% increase in sales reported by two businesses
• $14,199 in donated merchandise, food and discounts leveraged

Pictured to the Right are: Sue Moreland, Appalachian Regional Commission, Wanda Hairston, Governor’s Office of Appalachia, and our Sparkplug, Cornelia Dettmer.