Harvey Neighborhood Network Is Working To Improve The Community
Harvey Neighborhood Network Is Working To Improve The Community
By Tia Carol Jones
A partnership between Restoration Ministries Inc. and CEDA of Harvey is giving residents in the Southland community a voice in the kinds of resources they can access.
The Harvey Neighborhood Network was launched in 2023, with the support of the United Way of Metro Chicago and the Transforming Places project of Cook County. Its goal is to collaborate with community members to come up with strategies that will improve the community. A steering committee of people from nonprofit organizations, large and small businesses, healthcare, faith communities and publicly funded agencies meet once a month to carry out the network’s mission.
The Neighborhood Network model is new to the Southland and the Harvey Neighborhood Network is one of six. The selection of the locations is based on needs and what was going on in these communities, along with the ability for those communities to sustain a network. Monica Regan is the Harvey Neighborhood Network Coordinator based at Restoration Ministries, Inc., and Machelle Anderson is the Harvey Neighborhood Network Coordinator based at CEDA Harvey.
“The network is an initiative that empowers residents and organizations to work together on issues that are unique to each community, so no community network will look the same as the other because it’s all based on what your individual needs are in your community,” Anderson said.
The Harvey Neighborhood Network has four impact areas: Violence prevention and intervention, workforce development and employer responsibility, economic mobility and sustainability and holistic health and wellness. The steering committee uses data collected from various organizational needs assessments. The University of Chicago-Ingalls, CEDA and Restoration Ministries all completed needs assessments. The information from all the assessments aligned so the next steps in the process involved creating impact areas. The subcommittees include organizations that came together around those impact areas to discuss pilot programs and resources that would benefit the community.
The Harvey Neighborhood Network is not trying to re-invent the wheel, but it is providing resources to the community. One of the pilot programs is summer programs for local elementary schools.
“We asked them what their needs are and how we could support a pilot program this summer. The idea is not to tell the community what the community needs but ask how we can support what is already going on so it can be better,” said Regan.
The goal of the summer program is to make summer school better and that students who need extra help can go into the next school year and be more successful. The Harvey Neighborhood Network is also hosting pop-up health and wellness events. A big need for the community is a community center with a gymnasium and exercise equipment. The Harvey Neighborhood Network is also working with the Illinois Department of Employment Security to restart some of their initiatives around workforce development.
“Again, it’s never our intention to step on anybody’s toes or duplicate efforts, we just want to pool resources and get those resources into the hands of the community,” Anderson said.
For more information about the Harvey Neighborhood Network, visit harveyneighborhoodnetwork.org.
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