Finding grassroots solutions at the grassroots level
// By Jacqueline Brennan
For more than 20 years, the Wells Fargo Regional Foundation has continued to refine its model to improve the quality of life for children and families within 62 counties in Eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. In the Upswell workshop, “Learning to Let Your Community Lead,” Lois will join KaBOOM! in sharing proven practices that you can use to better engage with those you serve – and even engage you in some roleplay!
“We really want to spread the word about how important it is to allow grassroots solutions to be developed at the grassroots level by the people being impacted. It drives us to be more emphatic about it,” according to Lois. “Aligned with KaBOOM!, it’s really about community engagement, and helping revitalize low-income places through asking people who live there for their ideas and involvement in making places where they live, work, and play stronger.”
You’ll learn about good practices to engage residents in revitalization of their places, and the KaBOOM! approach to helping them plan spaces for recreation. Attendees will also explore how to use primary and secondary data to help inform those strategies, how to assess strategy success, and how to structure long-term solutions to long-standing challenges.
“I look forward to sharing and discussing these practices that have been demonstrated to work for the last 15-plus years. I love learning across sectors and working with grassroots organizations and the multiple disciplines that will be in the room, so there’ll be sharing across that,” Lois adds.
“That brings energy to me and the audience. It’s about engagement, and we’re all about community engagement, right? We’ll kick off the workshop with roleplay of a community meeting and how it plays out. It will be an engaging experience!”
Learning to Let Your Community Lead is happening Wednesday, November 13 from 3 – 7:30pm