The Black Belt Community Foundation 14th Annual Community Associates Retreat was held at the Embassy Suites Downtown Tuscaloosa on December 8-10, 2019. This year’s theme was, “Building and Expanding Civic Engagement and Participation to Transform the Alabama Black Belt Region.”
The Community Associates are local grassroots leaders, concerned citizens, and volunteers who support the philanthropic efforts of the Black Belt Community Foundation
Felicia Lucky, President of the BBCF stated, “The Community Associates are considered the ‘heart and soul’ of the Black Belt Community Foundation. The annual retreat provides an opportunity for each county to share successes and failures over the past year. The retreat gives the staff of the BBCF and others an opportunity to provide meaningful staff development for each community associate.”
One of the main highlights of the annual retreat is held on day three of the retreat. The BBCF staff shares with each county the amount of funds raised by their county. This is important to each county because the BBCF Board of Directors has agreed to match up to $5,000 to be use for 2020 Community Grants within each county. Therefore, the more money raised locally through grassroots fundraising, the more grants the foundation will be able to fund in that county.
After all the training and development activities were completed, President Felicia Lucky and her financial team handed Chris Spencer, Community Outreach Director, the totals for each county’s fundraising for 2019. After each county’s total was announced, Spencer stated that the total amount raised to date was $60,435 with another $31,700 committed in the budgets of eight local county commissions across the Alabama Black Belt region. The Community Associates were instrumental in requesting funds from their county commissions and having an allocation for support of the Black Belt Community Foundation included in their county’s annual budget.
Miriam Leftwich, Coordinator of the Greene County Community Associates said, “ We reached our fundraising goals for Greene County last year. We held several raffles, a yard sale, a shoe drive for slightly used shoes, a meat sale at Easter and other activities that raised funds at the local level, which will be coming back as community grants from the Black Belt Community Foundation. We have not yet convinced our Greene County Commission to make a contribution but we are going to try again in 2020, since we can now point to the work of associates in other counties who were successful in getting financial support from their county commissions.”
President Lucky stated, “We are very grateful for our local grassroots fundraising efforts and thankful for the giving of eight our local county commissions for placing the BBCF in their annual budgets. The BBCF will match up to $5,000 for funds raised in each county for the 2020 Community Grants cycle. Funds raised will return back to each county to fund community projects. If each county received the maximum match of $5,000, the BBCF will fund over $152,000 in community grants in 2020. We are ‘Taking What We Have To Make What We Need’ just as our motto says!”
In addition to fundraising, the BBCF retreat also had informational sessions on the importance of counting everyone in the 2020 Census; a session on the work of Black Voters Matter to help register all people in the state, especially those who have been incarcerated or have outstanding waivers against them; a session on the new ‘Alabama Literacy Law’ which will require 3rd grade students to reach 3rd grade reading level or not be promoted to the next grade; and a session on the work of the Gear-Up Program to help young people in the Black Belt finish high school and go on to post-secondary education.