A local nonprofit is revealing the results of a report that has been in the making for months.
The Greater Taylor Foundation is hosting a Report to the Community event Friday morning, Nov. 10 at First Baptist Church, 2500 Mallard. Attendees will hear the preliminary results of Impact Taylor, which was the foundation’s community needs assessment initiative, beginning at 8:30 a.m.
Previously, the Impact Taylor initiative hosted six focus groups in order to iden- tify areas of improvement for the city. The first one of Impact Taylor focus group was June 26, the same day GTF had its official ribbon cutting.
“It’s really important for everybody to hear it and embrace the fact that we’ve got some issues,” said Diana Phillips, GTF board chair. “As a community, if we are positive and we work together, we can solve these issues.”
Phillips said Impact Taylor received about 300 surveys from community members to go along with the focus group meetings.
She said the community needs assessment revealed six areas that Impact Taylor will focus on. The areas involve housing, childcare, economic well-being, food insecurities, mental health and community collaborations.
Crescendo Consulting, a consulting firm from Maine that ran the assessment, will present the findings over breakfast.
“It helps to give everybody a guide in the community about what we need to kind of focus on to be a healthier community,” Phillips said. “If we’re all working on it together, even one little piece makes a big difference in the bigger puzzle.”
The next phase of the initiative will be to assemble teams around each respective area of improvement. Each team, council or committee will have a “champion” from the community.
The champions will listen to community dialogue and be the primary entity for the issue. Phillips said the Taylor Chamber of Commerce will be focused on bettering the economic well-being in Taylor.
Phillips said people who attend Friday’s breakfast can sign up to work for whichever team they would like.
“These will be big and broad committees,” Phillips said. “These committees will outline what they want, what their priorities should be and what their goals are going to be for that committee. Again, it’s just sitting at the table.”
Phillips added that she is hoping collaboration comes out of these committees.
“What we found when we were doing the needs assessment focus groups is that there are a lot of assets in Taylor, but a lot of people don’t know what’s available or how to access the resources,” Phillips said.
While the official deadline to RSVP for the breakfast has passed, Phillips said they can take reservations up until Thursday.
