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Community Action Projects

Career Academy

The Career Academy Project consists of an advisory board of leaders across various career fields with a mission to promote access for underserved youth. The advisory board will work with Kids on Point (KOP), an intense year-round afterschool and summer program. KOP engages at-risk children from the start of their education careers and beyond. The Career Academy Project focuses on “the beyond” to expose students to local businesses, like MUSC and Boeing, by creating shadowing and internship opportunities.

Carried Away

Team Carried Away chose to help people in their communities get where they need to go by taking action to address an ongoing need in the Lowcountry and Grand Strand communities – transportation. The lack of transportation creates challenges for all members of a community. This need is also supported by the Our Health, Our Future Tri-Country Health Improvement Plan 2018 – 2023 which recommends that area organizations “support and expand efforts to reduce barriers to transportation” in an effort to provide access to care and improve the health of individuals, families, and communities in the Tri-County area. 

Group Two

This program will be incubated and ultimately administered out of the Illumination Project of the Charleston Police Fund which is a donor fund housed at the Coastal Community Foundation. The project will provide personal mentoring activities for vulnerable children living in Charleston’s Eastside community and will encourage community leaders to commit to a program of 1:1 mentoring. The group plans on launching this program with support from the teachers and administrators at Sanders-Clyde Elementary School.

Lowcountry Anchors

The homeless population in Beaufort is rising and becoming more evident in public places. The Lowcountry Anchors want to support those individuals and others in a way that is anonymous, where goods can be selected as needed. The project is simple. A Blessing Box is a miniature food and personal product pantry located outdoors. The goods are protected from the weather and accessible 24 hours a day via an unlocked door. Blessing Boxes are constructed to be chest-high for visibility and are stocked with non-perishable food as well as personal care products.

Team Period Project

Menstrual hygiene products are a basic necessity, but too many women and girls lack access. The homeless and incarcerated are particularly impacted, but access issues are far more widespread. One study found that 20% of girls miss school each month during their menstrual cycle, a figure exacerbated by the lack of access to menstrual hygiene products.

The Homeless Period Project, a non-profit organization based in Greenville, S.C., is working to ensure that all women and girls have the menstrual hygiene products they need. One local barrier they’ve identified is the South Carolina tax code.

Leaders for Literacy

The Leaders for Literacy joined forces with Monaview Elementary to promote literacy and specifically support the Men Who Read program. Monaview Elementary is a unique school in Greenville County with a minority enrollment of 68% of the student body (majority Hispanic), which is higher than the South Carolina state average of 49%. Monaview’s Men Who Read, Dress for Success program was created several years ago to bridge the gap between male and female students’ standardized test scores in Reading and English Language Arts.

Reclaimed

The Reclaimed capstone project aims to work alongside Soteria Community Development Corporation, headed by DLI alum Jerry Blassingame, and particularly the program of Soteria at Work (SaW). SaW provides opportunities for previously incarcerated and low-income citizens to learn and apply job skills, earn money, and improve long-term job prospects by offering deconstruction and reclamation services. SaW dismantles condemned structures and reclaims and repurposes the materials for furniture, art, and architectural salvage for hotels, restaurants, builders, businesses, and homeowners.

Bridge to Success

Whether it is from being unemployed, incarcerated, dealing with health care costs and challenges, or struggling with financial instability, many individuals in Spartanburg County find themselves in transition and could use help to meet their most immediate needs. One basic necessity is clothing, particularly clothes and coats for cold weather, business clothes for job interviews, and shoes.

R3: Release, Restart, Restore

There are many challenges that immediately face our community members released from incarceration. These challenges are not only basic needs such as food, shelter, and safety, but also include those of inclusivity and dignity. Through a collaboration with Furman University’s Diversity Leadership Initiative along with Greenville Technical College and the Phillis Wheatley Community Center, the R3 team will provide released individuals in Greenville County with a backpack full of essential daily items to meet some of those challenges.

Rhythm of Inclusion by T Rex and the Upbeats

Disability affects more than 61 million people in the United States. Disability inclusion challenges all of us to understand fully the relationship between the way people function and how they participate in society. The goal is to make sure that everyone has the same opportunities to participate in all aspects of life including social, health, and recreational activities.