Making a Movement out of Neighborhood Homeowners
Metanoia homeowners as a recent cookout for the Metanoia Homeowners Association
When a family becomes a Metanoia homeowner they not only join a neighborhood, they become part of a movement. In the last year, we have recognized that our new homeowners are also great community assets. This has led our homeowners to work with Metanoia’s Housing Director Anthony Joyner to begin the Metanoia Homeowners’ Association.
Metanoia Home Owners’ Association’s most recent meeting took place on August 15th, where residents of homes Metanoia has either built or rehabilitated gathered to share the trials and joys of being a new home owner. The homeowners, along with their families, met at Metanoia’s newly finished and still on market home at 1902 Ubank in Chicora. In all, five Metanoia homes were represented.
Among the members was new home-owner Lisa McClean, who opened up her house across the street for others to see. She lives in the two-story newly built house with her two children Tre, 15, and Eldrick, 11. The inside of the neatly kept home has large shelves devoted to displaying the boys’ many athletic trophies. The boy’s rooms themselves, in keeping with the theme they’ve dictated, are adorned with photos of their favorite NBA star, LeBron James.
Also present was the family of Anthony and Germaine Jenkins. The couple, along with three children Adika, 13, Adrian, 10, and Tony, 8, were one of the first families to reside in a Metanoia-built home. Currently they enjoy living in a house of their own, and have added such amenities as a garden and a chicken coop.
Members brought food and drink to the meeting, and Tony Joyner, manned the grill. After food was served, families engaged in a dialogue about their journeys as home owners, and offered up advice and guidance to the group. Strategies for minimizing the utility bill were brought up, along with mitigating neighborhood concerns such as littering. The Metanoia Home Owners’ Association will act as a support group for each other, but also as leaders to oversee an initiative to strengthen their community.
We believe that in working with homebuyers after they purchase a home we continue to improve neighborhood stability and new homeowners can be a real support for one another. We look for great things to come from the homeowners association in future meetings as families bond together to become great homeowners and fantastic assets in our community.
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New Leaders Begin Another Fall at Metanoia
Metanoia’s afterschool programs commenced August 24th, and the staff and students couldn’t be happier to be underway. Metanoia’s Young Leaders, Civic Leaders, and mentoring programs are aimed at teaching leadership skills. We are focused on the youth, who someday will become the voices and decision makers of our community. All students come recommended by their teachers as displaying integrity, motivation, and work ethic: all essential traits in becoming a successful leader on any medium.
Young Leaders, under the direction of Charmaine Townsend, are drawing quite a crowd with forty students signed up this session. The Young Leaders, first through fifth graders, begin their day in the Imani Circle, where they are able to express their feelings through song. The students have all memorized the Young Leaders Pledge. The pledge focuses their commitment to leadership through a faith-based and academic approach. Afterwards, students break off into one of four classrooms according to age, where small groups led by Young Leaders Counselors focus on leadership-building activities. There is time set aside for tutoring and help with homework, as well as time for each student to relate his or her joys, concerns, and daily events in a journal.
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Building Leaders at Every Level
Two of Metanoia’s own, Reverend Bill Stanfield and Tony Joyner, are being honored the upcoming year with chance for community-strengthening learning opportunities.
Tony Joyner, Housing Program Director, has been selected for Leadership Charleston, a year-long program for professionals aimed at strengthening leadership abilities that will translate to a better understanding of how to best serve communities in need. Members of Leadership Charleston examine leadership roles in political, social, and economic realms, and are given the chance to network with current community leaders. Some specific topics which Tony will be addressing as a Leadership Charleston member include education, economic development, environmental issues, and health care.
Reverend Bill Stanfield, Metanoia CEO, is one of twenty individuals statewide that have been selected for the Liberty Fellowship, a two-year program for rising young leaders to prepare them for a long and successful tenure of service in South Carolina. In what is a values-based approach, Fellows will attend seminars at Wofford College, Pawley’s Island, and the Aspen Institute to dissect and discuss writings of some of the greatest thinkers the world has known. Fellows then have the chance to practice what they’ve learned by creating a community project aimed at improving South Carolina communities. The goal of Liberty Fellows is to broaden their minds as leaders to open up a dialogue with all citizens, and act as a mediating leader between conflicting ideals. By creating more self-aware and self-correcting individuals, Liberty Fellowship is placing the future of our state leadership in good hands.
