Metanoia Wins MetLife Foundation National Award
On Wednesday, October 28th Metanoia hosted a block party at 1902 Ubank Street where we, in conjunction with the North Charleston Police Department, were awarded the 2009 National Community Revitalization Award by MetLife Foundation and Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC). Metanoia and the NCPD were chosen from a pool of nearly 700 national applicants and were given $15,000 by MetLife to support our future community strengthening efforts over the past few years in the Cherokee/Chicora neighborhood.
Community members flocked to witness the award ceremony and enjoy refreshments and cake afterward. T-shirts, screen printed by the Metanoia Civic Leaders and displaying the new Cherokee/Chicora logo and the phrase “A New Dawn, A New Day” were handed out free to community members and guests to be worn during the festivity. Several Officers of the NCPD were also present to witness the ceremony, being prodded and followed by the adoring Young Leaders from Metanoia.
After a brief introduction for the award by LISC Officer Mona Mangat, James Oddo of MetLife Foundation formally presented Reverend Bill Stanfield of Metanoia and Deputy Chief David Cheatle of the NCPD with award plaques signifying their successful partnership. Afterwards, both Reverend Bill and Deputy Chief Cheatle expressed their thanks to the community, without whom there would be no sustainable community change. Special thanks were also expressed to Metanoia’s own Jamilla Harper for her major role in the writing of the award application, and for Tony Joyner for the work he’s done in creating quality housing in the Ubank Street Corridor which has resulted in a steep fall of crime rates.
The Young Leaders then performed the song “I’m Alive” to the delight of those present, receiving a loud round of applause. Although Mayor Keith Summey was unable to attend because he was not feeling well, the event closed with testimonies of thanks from city council members Michael Brown, Ed Astle and Kurt Taylor.
(See the press release for this event below)
Metanoia and North Charleston Community Panel Win National Award.
MetLife Foundation Community-Police Partnership Award Honors
Metanoia Community Development Corporation and the North Charleston Police Department
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Julia Ryan (CSI) 212.455.1618
Bill Stanfield (MCDC) 843.529.3014
Spencer Pryor (NCPD) 843.740-2548
North Charleston, South Carolina (October 19, 2009)– Metanoia CDC and the North Charleston Police Department will be honored October 28 at 3:30 pm by MetLife Foundation for their accomplishments in creating a safe environment through establishing quality housing and spurring economic development in the Chicora-Cherokee community and in the city of North Charleston, South Carolina.. North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey, along with local City Council Members, and North Charleston Police Chief Jon Zumalt will join Metanoia CEO, Bill Stanfield and the North Charleston Police Department at the MetLife Foundation Community-Police Partnership Award ceremony to be held at 1902 Ubank Street in Chicora Cherokee.
The Awards, sponsored by MetLife Foundation and administered by the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), recognize partnerships between community development groups and police departments that have reduced crime and spurred housing development, economic activity and improved community services in low and moderate-income communities. A $15,000 Neighborhood Revitalization Award will be presented to Metanoia and shared with the North Charleston Community Panel. Metanoia CDC and the North Charleston Police Department were selected from more than 650 applicants nationwide for the Award.
“Community groups and police departments share a common goal: creating safe, livable communities,” said April Hawkins, Director of the Civic Affairs Program at the MetLife Foundation. “Metanoia CDC and the North Charleston Police Department provide an exemplary model of partnership, and we are pleased to join LISC in recognizing their results and sharing their best practices with others groups across the country.”
“We are extremely gratified to receive this award” said Rev. Bill Stanfield, the CEO of Metanoia. “Metlife and LISC have recognized that a powerful relationship exists between community investment and crime reduction. Our goal at Metanoia is to find ways to invest in neighborhood assets in a manner that improves community stability without displacing our current neighborhood residents. This award will go to further our work of community investment and crime reduction in Chicora/Cherokee.”
Amidst reports that ranked the city of North Charleston as one of the country’s most dangerous cities in 2006 and 2007, Metanoia had begun to work to build a movement of people within the Chicora/Cherokee community that could help improve neighborhood stability through an innovative “Asset Based approach.” The Chicora-Cherokee neighborhood has historically been the area of the city with the worst crime rates and with the lowest homeownership rate in Charleston County. Through redeveloping crime-generating areas that included vacant homes and empty lots into affordable and quality housing for new homebuyers, Metanoia built and supported opportunities for previous renters to become homeowners. This investment further fostered stability in a community that had been written off as a “crime-infested” problem area. As Metanoia acquired abandoned and vacant properties for redeveloped housing for home ownership, NCPD provided frequent patrols of construction sites and stepped up efforts to discourage loitering in this area. New homeowners have a vested interest in the safety and success of the neighborhood and have become active stakeholders in the process of sustaining the neighborhood’s new vitality through participating in a community movement for change. This collective group of concerned neighborhood citizens has worked collaboratively with the local police to promote and ensure a safe and wholesome neighborhood. In the Ubank Street Corridor where Metanoia has either built new or rehabilitated 6 homes violent crime went from 35 incidences of violent crime in 2005 to 12 incidences of violent crime in 2008. This represents a 66% reduction in violent crime in this particular area. Betweeen 2007 and 2008 violent crime in the Chicora/Cherokee community dropped by 27% overall and this complimented the overall trend in North Charleston where the citywide violent crime rate dropped 17% between 2007 and 2008. Metanoia has also been a part of North Charleston’s Community Panel which has brought grass roots leaders together to provide the NCPD with valuable feedback on policing citywide.
“This is great recognition for the team work that exists in Chicora” said North Charleston Police Chief Jon Zumalt. “The reduction in crime and improvements in neighborhood livability will be sustainable due to the partnership of Metanoia, community leaders, and the City of North Charleston. We have all agreed that for North Charleston to succeed all of our neighborhoods must be successful and we are committed to continue our work in Chicora. When Police, Code Officials and Building Officials partner with grass roots community movements great things happen.”
LISC is the nation’s leading community development support organization. Since 1980, LISC has marshaled $9 billion from 3,100 investors, lenders and donors to foster the revitalization of more than 300 urban neighborhoods and rural communities. LISC established the Community Safety Initiative in 1994 to help build formal, long-term partnerships between law enforcement and community developers in troubled neighborhoods to reduce persistent crime, disorder and fear. In Boston, the Community Safety Initiative is part of LISC’s broader portfolio of investment that includes grants, loans and equity financing to support the development of over 7,860 homes and apartments and 1.4 million square feet of commercial and facilities space. More information about Boston LISC and CSI can be found at www.lisc.org.
MetLife Foundation, established by MetLife in 1976, is a long-time supporter of LISC’s community revitalization programs. In 1994, the Foundation made a $1 million leadership grant to pilot the CSI. MetLife and the Foundation have also made below-market rate loans and grants more than $76 million to the organization. For more information about the Foundation, visit www.metlife.org.
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Metanoia Youth Programs Create a Thrilling
Halloween Carnival
The Young Leaders Program got into the Halloween Spirit with a fair that was held in the Grayson Street Field on October 30th. The Young Leaders donned their costumes and brought their families and classmates along to enjoy games and refreshments. Parents of the Dream Team and teachers from Chicora Elementary School manned stations where students could play skeet ball, get their faces painted, win candy, or enjoy hot dogs and nachos. Leroy Green, father of Young Leader Eccence and Civic Leader Kalin, gave children hay rides after attaching a hay cart to the back of his truck. Reggie Miller, dressed as Superman, said that his favorite part of the fair was the hayride.
Throughout the week, the Civic Leaders had been turning their learning area at Metanoia into a haunted house. After the finishing touches were applied, the crowds outside moved indoors for a good scare. Screams and laughter resonated all the way to the back offices of Metanoia as adult and children thrill-seekers entered a main hall clouded by a fog machine and lit only by a flashing strobe light. The guests walked along a path that entered into different classrooms-turned-haunted-rooms, including a morbid butcher shop and various scary folks all put together by our students themselves.
At Metanoia we build leaders who believe in giving back to their community. Our students and their parents ran the games and activities at the fair and by doing this they were getting a valuable feeling of their own capacity to become leaders. Neighborhood residents responded, bringing their own young people to the fair to enjoy a positive atmosphere of fun and games.
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Leadership Team Retreat at Penn Center is Fun, Industrious
The Metanoia leadership team kicked off the beginning of fall with a three day retreat to Penn Center in Beufort County. The retreat was designed to strengthen leadership capacity and to do some serious planning for Metanoia’s Strategic Plan and the December Christmas Jubilee.
Penn Center was a gorgeous environment in which to relax and hone our focus on planning the work of Metanoia. The renovated home we stayed in is almost one hundred years old. The Penn Center itself was once a school for ex slaves and then played a prominent role as a site for the planners of the Civil Rights movement, including Dr. Martin Luther King and Charleston’s own Septima Clark. We found this history the perfect backdrop for planning our own movement of positive community transformation. And having Metanoia co-founder Evelyn Oliveira along as a chef only added to the comfort of an amenable stay.
The leadership group, consisting of CEO Reverend Bill Stanfield, Housing Program Director Tony Joyner, Young Leaders Program Director Charmaine Townsend, Civic Leaders Program co-Directors Stacy Brown and David Hutchinson, and Americorps Vistas Jamilla Harper and Joe Geglio, spent the working hours conducting group activities which revealed our strengths and weaknesses as leaders. The group was really able to come together and offer positive feedback and constructive criticism for each other in determining what individual steps had to be taken to ensure that each would be fulfilling their potential as a leader at Metanoia.
Gerry Schmidt, Ph.D visited one day during the retreat to host a leadership development workshop, to which the team responded very well. Dr. Schmidt presented leadership techniques that included aligning oneself with their subject through body language, which we found very engaging and helpful.
On the last day we discussed at length the long and short term goals of Metanoia, as well as how our current resources would allow us to approach these goals. The team was able to come up with several new ideas for working with the community to create more owners of sustainable housing, furthering Metanoia’s faith-based aspect through teaching and workshops, and setting higher goals for the already successful Young Leaders and Civic Leaders programs. One short term goal that was discussed in depth was how to make this year’s Christmas Jubilee a huge success.
While the retreat was a great way to help build our leadership skills, the team also found it very beneficial in strengthening our relationships with each other. This is something we all felt was necessary for us to do in order to better work together to realize the goals we’ve set. Said newcomer Joe Geglio, “I got a lot out of this retreat from a professional standpoint, but perhaps more on an intimate level. Being new to the group, it was extremely helpful to get to know everyone as friends, which makes working with them a lot more productive.” There is no doubt that the group was recharged during the retreat, and came back to the office with a replenished spirit and enthusiasm.
