Don Higgins just walked by and told me this:

One of our functions is to work on special projects and in order to do that, we created the West Central Area Coalition. It's a coalition of the area schools, the health and social service providers, area churches and other interested agencies. There are about 30 members. The coalition meets the fourth Thursday of every month. In addition to sharing information of what's happening in each other's venues. Everyone is kept up to speed.

The coalition was created by Lori Dolan and myself about 10 years ago.

We information share and work on special projects. The very first and most successful has been the celebration of kids summer festival. The most recent one has been the issue of predatory lending and the foreclosures of low-income people in West Central. The coalition put together a safety net for Louise Stamper and her family. The family was a victim of predatory lending. Through the coalition's efforts we were able to make connections to legal and social service agencies.Salem Lutheran Church and Simpson Realty were both real helpful.

We put together resources to find her a rental house that is handicap accessible. The coalition voted to support an application for Habitat for Humanity to get her a home in West Central. She's been such an advocate for the neighborhood.

You can accomplish much more when you have more organizations involved. You have much greater access to resources. The help of many perspectives sharing problem solving. So you get much more creativity in solving problems.

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