The Griffith Neighborhood Spotlight (GNS) initiative was organized in early December of 2015 after receiving a community building grant from the Legacy Foundation based in Lake County, Northwest Indiana. The GNS initiative is supported by our ‘backbone’ organization, the Crossroads YMCA and a Steering Committee of (6) Griffith resident volunteers. A Community Builder was hired in early January 201
6, to organize, facilitate, and support the work of the Steering Committee, with additional community-based volunteer members interviewed and added to support the front-end ‘Engagement’ and information-gathering phase of the Collective Impact Program Development process. The initial 2016 goal of this process and its team of dedicated members, was to develop a “Quality of Life Plan” for our town and community residents. Early in our organization and development, the committee as a whole, recognized the town’s one basic unique unifying quality: one Town... one Community... and One Neighborhood - Griffith, Indiana 46319. Throughout 2016, within its Organize, Decide, and Act activities, our GNS Committee completed 187 one-on-one interviews with residents and leaders from our town government, schools, community businesses, civic, volunteer, and faith-based organizations. These ‘conversations’ were hosted and completed in a variety of Griffith settings including restaurants, coffee shops, our parks, over the phone, and in our YMCA office. They represented the town’s perceived Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT’s) within our Neighborhood of nearly 17,000 residents. On May 14th, 2016, at our Central park during our Griffith Togetherhood day, the 2,064 individual representative comments gathered, reviewed and organized from the ‘conversations’ were summarized, documented and ‘given-back’ to our Griffith residents as a “Kick-Off Report” in a public presentation. Subsequently on June 18th at a volunteer gathering at the Griffith Lutheran Church, a discussion was facilitated and its information summarized for use in crafting a future Vision Statement for the Town of Griffith. This document was completed and approved by the joint Griffith Neighborhood Spotlight membership and then presented to the Town Council on August 22nd for their review. From May through November, (4) Work Project Teams were organized with over (20) diversified resident volunteers to develop projects that would jointly be integrated to become a comprehensive Quality of Life Plan for our Town of Griffith. This Plan, with its defined goals, action steps, assigned individual and time active accountabilities, supporting partners was completed in late November and presented to the Town in a public Roll-out Event on Dec. 12 at our Franklin Center. With a (6) month extension form the Legacy Foundation of Northwest Indiana, the Griffith Neighborhood Spotlight initiative continues into 2017 to begin the implementation of the Quality of Life Plan. Should you be interested in volunteering your ideas, perspectives and time to advance our work to improve the quality of life within our town, please contact us at [email protected]." rel="ugc" target="_blank">[email protected].
