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Neighborhood Development Commission of Peoria, IllinoisSummer, 1997The Neighborhood Development Commission works to maintain, strengthen, and stabilize Peoria's neighborhoods. In July, 1997 Rona facilitated a large, three-night open space event for the Commission. The newly formed Neighborhood Commission chose this innovative way to open its work to include people from Peoria's neighborhoods, landlords, neighborhood businesses, and other citizens. The Commission structured the open space event in three long evening sessions on a Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday night, with the expectation that this format would allow the greatest number of citizens to attend. The theme of the event was "What are neighborhood issues in Peoria? Moving from Awareness to Action." More than 400 people participated in the event. They represented significant diversity in age, gender, race, area of the city, income, and specific issue or area representation. Participants proposed and conducted 57 sessions. Mayor Bud Grieves said of the event: "July 1997 will be remembered as the turning point and the salvation of the city's older neighborhoods." Within six months, the Neighborhood Development Commission responded to the ideas that came out of the open space event by building a plan based on citizens' recommendations. The city council then provided $1.3 million to fund the plan implementation for 1998. The Pew Partnership for Civic Change in Charlottesville, Virginia funded Rona's services in Peoria through a Leadership Challenge Grant. 
Check out other clients for whom we've conducted open space events. |
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