Last week, Greenville Forward hosted the first Momentum Series event of 2012; a special look at what should be included in Greenville’s list of resolutions for the coming year. To begin, Program Director Brock Koonce led the group in a brainstorming session, exploring the accomplishments and challenges of 2011.
Accomplishments in 2011:
Greenville County Schools started a healthy initiative eating plan that was piloted in 11 schools and is going to expand to 20 more schools in 2012.
The Parks and Recreation Department completed their greenhouse gas emissions inventory and established the Green Ribbon Advisory Committee to help Greenville reduce its carbon imprint. There will be more charging stations for electric vehicles scattered throughout the city in 2012.
CU-ICAR has continued to make a big impact on the economic and innovative climate in Greenville.
The Innomobility Conference showed that sustainability, jobs, and economic development are significant focus areas for Greenvillians.
The Swamp Rabbit trail is growing, and so are its spurs throughout the County.
The Greenville Transit Authority received a statewide award for Most Improved Transit System. It has new buses and is now more readily running on schedule. They are hoping to push the intervals from one hour to every half hour in 2012. The buses also now have bike racks.
Greenville County Council worked to improve partnerships in the County; for example, the Heritage Green project will be a focus area of partnership in 2012. The County will continue to focus on economic development in the coming year, supporting programs like Innoventure and Immobility. The County is one of 23 counties that has an AAA credit rating in the United States and they were still able to cut their budget by 7%. The County also added deputies in areas where safety is a concern.
Greenville Forward’s HeadStrong program is working steadily to increase engagement with Greenville’s youth. The City’s Youth Advisory Council and FYI are working to offer more collaborations and events for the youth in Greenville.
Challenges Facing Greenville in 2012
Education must become a stronger focus area for policy making, reform, and financial support by the community. “You can’t grow jobs when a third of your population is not graduating from high school.” “We need to find a way to reduce dropout rates and we need to get the folks who graduate to go on to higher education.” The programs that were in place to stop dropouts are no longer being funded (like Graduate Greenville).
“Teen pregnancy rates are increasing and school boards in South Carolina are not mandated to teach reproductive health curriculum – it is just recommended.”
“There is a crisis of animal tethering in Greenville. Animals are abused far more often than they should in Greenville.” (There was much discussion about this issue but the County representative pointed out that there is an anti-tethering ordinance on the books now.)
The Big Resolution: Food insecurity for Greenville children.
While we were discussing the challenges for 2012, one issue rose above the rest. We discussed education-related issues explicitly, but the key issue related to hunger.
One in Four children are food insecure, meaning they do not know where their next meal is coming from. 48.9% of students in Greenville County receive free and reduced lunch every day and it is all intricately connected with education, poverty, and the future economic development in our community.
South Carolina does not mandate free breakfasts for all students. However, if students do not have proper nutrition, they cannot perform. The first thing Greenville could do to address this issue is to identify pockets of need. Children often do not want to identify themselves as needing food so this is difficult to determine. Additionally, students who eat free and reduced lunch during the school year have no major sources for food during the summer.
Overall, there is a lot of pressure on the School District to solve the issue. One attendee pointed out that the community needs to pursue “inreach” instead of “outreach,” looking towards the greatest needs of our community first. She suggested creating and using programs that match corporate assets with community programs, something like Charity Tracker.
Another attendee pointed out that USC has toolkits you can use to identify food insecurity in your community. The school system has one of the only tracking mechanisms to determine the families that are in need.
There need to be more programs in place for providing food for middle and high schoolers particularly because they are often neglected. City community centers partner with programs like Project Host to try to help some children receive a hot meal before they leave after-school programs.
Teachers often do not know that hunger is the real issue for behavioral problems in their classrooms. There should be more educational resources for teachers and funds for them to keep a supply of food in their classrooms for children that are in need.
The group also pointed out that this is a national issue. Greenville Forward will continue the conversation on this topic, so stay tuned…
As the hour of discussion came to a close, Brock asked for folks to list the first thing they would do in Greenville if they were given the key to the city and the ability to change one thing.
What would you do first if you had the key to Greenville and unlimited resources? (Responses in no particular order)
“ Breakfast in the classroom… Educate people about the importance of education…Connect constituents with elected officials…Improve the adherence to community guidelines that keep our community beautiful and pedestrian friendly…Move some of Greenville off of Main Street…Get bus rapid transit or light rail…Create a local area network to offer transportation to those who cannot and do not drive to access grocery stores, etc…Make sure there are sidewalks everywhere…Get every child a computer…Make Greenville a final destination for people.”