As part of Embrace Richmond's Unsung Heroes project, local youth interview older residents about their stories from the neighborhood. (Photo courtesy Embrace Richmond)
While commercial redevelopment brings new life to Brookland Park Boulevard, a nonprofit called Embrace Richmond is working to build a more cohesive neighborhood by connecting residents around common interests and concerns, and by providing educational opportunities and training for youth.
Last week, the organization celebrated the spinoff of two organizations that began under Embrace Richmond, but will now operate under the leadership of residents in the North Side neighborhood.
One is the Brookland Park Collective, led by Leroy Jefferson, which pulls together residents in a cluster of civic associations around Brookland Park Boulevard. A survey of area residents showed the top concern was that people didn't feel like they know their neighbors anymore, says Wendy McCaig, executive director of Embrace Richmond. As a result, the collective forms block groups with a pair of leaders on each street who organize cookouts and other activities. Another result has been a seniors group that meets monthly. The collective also comprises a food co-op and a community garden.
Leroy Jefferson (standing, right) leads a meeting of the Brookland Park Collective. (Photo courtesy Embrace Richmond)
"This approach is all about the neighborhood creating their own solutions," McCaig says during an interview in the organization's office on Laburnum Avenue, in the second floor of a grand old house that's also home to Shalom Farms.
The second spinoff organization, led by Kevin Starlings, is called Ignite Richmond and combines Embrace's Young Leaders and Unsung Heroes projects, offering job skills, mentoring and training opportunities, and enlisting youth to conduct neighborhood surveys and interview older residents to record their stories about the neighborhood. In an expansion of this effort, youth and senior adults paired up to share stories with each other. In 2018, Ignite Richmond plans to use these stories as the basis for a song that the youth will help write, and later for a stage production.
In cooperation with community partners, Embrace Richmond will also expand its work in different areas during the coming year, including the Southwood Apartments complex off Hull Street Road on Richmond's South Side and the Crystal Lakes neighborhood in Chesterfield County and with Virginia Commonwealth University's student population.
To help fund its ongoing efforts, the nonprofit is conducting a capital campaign to raise $30,000. Through the end of the year, Richmond-based Financial Consultants of America (FCA) is offering to match all donations up to $15,000.
Kevin Nentwich, the president and senior financial advisor with FCA, is also president of Embrace Richmond's board. He says he learned about the nonprofit while looking for a way to give back to the community after the recession of 2008 and 2009.
"Our firm came out pretty well," Nentwich says. "I felt personally really blessed that we got through it." He says he was impressed by the way Embrace Richmond builds on a neighborhood's strengths.
"What Embrace does is instead of continuously handing out fish, they teach you to fish. It requires participation from people who live in an area," Nentwich says. "If you’re handing out a box of spaghetti to the same person for four years, you’re not helping that person move forward. … Most people Embrace helps are active in their own forward progress, and we provide support."
To find out more about Embrace Richmond's capital campaign, visit fcaretirement.com/fca-gives-back/.
