The National Civic League announced the ten winners of the All-America City Award tonight in Kansas City, Mo. They are (in alphabetical order by state):
Kenai, Alaska
Dublin, California
Lakewood, Colorado
Belleville, Illinois
South Bend, Indiana
Scott City, Kansas
Tupelo, Mississippi
Fayetteville, North Carolina
Eden, North Carolina
Fort Worth, Texas
Link here for a list of the community improvement efforts the 2011 All-America Cities presented.
“These communities give us hope and new ideas about what can be accomplished when ordinary people work together to address the difficult challenges that lay ahead,” said National Civic League President Gloria Rubio-Cortés. “Year after year, I never fail to be inspired by their outstanding stories of positive civic change.”
More than 700 people from across the country gathered in Kansas City for the awards competition. More than 10,000 well-wishers back home watched them present to the jury of civic experts via live-stream video featured on the National Civic League blog.
“This is more than an awards program,” said NCL Board Chair Sandra Freedman, a former Tampa, Florida mayor and city council member. “It’s a learning experience and a chance for people from different towns and cities to trade ideas and borrow great programs from one another. “
The All-America City Award is an honor achieved by more than 600 communities across the country. Some have won the award multiple times. To win, each community had to make a presentation to a jury of civic experts from the public, private and nonprofit sectors listing three outstanding examples of collaborative community problem solving. (Visit our Ustream.tv channel to view archived footage of the community presentations and the award ceremony.
Sponsors for the 2011 All-America City Awards are: The Campaign for Grade-Level Reading; Sprint Foundation (underwriter) the Gay & Lesbian Fund for Colorado; Southwest Airlines; Burns & McDonnell; Jossey-Bass; Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Foundation; Mile High United Way; J.E. Dunn Construction; LSC Transportation Consultants; City of Gladstone, Missouri; City of Riverside, Missouri, City of Barnstable, Massachusetts; and Hyatt Regency Crown Center.