Community Action Network – Carlisle, PA

Community Action Network

Rationale:

In February 2020, once it was increasingly clear that the COVID-19 virus would impact the Carlisle community, a small group of community leaders identified that a proactive, collaborative response would be required. During their first meeting in March, presentations took place by borough officials, local health experts, and social service providers. Following this, it was agreed overall that frequent meetings would be required to coordinate efforts as the pandemic evolved. This group of thirty community leaders continued to meet both in-person and virtually, and in turn expanded its membership. The meetings served as a forum to:

• identify emergency and ongoing community needs,
• share resources,
• eliminate barriers to coordinated action,
• remain up to date on the community’s collective health.

Goals:

• Cultivate a long-term plan to address local challenges defined by the
  community.
• Engage residents in comprehensive decision-making and action planning.
• Involve diverse segments and perspectives (ethnic, racial, socio-economic, age, sexual orientation, gender expression, people with disabilities, national origin, and others) in community decision-making.
• Enhance both cross-sector collaboration (business, local government,
  nonprofits, military, etc.) and regional collaboration.
• Engage the creative use and leveraging of community resources.
• Present demonstrable, significant and measurable achievements from the past 5 years.

Project Summary:

Following the reconfiguration of the group as the Carlisle Community Action Network (Carlisle CAN), it quickly grew to over 100 community members, elected and appointed officials, and organizational representatives. The composition of the group, which is constantly evolving, has benefited from the consistent participation of individuals from local businesses, faith communities, law enforcement and first response, local and state government, human services, healthcare, the military, and PK-12 and higher education. The one-hour weekly meetings serve to connect community members during a time where both formal and informal gatherings are restricted due to health and safety concerns. During these meetings:

• health officials share updates on community health,
• reports on regional coronavirus cases, statewide testing and contact tracing progress are shared,
• localized information about positive cases, test administration, vaccine availability, and community capacity is shared,
• inclusive discussions of short- and long-term needs in our community take place.

Each of these discussions invariably leads to new ideas or the identification of potential resources to address emerging concerns. Since March 2020, members of CAN have created an abundance of branch committees in order to launch new initiatives and redirect specific community resources to modify established programs so they can meet unique needs during the pandemic. While it is impossible to sufficiently capture the depth and breadth of all of Carlisle CAN’s projects, here are a few notable achievements brought forth through the efforts of this group:

1. The Carlisle CAN Public Health Initiative encourages Carlisle visitors, business owners, and students to wear masks while in public spaces. CAN members have distributed over 4,000 masks and posters to 120 businesses which pledged to combat the spread of COVID-19 through the encouragement of mask-wearing by staff and customers. As of now, this group is developing material around vaccine education with special attention to providing role models from communities of color. A current effort involves Dickinson College faculty in a translation project designed to make these campaigns more accessible to Carlisle’s native Arabic, Spanish, and French-speaking community members. The CAN has also played an active role in both recruiting volunteers and identifying potential vaccine distribution locations to support the Cumberland County Emergency Services Department.
2. The Summer Youth Care Taskforce determines how community members could collaborate and pool resources to support local childcare options during the pandemic. This group includes childcare providers, representatives from social services, education institutions, and religious communities. The main principle of the group was to create accessible and affordable childcare options to meet the needs of working families faced with new pressures as a result of remote learning. A key outcome of this initiative was expansion of the Summer Program for Youth (SPY), which is an important program for low-income youth in Carlisle. Through the addition of multiple, de-densified sites around the community and an extension of their program into the academic year, dozens of families were able to use high-quality and safe childcare services. Along with this, substantial private donations, interorganizational collaborations, and support from two local funding agencies provided the community with arts and writing programs, access to library resources, food security programs, and a variety of other activities to Carlisle’s youth during this challenging period. Lastly, access to Dickinson College’s vendor relationships allowed the community to make bulk purchases of cleaning and hygiene supplies in order to support safe openings for multiple childcare sites.
3. The Civic Action Internship Program provides experiential learning opportunities for a cohort of students, where many had summer internships canceled due to the pandemic. 16 undergraduate interns were selected from a competitive pool and participated from as close as the Carlisle area and as far away as Seoul, South Korea. This cohort spent their entire summer working on projects identified during CAN meetings and through follow-up conversations with CAN participants. By August 2020, the student interns completed 25+ projects in partnership with roughly 24 community organizations. Two notable projects are as follows: a public relations campaign, which identified essential financial-assistance resources available to unemployed/furloughed Carlisle residents, was developed and launched in partnership with a multi-agency CAN subcommittee, a grant proposal to the Neighborhood Assistance Program of the PA Department of Community Economic Development, in partnership with the Hope Station Neighborhood Opportunity Council, with the goal of supporting community members released from prison during the ongoing COVID outbreak.
4. The Diversity and Inclusivity Taskforce was born from broader CAN conversations about DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion), spurred by the racial unrest of summer 2020. This task force developed an initiative called the Community Learning Journey: Learning About Race and Racism, which is a four-part series envisioned as a first step to equip white leaders in Carlisle with foundational language, frameworks, and tools for antiracist work. As a recommendation of Carlisle CAN’s Black members, this approach was selected as a way to build capacity for sustainable progress without asking Black leaders to take on additional responsibilities for educating their white colleagues. The CAN group is open, and group participants often invite members of their own professional and personal networks to join the conversation. The group has allowed new voices to find pathways for sustained engagement in civic life. This awareness in the Carlisle community has created opportunities for new partnerships and greater intentionality in the design of community-level responses.

Engagement Strategies:

• an extensive number of CAN task forces which addressed specific areas of need, and devoted resources specific for that need in a timely manner,
• group meetings which are open to the public community for discussion and feedback surrounding community needs,
• inclusion of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) voices within the initiative formulation process,
• partnering with community residents, students, businesses/institutions, etc. to enhance support for specific community needs while addressing the needs for partners as well.

Outcomes:

• Distribution of 4,000+ masks and posters to 120 businesses which pledged to combat the spread of COVID-19.
• Formulation of task forces such as the Summer Youth Care Taskforce and the Diversity and Inclusivity Task Force.
• Purchase of bulk cleaning and hygiene supplies to support safe openings for multiple childcare sites.
• Creation of several food security initiatives, notably the “French Toast Connection”, where 500+ packages of milk, bread, and eggs at the sites of two historically Black churches.
• Formulation of the Community Learning Journey: Learning About Race and Racism series to equip white leaders with crucial information surrounding critical race theory.

Additional Resources:

2021 All-America City Finalist – Carlisle, PA

Local Contact:

Dr. Margee Ensign, President of Dickinson College
Address: P.O. Box 1773
Carlisle, PA 17013
(717) 245-1322
[email protected]