City:
Hermann
Status:
Active
Category:
Engaged Citizens
Contact:
Melissa Lensing
email:
Community Engagement and Sustainable Leadership
We need help with:
- Do you have expertise in social media? Graphic design? Photography? Videography or Writing? We could use your help to be part of our commitment to helping spread the “GRO” word. No threshold on time commitment. We would love your help!
- Are you a member of Generation Y in Hermann? We want to hear from your voice what efforts we can do to make Hermann even better.
- Share social media posts to other organizations, clubs, or businesses in the community.
WHY IS THE PROJECT IMPORTANT
The most critical ingredient to help build a community is strong local leadership. This effort is focused on 3 items: (1) Inform: Drive a strong outreach into the community and make citizens aware of community development efforts, (2) Recruit citizens to serve their time, treasure, and talent, and (3) Leadership: Develop a stronger cadre of local leaders who can help propel Hermann into prosperity.
We aspire to get more of the community aware of all the activities and gain engagement beyond one-time participation.
In order to create a prosperous future, Hermann leaders must actively seek the perspectives of our youth and collectively work to build an inspiring community. Young families are the key to Hermann’s future and we must explicitly focus on this goal.
OVERALL PROJECT GOAL
- We want to ensure that our local citizens are aware of the efforts that are underway to improve our community.
- The goal is to create a deeper level of citizen engagement and involvement, enhancing the connection to the community. We are driving towards gaining 3.5% of the population to be actively involved. We found that to make a change and increase momentum having 3.5% of the population is essential.
- We will also use this opportunity to recruit more leaders to support GRO and the community. Our eventual goal is to have 80 individuals of diverse backgrounds to join and lead the program.
- Launch two initiatives to attract generation Y members to our community.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS TO- DATE
- The GRO team has been working over the last year to conduct various outreach efforts: establishing a Facebook page, local community events, etc.
- The team was able to acquire their first GRO Outreach intern Charlotte Ervin who took over efforts along with Chamber leader Melissa Lensing to run their Facebook page.
- GRO leaders Raylene Hollrah and Marie Newell are conducting outreach to members of generation Y to learn more about their needs, local opportunities, and challenges. Based on these findings, the team will determine a proper course of action.
- Once they have developed this list, they will bring it back to the GRO team to go through to make sure there isn’t anyone missing in the conversation.
- The GRO Team connected with Hermann high school counselor Alyssa Creech with the GRO internship description. Who was able to help us find our new GRO intern Junior Leila Boschen who has taken over as our GRO Intern.
- Next Step:
- The team will have a resource fair to connect the citizens of Hermann to the organizations within Hermann. We hope to continue our outreach efforts and help the community’s youth get involved. The team plans to post an open forum, hoping to have an event set up in a few weeks. The team plans on connecting with the school to pull in video editing support.
- GRO Leader Marie Newell can help with messaging with the resource and job fair the Chamber will be hosting to help families affected by the manufacturing plant shutting down in Hermann.
- The team is now exploring the avenue that might bring a GRO Hermann podcast to add an outreach channel into the mix.
- The GRO Team is looking to help with advertising for live music concerts on August 20th and September 24th
- John Buckner spoke with us to start the podcast for GRO Hermann. A journalist who wants to give interviews about Hermann to start a podcast for GRO Hermann. Start a podcast discussing small business and GRO Hermann’s Economic Development. To marry the history of Hermann and the developments in Hermann.
- A podcast is very similar to the format of NPR.
- Problem Solving For Organization Fair: Push this out to January
- Thinking of Earth Day in April – Might be a good day to start this event.
GOALS FOR 2021
MAJOR WINS TO- DATE
– Charlotte Ervin joined the GRO Hermann team as the GRO Hermann intern, and started running. She’s been connecting the GRO team to youth in the community. She’s about to take on the GRO Hermann Newsletter.
- Social Media engagement is up in every front for the GRO Hermann Facebook page! In the past month we are up to 2,158 people reached, 272 post engagements and up 8 page likes in the last month alone!
NEXT 4 WEEKS PLAN
– Next Step: Meet together (Optional with Miles also) and set goals and expectations for internship. We are suggesting every community use or suggested internship planning process to organize how their intern can really hold a stronger place on the team.
