Neighborhood Engagement Hub educates residents through its annual Neighbors Changing Flint Workshop

FLINT, Michigan— The Neighborhood Engagement Hub (NEH) an organization dedicated to improving Flint’s neighborhoods through concentrated civic engagement is launching its third annual Neighbors Changing Flint Series (NFCS).

The series will begin on Wednesday, Feb. 19 with a neighborhood leadership workshop that aims to teach participants about organizational structure, marketing strategies for recruiting new members, conflict resolution, and goal setting.

For the series, NEH has partnered with many local nonprofits and local government organizations including the Crim Fitness Foundation, the City of Flint Planning and Zoning Division and the Ruth Mott Foundation/Applewood Estates.

The series will go on through the month of February and into most of March with weekly meetings focusing on a wide range of topics including blight elimination and funding opportunities.

Project Assistant for NEH Promice Mosley, says the series was created to “equip residents and community members with the tools, information and knowledge they need to do the work that they want to do in the community.”

For this reason, the six-week series will also be focusing on more specific topics like grant writing, the 2020 census and usage of neighborhood maps and directories.

For the series, NEH has partnered with many local nonprofits and local government organizations including the Crim Fitness Foundation, the City of Flint Planning and Zoning Division and the Ruth Mott Foundation/Applewood Estates.

Edna Sabucco, a Flint resident and member of the Eastside Franklin Park Neighborhood Association, has participated in the series every year since its conception in 2017.

“I believe that it [the series] provides a lot of benefits, the first one being bringing people together from all over town to get acquainted. The second, explaining to them how they can go about getting grants to make progress in their neighborhoods. They [NEH] can steer them in the right direction of who to speak with,” said Sabucco.

Moreso, Sabucco says events within the series have actively improved the way the Eastside Franklin Park Neighborhood Association approaches its own improvement programming. NEH has also served as the association’s fiscal sponsor Sabucco says. “They’re [NEH] just a very nice group of people that will go out of your way to help you get anything and everything done in your neighborhood.”

Sabucco urges anyone who can to take part in the series to do so. She says the lessons learned during the six-week series provides the average Flint resident with valuable insight on the inner workings of neighborhood engagement.
“There is so much that we as citizens don’t generally know … you can read the paper, you can listen to the news but unless you’re really out there in the trenches, you can never really know what’s going on.

For questions or more details visit the Crim Foundation website.