Place-Based Initiative
- Definition of a Place-Based Initiative
- Past Outreach
- Current Outreach
- Greater Riverdale Thrives
- School Cohort
- Partnership with Kaiser Permanent
Definition of a Place-Based Initiative
Place-based initiatives are a tool that communities use to transform their environment. Communities come together to use resources to address the factors that affect health in order to uplift their neighborhoods.
Past Outreach
During 2019-2020, CKAR and the Neighborhood Design Center facilitated a process that led to a community-created Action Plan / “Plan de acción español. This process included the collection of 500 surveys, 5 visioning workshops in which community members voiced their opinions about what a “healthy community” means to them, and 50 small group meetings with key stakeholders, such as civic associations, PTAs, churches, and other non-profits.
The Action Plan generated through this process revealed a couple of key focus areas that the community wants to work on: growing civic participation across the entire community; improving safety for everyone and making streets function better; improving communication between different groups; increasing celebration and welcoming activities; and addressing issues of housing affordability, aging in place and economic opportunities.
Current Outreach
During our 2019-2020 outreach, we reached many people in the community, but proportionally fewer Hispanic and Latino residents. To address this and to start working on three of the main focus areas from the Action Plan (growing civic participation, improving communication, and increasing welcoming activities), CKAR created a new plan to better reach out to Hispanic and Latino residents.
Our current outreach efforts aim to address the short-term needs of residents, create long-term projects to improve the health of Greater Riverdale, and identify and support leaders in the Hispanic community. We are working with many partners in order to build trust with our communities and learn about their needs comprehensively. Our partners include: CASA, Centro de Apoyo Familiar (CAF), Pastor Yendy Phipps, University of Maryland Capstone, and University of Maryland Environmental Finance Center.
Greater Riverdale Thrives
Greater Riverdale Thrives is a coalition of community members driving change in their communities. The coalition was formed by CKAR and Neighborhood Design Center as part of the Action Planning Process in 2020. Now, CKAR remains the backbone non-profit of the coalition and Maryland Non-Profits is organizing Greater Riverdale Thrives into a series of workgroups led by community member co-chairs, including: food access, economic empowerment, environmental health and safety, health and wellness, Latino and immigrant outreach, and schools. Greater Riverdale Thrives meets on a monthly basis. To join the meetings, email RiverdaleCoalition@gmail.com or watch past meetings on CKAR’s Event Facebook page.
School Cohort
The Greater Riverdale School Cohort is a group of schools working together to address the common issues that students and their families face. Focus areas of the cohort so far include: food access, technology, and mental health. Through our work together so far, we have created a new online resource hub to communicate with families. We are also working on establishing permanent food pantries at each school.
Partnership with Kaiser
In 2017 alone, Kaiser Permanente invested more than $35 million in the region and nearly $10 million in Prince George’s County through their Community Health efforts. The Place-Based Initiative represents Kaiser’s commitment to Prince George’s County and desire to collaborate with Greater Riverdale to help our community thrive. It is anticipated that our partnership with Kaiser Permanente will attract additional capital, private investment, additional resources, technical support and will help build the capacity of non-profits that serve Greater Riverdale.
Greater Riverdale was chosen for investment by Kaiser Permanente as a result of the hard work and demonstrated capacity of the community to coalesce, the presence and future impact of the Purple Line, completed planning initiatives, supportive institutions and the growing capacity of CKAR to manage the planning initiative required to develop a healthy community. CKAR was designated as the lead community-based organization to coordinate the Place-Based Initiative.