I feel like I have had my head in the sand – I have not heard anyone talk about the Champaign Community Coalition at all. Strange, that.
Looking at the website, I see it as an interesting and exciting cross-section of concerned stakeholders and a great partnership between schools and the City.
Little did I know that this group was behind the May 3rd Neighborhood Walk. I have signed up and will be walking as well, just to see how it goes down and how I can get involved.
Look for more to come.
Citizen4: A citizen's blog about Champaign Unit 4 
2 May 2012 at 10:26 am
Thanks for bring this to the attention of our readership. I looked at the web site, but find no listing of leadership, contact info for leadership, complete information for some of the activities on the calender. When you find out more about the organization please share.
2 May 2012 at 12:08 pm
[warning: link heavy]
So I feel like I am slowly falling down a rabbit hole. I agree, the website for the Coalition is a bit skimpy on details when it comes to founders and leaders. I was pleased to see that the website was developed locally by Chris Hamb’s “Chrisp Media“. Chrisp Media has also done a Coalition partner website for Access Initiative, as well as related efforts like the Champaign-Urbana Area Project. Another Coalition partner website, Community Elements, was developed by local firm Surface 51 (with strong connections to Parkland). A lot of links to facebook pages as well.
Wow, so many efforts. The Champaign-Urbana Area Project (CUAP) held a “Restorative Justice in Schools” conversation at the end of February and I had no idea. 🙂 CUAP also put on a “Community helping in the efforts of finding solutions” (C.H.I.E.F.S.) conversation in December. There seem to be a lot of overlap to what Chuck Jackson and I have been attempting to do.
Back to the Coalition website, I would like to see it mature in terms of content a little more. I give them credit for amtitious goals and at least kicking off something (which is way more than nothing). The org chart feels a bit boilerplate to me; when I first saw that the Executive Committee has “Funders” I thought they had a typo for “Founders”. But maybe they really mean “Funders”. I would eventually like a little more personality, a little more exposure to the faces and talented people behind this effort. Since Mr. Anthony Cobb is on the Board of Directors for Community Elements, I will be meeting him on Thursday for the neighborhood walk. Perhaps I’ll meet others that are involved as well.
When looking at the listed Partners, I noticed that the University of Illinois is not really represented. I do see the Office of Equal Opportunity and Access way at the bottom, but nothing else.
Overall, I am excited about these efforts. I do certainly want to see and learn more. It is just strange to me that, as involved as I am, there are always things I am utterly clueless about. 🙂 I guess that is just natural though, and a good thing.
3 May 2012 at 8:01 pm
will someone be writing about the walk this evening?
3 May 2012 at 9:43 pm
[…] walk was quite interesting. The Community Coalition has quite a few partnerships (as mentioned earlier); on top of that, there were some significant figures (Mayor, Chief of Police from both Champaign […]