Valuable ARRA Oversight Guidance from the
HHS Office of the Inspector General

Lori Pilcher, Assistant Inspector General for Grants, Internal Activities & Information Technology Audits, Office of Inspector General, US Department of Health & Human Services, made a timely and valuable presentation at last week’s Florida Community Action Association Training Conference, which she has graciously made available to the Community Action Network!

It has in-depth information about the HHS Office of the Inspector General’s activities to date, and critical guidance around upcoming audits and activities. Please click here to access this powerpoint presentation (to access, click read only).

Check the New Resources page on our website for this and future valuable resources.

 

 

Funding Opportunity Announcements for
Community Economic Development

The US Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Community Services, has announced grants for Community Economic Development (CED) and Jobs for Low-Income Individuals (JOLI).

The purpose of the JOLI program is to create new jobs to be filled by low-income individuals. JOLI grantees create jobs through business plans and the provision of technical and/or financial assistance to private employers in the community. The ultimate goal of the JOLI program is economic self-sufficiency for the targeted populations.

In Fiscal Year (FY) 2010, contingent upon available funding, the Office of Community Services (OCS) will award Community Economic Development (CED) discretionary grant funds to Community Development Corporations (CDCs) for well-planned, financially viable, and innovative projects to enhance job creation and business development in low-income communities. The grants will be made as part of a broader strategy to address objectives such as arresting tendencies toward financial dependency, chronic unemployment, and community deterioration in urban and rural areas.

Please see the links below for more information.

ACF Internet Links:
CED Program: http://www.acf.hhs.gov/grants/open/foa/view/HHS-2010-ACF-OCS-EE-0001
JOLI Program: http://www.acf.hhs.gov/grants/open/foa/view/HHS-2010-ACF-OCS-EO-0023

Grants.Gov Links:
CED Program: http://www07.grants.gov/search/search.do;jsessionid=b0tyLyHVKQZcHfplfQTntV21wn2vPbJy0ZgrZby32dBNytNRNzhv!-769876458?oppId=54628&mode=VIEW
JOLI Program: http://www07.grants.gov/search/search.do;jsessionid=b0tyLyHVKQZcHfplfQTntV21wn2vPbJy0ZgrZby32dBNytNRNzhv!-769876458?oppId=54652&mode=VIEW

 

As we mentioned in the May 11 Enews, the Community Action Partnership is one of several local and national organizations co-sponsoring Wider Opportunities for Women’s (WOW) America’s Budget Matters (So Does Yours), a day long-blogging event being held on May 26. The goal is to provide advocates—including CAAs—and concerned citizens with an opportunity to be represented in the conversation about the budgets of all Americans—young and old.

If you need more information about the event, register for one of WOW’s conference calls being held on the dates below. Call Time: 3 pm EDT/2pm CDT/1 pm MDT/12 pm PDT. Please RSVP to Kelly Stellrecht at kstellrecht@wowonline.org

• Wednesday, May 19, 2010
• Thursday, May 20, 2010
• Friday, May 21, 2010
• Monday, May 24, 2010

After you've participated in one the conference calls, be sure to blog with WOW on Wednesday, May 26. More information on how to blog is also available on WOW’s event website: www.wowonline.org/budgetmatters.

 

Kelly to be Bridgeton's first black mayor

Mayor-elect Albert Kelly, center, gives his victory speech Tuesday night
Staff Photo by Bryan Littel

BRIDGETON, NJ — City Council President Albert Kelly will be Bridgeton’s first ever black mayor come July 1, following a landslide victory over incumbent mayor James Begley on Tuesday.

The unofficial vote tally from the county Board of Elections put Kelly on top, 1,478 votes to Begley’s 453.

Kelly’s slate, “Progress Through Partnerships,” made a clean sweep as well. Council members Gladys Lugardo, William Spence and Dennis Thompson were re-elected.

The Kelly team’s newcomers, planning board member Michael Zapolski Sr. and Board of Education member Jack Surrency, also won seats on council.

The closest Begley slate candidate in votes was incumbent councilman Nicholas Salvatore, who garnered 489 votes to Thompson’s 1,282.

-Joe Green, NJ.com

 

May is National Community Action Month!
Many thanks to the additional CAAs listed below that have sent us their National Community Action Month Certificates of Intent or emailed us their event photos and news releases in response to the May 11 eNews.

• Arrowhead Economic Opportunity Agency (Virginia, MN)
• C.E.F.S. Economic Opportunity Corporation (Effingham, IL)
• Community Action Duluth (Duluth, MN)
• Community Action of Laramie County (Cheyenne, WY)
• Community Action of Northeast Indiana (Fort Wayne, IN)
• Community Action Partnership of San Bernardino County (San Bernardino, CA)
• Missosusri Valley Community Action Agency (Marshall, MO)
• Shawnee Development Council (Karnak, IL)
• Southeast Kansas Community Action Program (Girard, KS)

If you are planning an event, please fax your Certificate of Intent (which is included in the 2010 NCAM Planning Guide, to us at 202-265-5048. . You can email news releases or brief descriptions of your events, along with photos and media coverage to communications@communityactionpartnership.com. Please include the subject line “NCAM 2010.”

National Community Action Month in the News

Articles on National Community Action Month have recently appeared in the following media outlets:

• WTAP TV (NBC affiliate in Parkesburg, WV)
• Louisburg (KS) Herald
• Marietta (OH) Times
• The Daily Mail (Catskill, NY)
• Freemont (OH) News Messenger
• Fort Madison (IA) Daily Democrat
• Visalia (CA) Times-Delta
• Canton (OH) Repository
• Morning Sun (Pittsburg, KS)
• Colusa (CA) Sun Herald
• Gallatin North Missourian

 

Shannon Redbrook receives Community Action Duluth’s Triumph Award for the participant who overcame adversity to achieve a goal. She and other award winners were honored at the CAA’s First Annual Celebration Dinner and Awards Ceremony held in honor of National Community Action month on May 5.

 

Nightingale Community Garden in Dorchester
2010 Day of Community Service

Boston ABCD is organizing an afternoon of Community Service for Partnership Convention attendees at the Nightingale Community Garden in Dorchester, which is around the corner from the ABCD Dorchester Neighborhood Service Center. Our Volunteers would be involved in a variety of activities in this wonderful community garden.

Community gardens are green spaces that are communally cultivated and cared for; these spaces may consist of individually worked plots, communally tended areas, sitting areas, and small-scale children's play areas. They are the result of the shared collective effort of people working together. Community gardening is an effective community-building strategy that contributes to neighborhood renewal, preservation, and stabilization. Community Gardens provide a source of inexpensive, nutritious food and a rewarding personal experience. Enduring stewardship is needed to ensure success. Community gardens demonstrate the impact of sustained volunteer effort.

Nightingale Community Garden is part of the Boston Natural Areas Network (BNAN), organized in 1977, which works to preserve, expand and improve urban open space through community organizing, acquisition, ownership, programming, development and management of special kinds of urban land. In all of its endeavors, BNAN is guided by local citizens advocating for their open spaces and assisting them to preserve and shape their communities. If you want to join your colleagues on the 2010 Day of Community Service, please contact Sranda Watkins at swatkins@communityactionpartnership.com or call her at (202) 449-9773.

Convention Discount Early Bird Rates End on June 18!

To view or download the 2010 Annual Convention Brochure, click here. Hotel rooms are selling quickly at the Boston Marriott Copley Place. Click here to reserve online and assure your reservation is confirmed at the convention rate of $189.00 single or double.

 

The Community Action Commission in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, is seeking an executive director.
Click here to download the position announcement in PDF.
Applications are being acceped through May 26, 2010.

Partnership president and CEO Don Mathis represented Community Action at the recent “Rethink, Recover, Rebuild, Reinventing Older Communities” conference in Philadelphia sponsored by the Federal Reserve. His purpose was to advance the Partnership’s Community Economic Development agenda (and our CED project funded by the Office of Community Services/HHS) by formalizing linkages with Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs), Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) opportunities, and other economic stabilization strategies, including green jobs. Mathis recruited presenters for the Partnership’s national convention in Boston and for our CED webinars and case studies. While representing and promoting Community Action at the conference, he exchanged pleasantries with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.

Please visit the Partnership's new CED website at www.PartnershipCED.org.