Community Sustainability: Orlando’s Healthy Community Initiative

Abstract

In an area of exceptionally high mobility, Orlando’s Healthy Communities • Healthy Youth (HC • HY) initiative focuses on building a sense of community coherence and ownership by emphasizing community revitalization activities. Examples of this approach include “listening projects,” which consist of interviews conducted by youth and young adults with neighborhood residents to learn what they envision for their neighborhoods, and what is needed to make that happen. Youth then bring knowledge from these interviews to youth philanthropy planning meetings. By learning to assess the needs of the community and linking them with planning grants, youth are mentored into civic leadership roles. Through extensive efforts to connect residents of all ages in their community revitalization efforts, the Healthy Community • Healthy Youth Initiative of Central Florida (hereafter referred to as HCI or the Orlando initiative, consistent with the initiative’s self-referencing) hopes to encourage more of its citizens to “put down roots” rather than just passing through.