Churches pledge over $15K to One Community United
Local churches pledged over $15,000 to One Community United on Thursday at the Hearts United Gathering at First United Methodist Church.
The organization, which was founded in 2015, gathered at the church to address findings in a survey about what the community of Rome is most concerned about, and to brainstorm solutions.
“The goal for tonight was to develop an environment with some institution in our community and get them to work together to solve some problems,” said One Community United board member Rick Stevenson.
“We wanted to get as many volunteers as possible to go through training to do some research actions from the data we’ve collected,” he added.
In March, the organization plans to hold a training session to discuss how to fix those issues using the research. One of the major concerns had to do with local education.
“My son attends a poorperforming school,” Stevenson said. “Across town, same (school) system, but it’s a high-performing school. We have those kinds of issues — and issues about housing. We lose school teachers that want to work in Rome but they can’t come because they can’t find any housing.”
While expensive housing has seemed to be an issue, Rome High Principal Eric Holland said a key to getting through to school children is to have a good attitude.
“Our job is to figure out where the kids are in life,” Holland said. “We want people to get behind this vision. Get behind education ... change your attitude. If you fix your attitude and you bring your positive attitude to the table, you will see some great strides.”
During a breakaway session, more than 75 volunteers from different church congregations pledged to attend the training in March. One Community also raised $1,000 with a quilt auction. During this time, the church congregations also decided how much money they would pledge to the organization.
The March 7 training will happen at First United Methodist Church at the Wilder Center. The goal, according to board member Charles Love, is to improve race relations and education around Rome.