Plans for the next phase of the Eau Claire County Poverty Summit will be announced on Thursday evening (April 6) as the project moves from its planning stage to the implementation of its action plans.
The project’s nine action teams will outline what they plan to do over the next 20 months to address the specific aspect of poverty on which they will be working. Each team will share its view of the issue it agreed to tackle last November, and some may announce a name change to reflect a change in their focus.
Thursday Evening Schedule
Thursday’s meeting will run from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at Grace Lutheran Church, 202 W Grand Ave. in Eau Claire. It is open to the public, including people who have not yet participated and anyone interested in learning how the action teams are addressing poverty and income insecurity. unity. There is no charge for the event and RSVPs are not needed.
The project was put together under the auspices of Clear Vision Eau Claire and launched officially in October. It is intended to look at issues of poverty and income inequality throughout the county.
”We’ve been pleasantly surprised at the number of new participants who have joined at Summit sessions in February and March,” said Nancy Yule, the Summit’s project coordinator. “Action teams know that recruiting new members will be an ongoing task throughout their implementation.
“New members will not only fill vacancies, but they also bring new energy, connections, expertise, and more,” Yule added.
Participation Numbers and New Commttees
She noted that some 274 people have attended one or more of the seven sessions held thus far and 167 are currently participating in action teams. An extra session was added when the group met in February, so teams could have more time to create their action plans.
Two new committees have been set up to support the action teams, Yule said. The Resource Committee will connect teams with existing data, statistics, research, and local expertise. This committee will also connect Teams that might be looking for similar information, to eliminate duplicate efforts.
Don Mowry, a Clear Vision board member and past board president, will chair the Resource Committee, which will regularly add data, reports, powerpoint presentations and best practices to the Clear Vision Eau Claire website (http://clearvisioneauclaire.org/).
A Coordinating Committee will provide project oversight to implement action team projects. The committee includes a representative from each Action Team plus representatives from the general community and Clear Vision. This group will meet monthly to focus on internal and external communication, and will coordinate the action teams’ work.
It will also serve as the initial contact point for questions on such issues as process and barriers, and will approve and disburse project support funds requested by action teams. Lance Gurney and Sheng Xiong will co-chair this committee. Both are Clear Vision board members and Sheng also co-chaired the Summit with Mike Huggins.
Student Coaches
At the same time Clear Vision was inviting community participation, it reached out to UW-Eau Claire students to serve as coaches for action team, Yule said. Two or three coaches were assigned to each team and they facilitated the team’s discussions during work sessions as well as coordinating additional meeting schedules and agendas and helping team members with various skills and activities.
“These coaches have done an amazing job helping move action teams through the process skills and activities in order to create their action plans,” Yule said. “Teams have recently selected co-chairs who will replace the coaches as we move into the implementation phase.
“When the Summit launched, I don’t know that anyone anticipated how well the students would perform as coaches, how valuable they would be in pulling their team together and moving it forward or how well accepted they would be by all other members of the team,” Yule added. “Our coaches are all volunteers, and have been a definite ‘win’ for the Poverty Summit.”
Yule said that anyone interested in joining one of the action teams, or with questions about the Summit, can email her at clearvisioneauclaire@gmail.com.
More information about the Poverty Summit is available at www.clearvisioneauclaire.org. Clear Vision Eau Claire was founded in 2007 and is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization.