Pensacola Wrap-Up

The crew gives their impressions of our visit to Northwestern Florida.  Tomorrow we'll bring you some more comprehensive thoughts and hopefully a short video of what we found here.  Then we'll be back from Baldwin!  Stay tuned...

Welcome to Pensacola!

Carlos and Haley welcome us to Pensacola.  After taking the weekend off, the tour resumed in Northwestern Florida.  This is our third stop of the road trip portion of the tour, and it marks the first of four site visits this week.  We'll be posting our thoughts on this site soon and some more detailed info tomorrow. 

The Face of Albany, GA

Here is a video showing a few clips from our interviews in Albany, GA. 

Albany Wrap-Up

Watch here as we wrap up from our stop in Albany, GA.  We had a great tour of the city, and met many wonderful people involved in the Strive2Thrive Circles Campaign.

Site #3: Albany, Georgia

One of the revitalizing efforts in Albany was the placement of the

 Flint River Turtle statues throughout the downtown area.

Yesterday we departed the Blue Ridge Mountains and arrived in the Deep South.  Albany, Georgia is gorgeous. The natural beauty of the Flint River and Radium Springs combined with the antebellum architecture of the city produce a picturesque southern community.  Like many other places in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, Albany was built on the backs of slaves.  The marketplace that once held human auctions is still visible in the downtown area.  Plantations that once produced cotton by the tons now serve as a quiet reminder of a prosperous but painful history.  

The deep wounds of slavery and segregation have left ugly scars  that, according to Circles coordinator Ausha Jackson, must be acknowledged before many of the obstacles faced by low-income families can be overcome.  In one southwestern neighborhood in Albany, where much of the city's poverty is concentrated, the racial makeup is 96% African-American.  While efforts have been made to revitalize the downtown with a beautiful river walk and brand new river aquarium, many residents live in 600 square foot homes made out of concrete slabs in deplorable conditions.  A lieutenant from the Albany police force gave us a tour of neighborhoods that were greatly damaged by a severe flood in 1994 and have never quite recovered.  

These are the issues that Circles, under the direction of Strive2Thrive, faces as it looks to tackle poverty in southwestern Georgia.  Earlier this year, they graduated their Getting Ahead class, and twelve more families became Circle Leaders.  More encouraging than their involvement was the 250 community members who came out to celebrate their graduation.  With over 800 churches in the Albany area, Ausha Jackson is working to bring together a divided society to end poverty in this community.  "This is not only the Bible belt, but it is the Bible buckle," she said with a smile.  Circles has partnered with the chamber of commerce and a growing contingent from the faith community to foster relationships that once would have seemed impossible.  

Check back to see some footage of those relationships and this growing Circles community.  

Our team with Strive2Thrive coordinator, Ausha Jackson in front of the Ray Charles Plaza in Albany.

More footage from Wilkes County, NC

Yesterday we had the chance to meet and interview many people involved in Wilkes County Circles of Care.  We have't had a chance to go through all the footage yet but we wanted to show you a little bit  of what we could.   Watch this video as Teresa Plumley shares some of her experiences with us.

Goodnight from Wilkesboro

We are working on editing the interviews and neighborhood footage from our visit to Wilkes County.  In the meantime, we've posted our thoughts from the first two days on the road...