New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer and Building Better Communities (BBC) have announced their next neighborhood engagement effort. The committee selected two neighborhoods, Brookside, located just outside Newark, and Pleasantville, located in the New Castle area, focusing efforts on violence reduction. New Castle County intends to increase community engagement in under-served neighborhoods throughout New Castle County through the next year.
“The American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) provides a historic opportunity to reimagine the communities in which we live, an unprecedented opportunity to address problems that arose in recent months and divisions that have festered for decades,” said New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer. A part of that historic opportunity developed the BBC Initiative which is comprised of an 8-person commission representative of community leaders and external stakeholders. Their efforts stem from the administration’s goal to address historical inequities and those exacerbated by the pandemic.
BBC has launched a grant application that will be focused specifically on organizations who have the capacity to serve residents in Brookside and/or Pleasantville area. Areas of focus include, but are not limited to mental health services, afterschool programming, and public art.
The Meyer administration continues to create innovative and impactful opportunities to engage with communities. We understand many municipalities/administrations have created violence reduction efforts with varied levels of success. Our position with this effort, the most equipped people to serve the community is the community themselves. With this grant application Brookside and Pleasantville residents and/or organizations that have the capacity to serve this area can be the solution.
To learn more about grant application and its eligibility criteria, please go to https://nccde.org/bbc. And to engage with Building Better Communities initiatives, the committee meets ongoing every 4th Tuesday at 12pm (both in-person & virtual). For further details, click here.