Three Parks Initiative: The Community Foundation committed $1 million in 2006 to a unique opportunity to make Birmingham a national leader in parks and open space. The Community Foundation gift sparked a successful campaign to launch the first phase of Railroad Park and Red Mountain Park and to expand Ruffner Mountain Nature Center.
Yes We Can! Birmingham: Can a grassroots campaign engage citizens across Birmingham to create a new vision of the future for Birmingham’s children and its school system? Yes We Can! Birmingham is the resounding answer, as well as the name of our initiative that began with a series of public meetings in 2007. In 2008, more than 100 Community Conversations were held across Birmingham, as citizens raised their voices to create a Community Agreement on what really matters in our schools and how we can achieve it together.
In 2009, the Birmingham Education Foundation held its first meeting, as a group dedicated to supporting the Community Agreement as goals for the Birmingham City School System.
School Readiness: At the local level, we are working with the Alabama Partnership for Children and many other organizations to create a Blueprint for School Readiness for Jefferson County. At the state level, we helped to create the Alabama School Readiness Alliance, which was recently honored with a national award for its efforts to increase funding for public pre-K programs.
Health: The Community Foundation is one of the partners in Health Action, supporting the 2009 visit by Dan Burden, a civic innovator who encouraged and challenged audiences to make Birmingham the walkable, bikeable community it can be. Find out more on our website or from Community Investment Manager Webb Lyons.
