After a hard year’s work on community engagement, two groups are eagerly waiting to see who will be this year’s recipient of the Centre Inspires grant.
Centre Inspires, a granting program that encourages groups to collaborate in a way that could transform an aspect of Centre County, is celebrating its second year.
Each year, the program puts focus on community engagement through different methods. This year’s initiative was community engagement through health and social services.
“Centre Inspires is designed to be a transitive and collaborative process that brings the county together to do something impactful in the county,” Development and Events Coordinator Irene Miller said. “It also allows different interest areas to come together to make a difference.”
The first initiative, “Food Centres”, put together by New Leaf Initiative and several partner organizations, aims to make healthy and local food accessible and appealing to all Centre County residents.
These food centres are self-contained, multi-use, mobile facilities that will include a cold storage unit, a kitchen, and a community garden. Community engagement is encouraged through programs offered such as cooking classes and farming workshops. The centres will also house extra food in the cold-storage units from farms, grocery stores, and restaurants for local relief organizations to distribute the to their recipients.
The second initiative, “Open Streets”, was a proposal from Centre Bikes and several partner organizations with the goal of creating healthy, active options for individuals and families through the use of streets. Following a global trend, the initiative would take a one mile section of State College and close it off for half of the day to allow for community activities such as walking, running, biking, yoga, and dancing for all ages.
“Both of these finalists have proposed initiatives that would be really impactful on the community,” Executive Director Molly Kunkel said. “Making food available to all residents of the county as well as encouraging the community to come together on a block of a State College street are great ideas that will greatly help and inspire residents.”
The winner of the $100,000 grant to fund their initiative will be announced by keynote speaker Sandra Keiser Edwards at the annual Centre Inspires dinner on Oct. 28 at the Nittany Lion Inn.
Also at the dinner will be an update on last year’s winner “Book Benches of Centre County,” which focused on community engagement through the arts. With the grant the collaborative group will soon place 25 fiberglass benches in the shapes of open books throughout Centre County.
The Centre Inspires grant program is part of the Centre Foundation, which distributes hundreds of grants to Centre County non-profits from funds that have designated specific beneficiary organizations.
