Resilient Middle Georgia, an initiative of Community Partnership, has launched a new effort to encourage community members to meet and support their neighbors. The first portion of this effort is a specialized sticky note that neighbors can post on each other’s doors with encouraging notes and offers of connection. 

“On an individual basis, adding a note to your neighbor’s door, or receiving a note, can brighten someone’s day, enhancing a relationship or building one,” said Jill Vanderhoek, executive director of Community Partnership. “Connections help to create and enhance community. Communities with more connections are more resilient. In times of stress like this, resilience is even more important.”

The notes include a place for a sketch of the individual sending the note, as well a place to create encouraging notes and offer appreciations about their neighbor. The sticky note pads will be distributed through community organizations or individuals may request a notepad by calling (478) 219-2447.   

One community partner is Middle Georgia Regional Library System, which will provide neighbor check-in notes at Washington Memorial Library and branch locations.

The effort is funded in part by a $200,000, two-year grant Community Partnership received $200,000 grant from the Pittulloch Foundation, in partnership with Resilient Georgia, to integrate trauma awareness into the Central Georgia community. Resilient Middle Georgia is a coalition of groups, convened by Community Partnership, to help foster community resilience as well as trauma awareness.

Resilient Middle Georgia is also launching a web site to serve as a resource and repository of information on the work of including trauma awareness, as well as connections to trainings for parents and caregivers as well as criminal justice, health care, community nonprofits and others who deal with individuals who may have experienced trauma.

The Pittulloch Foundation is partnering with Resilient Georgia to offer grants to four cities and the surrounding counties to provide a regional emphasis on trauma-informed awareness, Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and child sexual abuse prevention training as a basis to transform systems and procedures crossing both public and private sectors.

Traumatic experiences often create long-lasting effects, and the grant is funding efforts to create more opportunities in our area to inform providers, law enforcement and community providers of those effects will allow them to better serve the community. The focus on building awareness and a common language around trauma, adversity, ACEs and resilience in Bibb and other Middle Georgia counties. The primary aim of the grant is to bring together multiple stakeholders, including education, health care, social services, mental health providers, law enforcement, juvenile justice, families and community champions, to align conversations and build awareness and trainings that will better support children and families coping with adversity and trauma.