This past year, GCN and the Peyton Anderson Foundation teamed up to study the needs of low-income residents in Macon and surrounding Bibb County, and assess the sector’s ability to meet them. The process began by identifying more than 200 area nonprofits, followed by focus groups, in-depth data collection, and analysis, which was used to quantify issues, assess capacity, and find both duplications and gaps in services.
Community Guilds, which provides hands-on job skills learning experiences to students, considered a number of options to get elementary and middle school students to a “maker space”—a studio and workshop for designing and carrying out a range of projects—but the hurdles were high: leasing and renovating a facility was expensive, and transporting kids off-campus means navigating yards of red tape.
Research into geographic regions, consumer trust, behavior change models, and engagement led Sustainable Atlanta to produce Look Up Atlanta, a kind of Facebook for local do-gooders.
After two years of growth in their youth education program, Trees Atlanta decided it was time to pilot a summer camp for their growing cadre of young nature enthusiasts. Modeled after their adult TreeKeepers program (now in its eighth year), Junior TreeKeepers debuted this summer with a two-week curriculum focusing on having fun while learning in the Atlanta BeltLine’s Arboretum—the world’s longest arboretum, installed by Trees Atlanta.
Celebrating its tenth anniversary, the Macon Film Festival (MaGa) decided it was time for a change: beginning in 2015, the 4-day series held before now each February will partner with the Bragg Jam Music, Arts, and Kids Festival to create a ten-day mega-event in the middle of July.
