It’s been just over a year since the Knight Foundation trustees approved a five-year, $3 million grant to the Community Foundation of Central Georgia to fund an innovative program, the Knight Neighborhood Challenge. The program funds residents best ideas for making the historic College Hill area a vibrant place to live. The second round of recipients was announced this evening, and what a great year it has been!

When the grant was approved, some said “Do you REALLY think you can find $3 million worth of resident-driven ideas to improve the College Hill neighborhood in Macon, Georgia?”  I never had a doubt.

This second round of investment reflects the great ideas of this community….large and small. There were proposals totaling over $1 million for the $200,000 that the community foundation ultimately distributed. While of course it is wonderful to see innovative ideas generated by our friends and neighbors, the most gratifying part of the Knight Neighborhood Challenge is that the improvements will benefit everyone in Macon.

Check out the list below.

This investment that Knight Foundation is making in the College Hill Corridor and Macon is a tangible expression of Knight’s commitment to this community.

I can’t wait for round three. Macon residents are invited to learn more and apply.

Round two recipients are:

College Hill Alliance                                                                        $94,518

Tattnall Square Park Improvements: Design Phase

To implement the design phase of the College Hill Master Plan’s improvements for Tattnall Square Park.

Rebuilding Macon Inc.                                                            $25,000

“Macon” a Difference in the Corridor

To beautify and restore the homes of elderly and disabled homeowners in the College Hill Corridor– ensuring that they are warm, safe and dry.

Historic Macon Foundation                                                            $21,950

Tyler’s Place Dog Park Improvements

To employ a local artist to create an agility course, furniture and sculpture for Tyler’s Place Dog Park.

College Hill Alliance                                                                        $18,500

Second Sunday Brunch

To offer free live concerts, one Sunday a month, which will continue to attract a diverse audience to the College Hill Corridor.

Macon Outreach at Mulberry                                                            $10,000

Macon Outreach Community Garden

To establish a community garden and compost area that will bring a vibrant new use to an empty lot. The harvest will be dedicated to feeding the hungry in Central Georgia.

ELucas Consulting, Inc.                                                            $6,500

Cotton Avenue Revival Festival

To remember and relive the rich history of the historic Cotton Avenue area with a festival offering music, arts and entertainment.

Centenary United Methodist Church                                    $6,190

Beall’s Hill Garden: Safe, Clean and Branded

To install historically appropriate fencing, raised beds and signage in Beall’s Hill Garden.

Nathan Dees                                                                                    $5,000

Cops on the Hill

To establish a fund to provide down payment or deposit assistance for law enforcement officers who choose to live in the College Hill Corridor.

Keep Macon-Bibb Beautiful Commission                                    $3,716

Corridor Event Recycling Bins

To purchase recycling bins for use at events within the corridor.  The bins will be orange and feature the College Hill Corridor logo.

Mercer University                                                                        $3,200

Energy Audit of Tattnall Square Presbyterian Church

To conduct an energy audit of Tattnall Square Presbyterian Church by Mercer University School of Engineering faculty.

Heather B. Cutway                                                                        $2,150

We’ll Leave the Light On!

To help light the way efficiently while making people feel safe by giving residents energy-efficient, fluorescent lights to display outside their homes from dusk to dawn.

James E. Waldron                                                                        $1,000

Composting Analysis and Design for Mercer Village

To design an appropriate, user-friendly and adaptable composting facility for the Mercer Village area.

Mercer University                                                                        $890

Energy Audits for College Hill Corridor

To offer energy audits of homes in the College Hill Corridor area performed by Mercer University School of Engineering students.

Heather B. Cutway                                                                        $700

Urban Hikes in the Corridor

To provide guided, one-hour walks in the corridor with an expert on the College Hill area.

Pam Thomasson                                                                        $689

Ocmulgee Bird points the way to Macon’s Indian Mounds

To provide a better sign leading to Ocmulgee National Monument.

Lee A. Johnson                                                                        $528

Graffiti Control Patrol

To paint over gang graffiti on buildings, streets and traffic signs.

Aaron Zaritzky                                                                        $450

“No Trash Dumping” Sign in Beall’s Hill

To help neighbors in Beall’s Hill install a “No Trash Dumping” sign near an entry to their neighborhood

Nathan Dees                                                                                    $450

College Hill Graffiti Cleanup

To initiate weekend volunteer graffiti clean-up projects.

Knight Foundation is partnering with KaBOOM! to build 13 playgrounds in five communities this year - including four in Detroit on Saturday. Watch the above video to get a feel for the playground Build Day in Macon, and read a first hand account of how the community came together to make it happen by Macon Program Director Beverly Blake

A few Saturdays ago, in 90 plus degree heat, over 100 volunteers from Macon and Middle Georgia gathered at Woodfield Academy to construct a KaBOOM! playground. What a day it was! We had a DJ, lots of food and drink, and skilled and unskilled (me) labor who came together to enjoy one another's company and a build great project.  Most of the folks there I had not met before. Great fellowship was in the air - along with 80% humidity.

I was assigned to the "dome" team - a great big jungle gym type of structure - and took my seat on the ground under a big tree with one of the other volunteers named Oscar Hugley. Our job was to get the nuts and bolts and washers all put together. We began chatting and I learned that his mother lived in Beall's Hill (one of the projects Knight Foundation is working on as part of the College Hill initiative) and we chatted and I learned a lot about the history of the neighborhood that I would never have known.  What a small world.  Fate brought us together at a playground build so I could learn about the history and people of a neighborhood that Knight is working in.  It was obviously meant to be.

The dome was finished in 45 minutes. Our KaBOOM! project manager said it was a record. Usually it takes 1 and a half hours. She was amazed...until we all found out that our team leader is the head of engineering at Robins Air Force Base and brought some of his colleagues with him to work on the build. That explains it. And, amazingly, the team even read the instructions - or at least glanced at them.

We finished up the playground by 2 p.m.  and had the dedication.  It was a wonderful day and I have never seen folks work so hard. I thought that because it was so hot we would lose people, but not so.  Everyone was hot, tired and sunburned but happy. And the kids were thrilled with the finished playground. The only downer was that no one could play on it for 48 hours until the concrete cured.  I went back this week to take a look and was amazed. It is beautiful and will be such a big part of Woodfield - I learned that the students will benefit not only through recreation, but the playground will also be therapeutic. Large motor skills development is important for many of the students at Woodfield.

When I returned this week and talked with Becky Sessions, the head of school, she told me something about the build that most of us never consider.  We see Build Day and all the activity and the finished product, but don't think about the eight weeks prior, when all the planning and "friendraising" and organization happens. Just think about it: you have eight weeks to raise $7500, gather over 100 volunteers, get the kids involved in the design, the families involved in the organization, sign up for committees, have weekly conference calls with KaBOOM!...a million details!  Becky said the two months leading up to the build were as important to build the Woodfield Community as the Build Day itself. Parents got to know one another. Everyone who was asked for anything was thrilled to participate (I have never seen so much food in my life - thanks to Macon's groceries and restaurants).  The way the business community came forward was amazing. Woodfield did not have to spend one penny of their operating funds to make sure Build Day was a success.  There were even funds to hire a DJ - which really helped keep us motivated.

KaBOOM! focuses on building a great playground, but the group is about so about much more. It is about bringing strangers together to accomplish something important and learning that we have something in common, like Oscar and I did. It is about working together in planning for something on faith. Since no one had ever built a KaBOOM! playground before, no one knew what to expect. It was also about families sharing a common vision for the school that is not only helping their kids succeed, but providing new friends and relationships.

But mostly I believe it's about how people with a love for community and a willingness to give can remarkably come together  - in eight weeks- to envision, plan and build a fantastic playground in only one day.  Folks in Macon are still talking about it. And every time I put on my build T-shirt, I think of Oscar and Becky and the Woodfield Academy community. And I smile.

Photo: www.collegehillmacon.com

Cross-posted from Ben Gosden's Covered in the Master's Dust blog.

This past Sunday I attented a community event in Macon, GA called Second Sunday. Basically it’s an event [sponsored by Knight Foundation] and geared toward building community through entertaining. It was my first Second Sunday and I must say it was a great time. We sat in lawn chairs and on blankets and ate picnics and enjoyed music.

Somewhere around the cover band’s rendition of Sittin on the Bay I happened to look around and scan the crowd. To my amazement I noticed something very unique. In this crowd of folks who were busy talking and singing and dancing I noticed something else present. This crowd was made up of young people, old people, middle-age people, black people, white people, rich, poor, in-between, gay, and straight. Looking around we looked like the most hodge-podge group ever assembled. And yet, there were no evident signs of ill will, malice, or even hatred. It was just a group of people enjoying a 90 degree evening filled with music, food, and community.

It made me wonder: why doesn’t the church look more like this sometimes? Why do we seem so homogenous when we worship and yet when it comes to living life in the greater community many of us are able to exist and even thrive in situations where the diversity is as normal as 90 degree heat at 7pm? If God is truly God and Christ died for any and all then why is it we seem to only align ourselves as communities of faith along seemingly homogenous lines? If we look close enough I think we might actually find we share more in common than we think. We all experience pain and heartache. We all need to be loved. We all do better when a part of a community than if we were left to our own solitary devices. And, if we believe in the Gospel we say we do, we all need the life-giving and life-transforming love of a God who knows exactly how we feel. So why not the church be the place where all can find this abundant life?

I’m not really sure where to go or what to do about this. I wish we could work to create churches where all people find a place and a home no matter what superficial characteristics might seem to make them different. But I just don’t know how to help make this happen. What I do know is, somewhere along the final chorus of a familiar Otis Redding hit I looked around and I think I caught a glimpse of the Kingdom of God.

"This is a wonderful opportunity to share the knowledge, resources and connections of Knight Foundation with those in my community," Blake said.

With the Community Foundation of Central Georgia, Blake will be responsible for setting policy, strategy and active oversight of the activities and legal and ethical responsibilities of the foundation. The Community Foundation of Central Georgia serves 15 counties in Central Georgia and works with individuals, families, corporations, non-profits and private foundations to carry out their charitable objectives and address emerging community issues. The foundation is also the administrator for the Knight Neighborhood Challenge.

With the Rotary Club of Macon, Blake will serve as the Rotary Foundation committee chair. Rotary International was established in 1914 and serves more than 200 countries. It is comprised of business and professional leaders that provide humanitarian service and encourage high ethical standards.

A photo illustration of one of Historic Macon's properties being restored as part of the Beall's Hill revitalization project.

It has been a whirlwind few weeks in Macon, Georgia and the experience has shown to me again how a private foundation such as Knight can be such a catalyst for community change and growth. Foundations are unique in that we are here to support the common good, and in Knight’s case, to fund the big ideas of folks and organizations who are creating informed, engaged communities. We have several such initiatives here in Macon- the College Hill Alliance, Historic Macon Foundation and the Community Foundation of Central Georgia’s Knight Neighborhood Challenge. We are fortunate to have strong partners in Mercer University, the City of Macon and the Macon Housing Authority, among others.

One of the greatest pleasures of this work is the partnerships with these visionary, committed leaders. We share ideas, dreams, and frustrations and seem to always come up with common goals. One of these common goals is the revitalization of the Beall’s Hill neighborhood with an emerging partnership of the City, Mercer University and the Macon Housing Authority. But of course this work is not easy! If it was, it would already have been done! Beall’s Hill is a distressed neighborhood with great opportunity for revitalization. An effort was started some years ago but fell apart when the partners could not agree how to move forward. But we’re back at it.

What’s different now?

I’d say what is different is that we have visionary leaders with a shared goal and enlightened self interest. And, because of the commitment of all the partners (including a $5 million grant from Knight), we have the financial resources to make it work.

But since it’s never easy, we had a bit of challenge a few weeks back. The Appropriations Committee of City Council met and deleted the City’s financial commitment to the project. We found out the following morning as we were reading The Telegraph and macon.com.

Not a good thing. For the partnership is not just about the money - it’s about commitment, leadership and cooperation.

We scrambled, attended the Appropriations Committee meeting in the afternoon and with the leadership of the Mayor, we found out what was troubling the committee, the same thing that concerned Knight when we were looking at this opportunity. The concern was that this would become a never ending project that would appear each year for funding - which seems to happen a lot. So we informed the committee that this is a focused, 3 year effort that will propel the revitalization and move the community forward. The funding was restored.

What Council saw was an organization asking for funding. What I saw was a partnership requesting for an investment. And that is what this funding is - an investment in the future of Macon’s neighborhoods, an investment that will pay handsome returns. For example, Historic Macon has been revitalizing homes for over 10 years and the numbers tell the story - the collective market value of the 84 home-owner restoration projects has increased from $4 million to $13 million and produces over $156,000 in annual property taxes. As importantly, every home remains home-owner occupied, code compliant and is worth more than when Historic Macon sold it. This is the goal for Beall’s Hill. But the investment will pay greater returns in safer neighborhoods, home ownership and resident engagement in the life of this community.

Knight’s financial and thought leadership has been a catalyst to continue the positive momentum. We have the luxury of funding, the luxury of bringing in new ideas and supporting the great ideas that are here, and from time to time, speaking from our bully pulpit. But we also have a great responsibility to the community we serve - to expect great things from our leaders, to catalyze our residents, and to hold ourselves as accountable for success as we do our grantees.

I’m proud that Knight has an important role in this progress to Macon’s future. We can’t do it alone, nor can government nor the private sector. We need one another and cannot succeed without leadership, partnership and commitment.

My thanks to the Mayor and Macon City Council for making that partnership solid.

Beverly Blake, Knight’s Macon-based program director, was on the road when the news broke in Georgia. She’s attending the invitation-only FiberFête in Lafayette, La., learning about that community’s innovative fiber optic infrastructure and municipal broadband network, already in place. Before she left, she commented on the impact the mobile library will have when it takes to the road in 2011. “Digital access is essential to first-class citizenship in our society. Without digital, you lack full access to information; you are second class economically and even socially. While the mobile library will benefit families and individuals, the staff of CVL will also benefit as they learn more about the people they serve and how CVL can provide those customers access to computers, the Internet and materials that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to obtain.”

The grant to CVL is part of a $5.7 million Knight Foundation initiative benefiting library users in 20 communities across the United States. The effort reinforces the recommendations of the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy, a project of the Aspen Institute. In a report issued earlier this year, the Commission concluded that democracy in America is threatened by the lack of equal access to quality information. Funding public libraries as centers of digital and media training is one key to fill the gaps.

Dennis Scholl

Great news for the national arts scene: Dennis Scholl, Knight Foundation’s Miami program director and a longtime arts advocate and philanthropist, will head up Knight’s new national cultural arts efforts. Dennis was just named vice president/arts for Knight Foundation. He’ll work with arts leaders in different communities around the country where the Knight brothers owned newspapers – from Detroit, Akron, Charlotte and Philadelphia to Macon, Miami, San Jose and St. Paul – to promote the arts and find innovative cultural programs that enrich people’s lives. He has already has helped transform the South Florida arts scene with Miami’s Knight Arts Challenge, $40 million initiative that aims to unite the region through the arts (finalists will be named in May in the contest’s third round).

With one of the top contemporary art collections in the US and experience leading local and national philanthropic efforts in the visual arts, Dennis’s passion and energy for the arts makes him particularly well-suited for his new post at Knight. He has also ventured into the role of creator as writer and co-producer of a short film, Sunday’s Best, which was just shown at the Aspen Shortsfest 2010. Besides his broad involvement in the arts, Dennis co-founded Betts & Scholl, an international wine venture, and has practiced law, worked as a CPA and restored Art Deco properties on South Beach. We at Knight are looking forward to continuing to transform communities with Dennis’s leadership.

Moderated by Paula Ellis, Vice President of Strategic Initiatives at Knight Foundation, three community foundation leaders shared their experiences.

Andrea Bazán of the Triangle Community Foundation talked about balancing history and future with community foundation strategy:

Josie Heath of the Community Foundation Serving Boulder County talked about a shared future if not a shared past:

Paula Ellis talked about the current conversations about journalism in service to history:

An audience member talked about the upcoming launch of the game Ruby's Bequest about community and donorship:

Emmett Carson of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation talked about ageism and its detrimental effects:

And all the panelists talked about where their leadership journey has taken them:

Comments or thoughts for the panelists or other attendees?

Placeblogger is a 2007 Knight News Challenge winner (the $5 million yearly contest to fund innovative ideas in local news delivery).

The 2008 Knight News Challenge Screening Team is in Miami today to work through all of your great applications. Here's some of the energy in the room today:

Just some of our incredible team of screeners led by Susan Mernit: Debi Jones, Brian Oberkirch, Andrew Hyde, George Kelly, Chris Messina, Beth Kanter, Rosental Alves, Dianne Lynch, Joyce Barnathan...

You'll see Steve Garfield and Jason Pramas (Open Media Boston) in the group below as well as developers and thinkers from MIT, Harvard, and Somerville organizations.

Next Thursday, we'll host meetups in Austin and we'll also be at the Maker Faire during the weekend. After that, we'll talk in San Francisco (Facebook invite). We hope to meet you then--

Remember that the News Challenge contest closes November 1st; you can apply here and work through your idea before applying here with a mentor who has won the contest in the past.