Love United Iredell is Creating A Collaborative Doorway in Community
Love United Iredell is now into its third year as an initiative created by the United Way of Iredell County and this year more than ever the word COLLABORATION is becoming evident more than ever before! Love United Iredell is a community engagement initiative that spreads the mission of a local organization along with a specialized project they need finished within 6 months of being funded. This builds the ability of nonprofits to engage with the community on a broader scale than ever before.
This year, Love United Iredell has a total of 12 nonprofits participating and searching for partnerships throughout the community. One project is being led by this year’s Leadership Statesville class which is run by the Greater Statesville Chamber and brings together community leaders from a wide range of backgrounds. The Leadership Statesville class has decided to work alongside the Boys and Girls Club of the Piedmont to update garden beds and lay the groundwork to one day establish a small farmers market on site. The participants at Boys and Girls Club will ultimately be the ones learning to grow, harvest, manage, and sell produce to the community.
During this extremely stressful year, Iredell-Statesville Schools were asked to assess whether they may be able to engage in a Love United Iredell project or not. Remarkably, seven schools within ISS chose to step into this role! One of those schools is North Iredell High School. The Agricultural Department at NIHS has adopted the Leadership Statesville project and is integrating it directly into their horticultural classes.
Leadership Statesville participants will work to install and build the garden beds and find additional funding to support the program. NIHS has already engaged their horticultural classes in starting the seeds which will be planted within the Boys and Girls Club gardens. Horticultural students will then also be involved in: teaching the Boys and Girls Club participants the process which they used to get the seeds prepared for planting, cultivation techniques, soil management, proper harvesting techniques, proper storage techniques and integrated pest management.
“This real-world hands-on experience is exactly what the students at NIHS need to set them up for future career opportunities within the farming industry” says Diana Jones, principal at NIHS. “This project will ultimately be yet another sustainable partnership which NIHS has completed in our community.”
This certainly is just one example of the many collaborations within our community through Love United Iredell. A lot of these collaborations are being made possible because of our sponsors and partnerships with: Randy Marion Chevrolet Lincoln and Ford; Greenbrier Grill; Banner Drug; 92.9 & 550 WAME Real Country; Connect Iredell; Doosan Bobcat; Iredell County Economic Development Corp; Iredell Free News; Iredell-Statesville Schools; Mooresville Tribune; Statesville Record and Landmark; Kindness Closet; Top of the Lake Rotary; and Z102.5FM Classic Rock. Can your business, community group or church help support one of these projects? Let us know by emailing [email protected].
Each project is unique in its goal and outreach and we also invite you to learn more about all 12 projects by visiting www.LoveUnitedIredell.org now!
“Love United Iredell has been a great doorway to the community and making sure that schools can easily connect in new and engaging ways. We look forward to this effort continuing and leading to even more paths of collaboration in the future”, says Jones.
