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ERCEGI in the News.

• Jacksonville University student is accepted into the ESRI Student Assistantship Program
  May 4, 2010. Josh Gray has just been offered a place in the Student Assistantship Program for the 30th Annual ESRI International User Conference to be held July 12-16, 2010, in San Diego, California. Josh graduated from Jacksonville University in December 2009 with a B.S. in Computer Science and Geography; he has been accepted into the Masters in Leadership & Learning at JU and will begin in August 2010. His future plans include a second Masters in Geographic Information Systems and eventual employment with ESRI, the leading GIS and mapping software company. Click link for full story..

  
  
  

   

• Saving Arlington: What residents are doing to save it
  February 14, 2010. If youve heard anything about Arlington recently, its often one of two things: crime or anger. Sure, Arlington has issues. But crime and anger, those are symptoms, and often overstated at that. The real story of whats happening there is far more complex than the rhetoric. Click link for full story..

  
  
  

   

• Champion Zone turns theory into practice for JU students.
  Jacksonville University Campus, February 8, 2010. Seven students of the Instructional Leadership and Organizational Design Masters program met with Lori Evans, Executive Director of ERCEGI and consultant to the Champion Zone project. The purpose of this meeting was to engage the students in designing a semester long project that would give them hands on experience in translating leadership from theory to practice in working with community agencies in the 32211 zip code area.

  
  
  

   

• Champion Zone Project Making a Difference
  Carpenter Shop, Arlington 32211, January 8, 2010. As the new year begins, thirteen diverse nonprofit and faith based organizations participating in the 32211 Champion Zone Project met to learn how to strengthen their organizations while developing collaborations with other nonprofits to provide services for at risk youth and their families.

  
  
  

   

• Strong Business Practices = Effective Non-Profits
  Champion Zone Non-profits Learn Best Business Practices. Business started early for 25+ directors and leaders of small non-profit and faith based organizations eager to learn more about non-profit management best practices with a goal of creating sustainability. Participants of the two day workshop, Ready Set, Fundraise, are associated with the Champion Zone Project. The Champion Zone Project was designed to build non-profit and faith based organizational capacity and promote community collaboration that positively impacts services offered in the Jacksonville 32211 zip code area.

   

• Emerging Technology Allows JU Students to See Their Community through New Eyes
  Six Jacksonville University students deliver big results arriving early on a Saturday morning to assist in a community canvassing project for the Arlington 32211 area. The activity was part of the current three-year Champion Zone Project aimed to help build community resiliency in the area. Three of the JU students took to the road armed with the latest in GPS technology to discover and map community assets such as medical facilities, day care centers, eating establishments, grocery stores, social service providers, etc. The information was transferred to students working in the office to research the assets and add them to a database that will eventually be displayed in charts, graphs and geographic maps. The result of the canvassing exercise will ultimately be a comprehensive community profile to be used by organizations and residents to connect individuals to local resources.

   

• Advancing Resiliency through Service Projects
  On Saturday morning, October 10, 2009, thirty-one Jacksonville University students arrived at The Carpenters Shop to help make a difference in their community. Their day was filled with moving items, setting up puppets, organizing curriculum for the after school program, mulching the front garden beds, moving the food pantry downstairs, cleaning the shelves and throwing away outdated food, and giving the upstairs a huge overhaul. Clothes and shoes were put in their proper places, while the summer clothes were put away and the winter clothes were made accessible. They even went through clothes that had been there for a while and bagged them for the Salvation Army. Now thats community partnerships, higher education donating time to a local nonprofit, and a local nonprofit donating items to a nation Salvation Army.

   

• ZIP 32211 Let Your Voice Be Heard and Win Prizes
  A community assessment survey is being conducted in zip code 32211 which gives community members the opportunity to create a Community Profile to guide improvements in the area and the opportunity to register for a drawing after taking the survey. The first drawing took place on February 6, 2009. The winner was Eliis Aunis a student from Terry Parker High School.

  
  
  

   

• Rise & Dine Leadership Rally: Ready...Set...Action,
  January 27, 2009-Champion Zones (CZ) held its first Leadership Rally in Jacksonville, Florida on January 27 as a means of bringing together community leaders working to make a difference in the Arlington 32211 area. Over 47 attended the Rise & Dine event to gather more information about the Champion Zones initiative, "It's all about building organizational capacity at the grassroots level to maximize the resources that are available for children and families in the area," says Debbie Andalora, Champion Zones Program Manager.

   







 

Archived Newsletters



• Wilderness Team Triumph

  December 18, 2008- Students from Sandalwood High School’s new Geospatial Information Technology Academy celebrate the grand opening ribbon cutting ceremony at Cedar Point Preserve. Six students participated in a paid internship made possible by a grant last summer provided by Workforce Development.

• Woodland Acres is Enchanted, 12/8/2008!

  Thursday afternoon and the school day is done, but instead of the unwinding calm one might expect, the cafeteria is all a-bustle. Student volunteers, teachers, community partners and staff members at Woodland Acres Elementary take action to prepare for over 100 movie buffs to fill the room.

• Engaging 32211 Residents, 11/17/2008:

  More than 30 thousand residents in Jacksonville’s Arlington area have an opportunity to voice their suggestions for revitalizing the neighborhood. As WJCT’s Alyssa Zamora reports, The United Way of Northeast Florida and its partners are circulating a survey they hope will lead to social change. Listen

• ERCEGI Conducts a Comprehensive Community Profile, 10/28/2008:

  The profile will provide the data needed to make informed decisions about programming and resource allocation to support at-risk youth and their families.  “We are here to serve alongside community members and organizations to build a better future for Jacksonville,” says Lori Evans, Executive Director of ERCEGI, Inc.
  
  

• ERCEGI Supports Economic Stability Efforts, 10/3/2008:

  2008 First Coast Hall of Fame Economic Educator of the Year Patricia Sibson and Lori Evans from the research firm ERCEGI. Sibson is a teacher with Florida Virtual School, an on-line service with more than 200 public, private and home-schooled students enrolled.