Miller Beach Embraces Collective Impact

The main goal of the Neighborhood Spotlight program is to promote our community to work collectively, thus increasing the level of impact our efforts can have. Collective Impact occurs when organizations from different sectors agree to solve a specific social problem using a common agenda, aligning their efforts, and using common measures of success. (FSG, 2011) For more on collective impact please check out http://collectiveimpactforum.org/what-collective-impact

Luckily Miller Beach already has a lot of cool organizations and vested community members interested in making the quality of life here the best it can possibly be. There are several annual events that occur that promote collective impact. The Miller Spotlight Steering Committee is collecting and synthesizing data from our community to find out how to better these efforts.

   

This past weekend several big kickoffs occurred. There was a major coordination that occurred between the MCC, MBA, Miller GardenClub, Miller Spotlight Steering Committee and several Block Clubs. Volunteers conducted a community clean up on Saturday 5/2/15 from 7am-11am.



    

A ton of folks came out and supported our community. Litter is definitely one of the threats to our neighborhood. This summer we will construct a plan of action to figure out how to address it.

St.Mary of the Lakes hosted a Festa Italiana. There was a great turn out. People from all areas and religions attended. St. Mary’s has been a long-standing pillar of our community, but as of late has run into some financial troubles.

 



Miller Beach wants to keep as many organizations thriving as possible. So, everyone collectively tried to attend this awesome event. Over 500 tickets were sold! Our Miller Spotlight volunteers were there too getting interviews on the community’s thoughts about what will help revitalize Miller Beach and how we can coordinate our existing institutions to collectively impact our community.

Another great joint effort in Miller is our Farmer’s Market, which opened on Sunday, May 3, 2015 with an awesome turnout.  

 

 

We had produce, honey, a variety of world cuisine, jewelry, and flowers! The market accepts SNAP and a Miller Spotlight volunteer was there to interview folks too! It’s open every Sunday this spring/ summer from 10am-3pm.



If you have an apartment, event, precinct, block club…you would like our community builder, or some of our volunteers to come to please contact Jessie Renslow via millerspotlight@gmail.com. Also, please like us on Facebook and Google+ .