In the holiday season, it’s natural to reflect on the progress of the year and cultivate new growth built on the foundation of our past efforts. RVA Thrives, although only a year old, has made leaps and bounds in laying the groundwork for sustainable grassroots change on Route 1, by connecting deeply to the communities hopes, history, and unique challenges to not only bring residents to the table but put them in the driver’s seat.

This effort is guided and resourced through Thriving Cities, an umbrella non-profit that brokers collective impact though the collaboration of citizens, public, private, and non-profit sectors. This year, RVA Thrives minted a resident led steering committee, networked with businesses and non-profits along the in the Cowardin-Jefferson Davis Corridor, compiled community resources, and trained eight local community advocates to lead outreach. The latter group has conducted 700 resident surveys and 50 interviews in both English and Spanish in their neighborhoods to illuminate pressing issues, opportunities, and needs for common action. Their key findings were concerns regarding neighborhood safety, job access, and neighborhood beautification.

In the new year, RVA Thrives is looks forward to launching resident-led working groups to help address these and other issues with their newly found business, non-profit, foundation, government, and community partners. They will continue to research, define, generate, and carry out plans to work towards solid resident-centered solutions. If you’d like to get involved, signup for the info update list by contacting Nelson Reveley.