Developed Relationships with City of Asheville and Buncombe County’s Leadership

During the course of the development and implementation of the E. W. Pearson Project Collaboration, each community’s leadership has actively worked to strengthen their relationships with the City of Asheville and Buncombe County’s leadership. The members of the Collaboratives are leveraging social and historic capital to begin to create significant changes in areas that have needed investment and support for decades.

Burton Street Community – Implement traffic calming measures on Burton Street and Florida Avenue, which included the addition of speed humps. The Traffic Engineer noted that City will put together a contract to remove and replace all existing speed humps along Burton Street and Florida Avenue and add more where necessary in Spring 2020.

East End Valley Street – The East End Valley Street Neighborhood Association represents the neighborhood on issues, including zoning, traffic, security, education gardens, noise ordinances, trash and litter pickup and any area that concerns the neighborhood the City of Asheville and Buncombe County.  The residents of the East End Valley Street neighborhood worked with the City of Asheville’s Transportation Department to reduce the speed limit on Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive to 25mph to comply with the average speed for neighborhoods within the city. The effort also yielded a series of crosswalks and planted bulb-outs were included in the project to provide safe crossing opportunities and increased traffic calming measures.

Shiloh Community – Members of the Shiloh community are actively working with the City of Asheville and the North Carolina Department of Transportation on the Hendersonville Road Corridor Study.

Project Lighten Up – The staff and volunteers are maintaining open and transparent communication with representatives from the local government, community association, and community members at large. The enhanced communication has assisted with developing partnerships that further assist with introducing Science Technology Engineering Arts Mathematics (STEAM) to participants within the program. Project Lighten Up has received Community Development Block Grant funds from the City of Asheville, due to the increased communication.

Additionally, the members of the E.W. Pearson Project Collaborative have successfully assisted nonprofits provide services in their communities for years, by meeting with organizers to assist in planning events, distributing literature residents to ensure their participation, participating activities that were planning, and completing evaluations of said activities. The majority of the staff of those activities were not members of the Collaborative’s neighborhood nor were they people of color.