Author: byfarr

We are proud to announce hiring Omari Fox full-time as our Lead Community Organizer. Mr. Fox has worked with Serve & Connect since January 2020. Mr. Fox has served as a leader within the North Columbia Youth Empowerment Initiative since joining the steering committee in April 2019.

Community artist and organizer Omari Fox comes to the Serve and Connect family with a long résumé of civic engagement, classroom expertise, and cultural arts campaign experience from a 20 year long organizing career that is still growing. As a trained sociologist and graduate of South Carolina State University, Omari brings a unique creative consciousness to the lens of community relationship building. Also a graduate of Benedict College, Omari was thrust into the organizing spotlight as an art education major during his days as the President of the Benedict College Art Intelligentsia (BCARTI). That was the proving ground where he learned to transform creative language, imagery, and emotion in order to meld those lanes into consciousness, vision, and strategy for people empowerment.

As an advocate for the dignity and humanity of marginalized communities, Omari believes that community engagement through our collective gifts and talents is a key ingredient to Serve and Connect. Community experience has taught him to power-map those collective skills and apply them to all of the roles we play in community from the guardian peace officers, to the everyday residents striving to prosper and provide for their families. Omari is a firm believer in co-creating that vision together with the community’s consent and voice front and center beginning with deep listening and it is an organizer’s job to see, hear, and support the people in that partnership.

“In the beginning of my justice work I only showed up as the creative person offering solutions and strategy within the framework of my expression. At some prodigious moment the people insiste

d that I apply the poetic strategy into concrete action steps. As an educator it was easy to see the ability in others and create a classroom environment to foster that development. Now the landscape is the neighborhood and it’s about lifting up people and places that feel unseen and unheard then going to their table to get them connected instead of always inviting them to ours.”

Omari is the proud son of Allan and Barbara Fox who both transitioned in September of 2018.

It has been more than a week since George Floyd’s death.

Mr. Floyd’s death was the result of a significant act of injustice. Police officers are sworn to serve and protect their communities. The acts of the four Minneapolis Police Officers were in direct violation of this oath.

Our action to direct change must be consistent and sustained. The death of Mr. Floyd is tragic for us all, yet exists within a broader context of pain and suffering for black and brown communities. Our country has a deep history of racism, which has led us to this space of anger and division.

We must set the bar higher than ever before to bring sustained change. Unprecedented collaboration and extraordinary effort is required in order to address the deep-rooted issues that brought us to this space. Police and communities must work together more than ever before to change the policies, practices, and behaviors that contribute to injustice.  We must also work to acknowledge old wounds and transform our shared pain into visible healing.

Achieving these goals is only possible through opportunities for engagement and relationship building. This is the work of Serve & Connect. Our mission is to ignite positive change through police and community partnerships. We believe that at the end of the day, what we all want is more similar than it is different – for our communities to be safe, our families to be protected, and our children to thrive. Accomplishing these goals requires partnership grounded on trust, understanding, and shared action.

Serve & Connect has and will continue to be committed to these goals. We have developed strategies that use evidence-based practices so that our work is specifically tailored to fostering positive and sustainable change in communities. We focus on direct involvement, deep listening and learning while working with our partners in the communities we serve.  We are proud of what we have accomplished, but recognize that there is much work left to be done.

In addition to our ongoing efforts, Serve & Connect will be accelerating our goals for 2020-2021 to meet the needs of our communities:

• Increase implementation and enhancement of community policing by expanding our Compassionate Acts Program statewide. This includes the expansion of Greg’s Groceries. We will also launch our Law Enforcement Community Connections Program, which will provide training and resources to support enhanced community policing initiatives.
• Focus on healing and reconciliation through expanding implementation of the Welcome Table, an evidence-based process for trust and reconciliation, throughout our partner communities in partnership with the South Carolina Collaborative for Race and Reconciliation. This will include offering a three-part youth Welcome Table series in Columbia’s 29203 zip-code.
• Initiate and invite local leadership opportunities to direct efforts that promote healing and address violence across communities. We will invest in community-driven public safety initiatives through a new program designed to offer funding and support to resident partners for achieving public safety goals.

We are encouraged to live in a state with outstanding law enforcement and community leaders, and are confident in our shared ability to make lasting change in South Carolina. We look forward to working alongside them as we write a new narrative of hope, together.

Forever, as always, we remain true in our belief that Together, We Are Better.

A South Carolina-based nonprofit founded by the widow of a slain law enforcement officer is continuing its efforts to support families whose loved ones were also killed or wounded while “protecting and serving” the people of the Palmetto State.

Serve & Connect – a group founded in 2015 by Kassy Alia Ray – is ramping up its efforts in conjunction with National Peace Officers Memorial Day, which commemorates law enforcement officers across the country who lost their lives or were wounded in the line of duty.

Chris Evans
Chris EvansSeeking straight talk from elected officials

A few years ago, actor Chris Evans was watching pundits debate, when he realized that he—someone who’s passionate and outspoken about politics, particularly on social media—didn’t actually know that much about the policy being discussed. “When I went to try and educate myself a bit,” he says, “I thought it was shockingly difficult to find a simple way in.

At Serve & Connect, we believe in the power of partnerships as a driver for safer, more connected communities. We believe that police are a critical aspect of promoting community safety, but they can’t do it alone. Most of the issues related to community safety are grounded in non-criminal actions – things like poverty, hunger, trauma – and addressing these root causes requires an engaged and empowered community that works in collaboration with law enforcement to identify needs and spread available resources.

Since our founding, I have yet to find a police department that doesn’t value the power of partnerships. Yet, what we hear time and time again is how difficult it can be to effectively bring people to the table. 

In one particular conversation, I was describing our model to a local law enforcement leader. After I spoke, they paused and then said, “I get what you are saying, but how do you actually make that happen? We host community events all of the time, but it’s the same few people who show up.”

Whether it be low attendance at community events or seeing the same 4-5 people at neighborhood meetings, community engagement is a common challenge faced by many. So, what can we do? 

We believe the answer lies in bringing the community into community engagement. 

Let’s take a peek into our work in North Columbia to better describe what we mean. Since launching the North Columbia Youth Empowerment Initiative in November 2018, we have engaged over 193 individuals from nearly 70 diverse organizations in our community-based meetings. Furthermore, data from our community-based events hosted this past summer indicate that they have reached over 1,000 individuals, providing critical resources (including 20,000 meals to residents living in food insecure areas at our Second Annual Farmday Funday event!) and fostering connection, pride and hope. 

So, how do we do it? We focus on prioritizing the needs of the community and showing up in the ways they want to show up. Here are some specific tips:

1. Understand your community. Who lives there? What matters to them? What are their greatest needs? How do they like to come together? What are they proud of? What traditions do they value?
2. Open a conversation. Identify local leaders and gatekeepers. Who works most closely with the community you are interested in reaching? Make time to meet with them. Sit down. Ask them to coffee or lunch. If they aren’t available, ask if you can come to them. And, when you meet, prioritize seeking to understand versus being understood. Take notes. These conversations should involve a lot less talking and a lot more listening.
3. Show up for what matters. So often, we focus so much on inviting people to our events that we neglect to understand the importance of showing up for what matters to others. Is the community hosting a cookout? Show up. Are they unveiling a new park? Show up. Are they hosting a forum? Show up to that too. What about if they created a football team for kids? Definitely show up…. And offer to bring gatorade. The best way to connect with people is to meet them where they are at. If they invite you, take it as an opportunity to take the next step in trust building and SHOW UP to show that you care.
4. Show up consistently. Often, the communities with the highest needs are often the ones who have been promised things again and again, and again and again people fail to deliver. There is a pervasive feeling of “here today, gone tomorrow” where well-intentioned organizations and people enter into a community promising the magic bullet to solve all issues. They come in and take pictures, only to never be heard from again. I remember early on in our weekly meetings, it was like crickets. Very few people showed up. Then, slowly, more and more people started to come to the table. One even said, “I was waiting for you to give up.” It is a sad reality that too often people are waiting for the next shoe to drop yet again. Show that you are different. Keep showing up. It may take time, and progress may be slow, but stay the course. Show your commitment can be trusted.
5. Keep the main thing the main thing. My husband Mitch always says, “Keep the main thing the main thing.” What he means is not getting lost in too many nuances and details, but staying focused on the main message and main objective. I think the same goes for community engagement. In community work, you will engage with many people with rich and diverse perspectives. Some of these perspectives may be spot on with your own whereas others may represent a very different narrative. Conversations can get sidetracked and even tense at times. To help get through these challenges, always keep the main thing the main thing. What is the goal? To make our communities safer. What do we need to get there? And does this conversation further this objective? This may look like being willing to stay the course in a difficult conversation if it means building trust. Or, it may look like taking a pause in a meeting that has gone of the tracks to re-center the group on the mission. It may even look like taking a step back and putting a community brand up front first instead of showcasing your own if it means that the community is more likely to be engaged. Never forget the main goal and walk back from there.

We would love to hear from you – what strategies work for you when seeking to foster greater engagement? Shoot us an email – info@serveandconnect.net

With a heart full of thanks,

Kassy