With help from a grant from U.S. Department of Education, San Antonio school, city and and community leaders joined with residents to create the East Side Promise Neighborhood initiative to collaborate on a plan to expand the opportunities for children to succeed in getting an education from cradle to career.
This video is the second in a series to collect the participants' expectations, desires and ideas about how the East Side Promise Neighborhood Initiative will function.
Part one of the series was published May 31, 2011.
In this segment of the documentary, NOWCastSA tours the East side of San Antonio, identifying the assets of the community, as well as issues that Promise Neighborhood intends to address.
In this video, you will also hear from Alberta Harris, community engagement specialist for Promise Neighborhood; Horace Franklin, principal of Wheatley Middle School; Judy Ratlief, principle of Tynan Early Childhood Education Center;Jackie Gorman-Johnson, executive director of San Antonio for Growth on the Eastside; Toni Van Buren, Senior Vice President, Partners for Community Change United Way of San Antonio & Bexar County; Mel Fechner, His Bridge Builders; Linda Bryant, secretary of the Wheatley Courts Resident Council; Sean T. Henry, Sr., community engagement specialist for Promise Neighborhood, and various East Side residents. The interviews were conducted by Susana Hayward of NOWCastSA.
The $312,000 Promise Neighborhood planning grant, which named United Way of San Antonio and Bexar County as the recipients, is intended to promote integrated planning by local government agencies and coordinate the collective assets, resources and investments of the neighborhood including its people.
NOWCastSA will receive $15,000 in Promise Neighborhood grant money to fund live webcasting, community journalism training and for producing video documentaries such as this one.
Advisory board members of the initiative include East Side residents, the City of San Antonio, the San Antonio Independent School District, the San Antonio Housing Authority, Trinity University, Family Service Association, St. Philips College, San Antonio for Growth on the Eastside (SAGE), The Urban Land Institute, United Way and others.
The Promise Neighborhood Initiative includes the neighborhoods near the Tynan Early Childhood Center, Bowden Elementary School, Washington Elementary School, Pershing Elementary School and Wheatley Middle School.