“The Quality of Life Plan is an excellent document… It truly reflects the values and priorities of the people who live in the Opportunity Neighborhoods.”
“The Quality of Life Plan is an excellent document… It truly reflects the values and priorities of the people who live in the Opportunity Neighborhoods.”
The Opportunity Neighborhoods Initiative is a 10-year effort launched by the Danville Regional Foundation (DRF) to expand access to opportunity and improve the quality of life in three neighborhoods in Danville, VA, which are known collectively as the “Opportunity Corridor.” Historic and current data show that residents in the Opportunity Corridor are at higher risk for poor health outcomes and reduced economic mobility. Based in part on this data and work done in 2017 to create a Health Equity Report, DRF partnered with Healthy Places by Design to develop a Quality of Life Plan and processes that would address those disparities.
Healthy Places by Design worked with DRF to ensure that the process was community-driven and that local leaders were paid for their efforts to support, lead, and identify the best ways to connect with other residents. We facilitated a process for people who lived in each neighborhood to share what they saw as priorities for enhancing their quality of life and structured conversations around possible changes to systems and policies. This process unfolded over the course of “listening meetings” that included neighborhood meetings, focus groups, and one-on-one interviews with community leaders. From these iterative conversations, Healthy Places by Design created a document that reflected local priorities and outlined detailed action steps for addressing them.
Qonell Totten, one of the initiative’s community advisors and a life-long resident of Danville, summed up why this community-led approach matters: “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” And, as our project officer Tim Schwantes reflected, “We couldn’t do this work without the community members’ expertise.”
Wendi Everson
Senior Program Officer, Danville Regional Foundation
Lori Merricks
Director of Marketing and Communications, Danville Regional Foundation