St. Peter Unites Around its Community Voices

June 12, 1997

Randleman, NC: Wanting to see their community grow and prosper, citizens in the St. Peter community near Randleman, in Randolph County, are using their voices to meet their goals, and a program coordinated by the North Carolina A&T State University Cooperative Extension Program is helping them do just that.

"Our biggest goal right now is for our group to become incorporated so that we can take advantage of the community improvement grants, which are, in most cases, only offered to incorporated organizations," said Cathy Clark, a native of St. Peter and a participant in the St. Peter Community Center group which is using Community Voices, A&T's leadership development program, as a tool to reach their goals.

"The Community Voices program is helping us become organized as a group and showing us how to bring our ideas to fruition. It also teaches leadership skills, goal setting, decision making and consensus building techniques."

Community Voices is a leadership development program coordinated by the North Carolina A&T State University Cooperative Extension Program. It aims to nurture grassroot leadership, and empower people with the knowledge and skills they need to become part of community affairs.

"The program operates under the belief that many people in rural communities have the potential to solve the problems of their communities, and that a little assistance will help them do that," said Dr. Claudette Smith, a family resource management specialist with the NC A&T Cooperative Extension Program who provides leadership to the Community Voices program.

"Community Voices has helped the St. Peter community come together as a group and make the most out of their resources."

St. Peter is a predominantly black community, and many of its residents work in nearby textile or furniture factories. According to Clark, some of the community's biggest challenges in working toward its goal of a new community center are group incorporation, getting more participation from the community, building organizational skills, and forming partnerships with local businesses.

The St. Peter United Community Center group looked to the Randolph County Cooperative Extension Center for help in addressing these problems. It was there that they met Martha Judge, an Extension agent in family and consumer education, who introduced them to Community Voices.

With the help of Smith and Judge, eight members of the community center group became participants in the program. During the next several weeks, the group completed Community Voices' 15-part program, which entails instruction and activities in everything from combining individual skills through shared group leadership, to creating a shared community action plan.

According to Judge, the group's structure and function have benefitted from its members' participation in Community Voices. "The group has been able to get more community members involved in the decision-making process, and they have developed a thorough plan for the future," said Judge.

At the program's completion, its "graduates" are prepared to become facilitators for others interested in the program, and that is what Clark and the seven others from the original Community Voices group are doing with the eight new participants in Community Voices.

The program participants have also engaged in many fund-raising efforts in order to progress toward their goal of building a new community center which would be used to hold functions for youth and older adults, and to serve as a gathering place for people interested in new programs or other assistance.

Among these fund-raising activities are softball games with local radio personalities, raffles, a Gospel Fest, the Annual Senior Citizens' Dinner, a May Day celebration and a Christmas Dance.

Community Voices is funded by a grant from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. The St. Peter program was implemented through the Randolph County Cooperative Extension Center.

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For more information, please call Dr. Claudette Smith, NC A&T Leadership Cooperative Extension Program, (336) 334-7956.