SouthsideCentral is LIVE! AT Mt. Vernon United Methodist Church for tonight’s Danville United meeting. Be sure to refresh this page often to get the latest happenings, photos and commentary.
The crowd starts to roll in.
Ron Johnson starts our meeting.
The pastor of Mt. Vernon United Methodist Church welcomes us.
Starling McKenzie from the Danville Regional Foundation will start by going over their report card for the region. .
We’ll link to the full version when we get to the editing process tonight. The report card is mainly a big compendium of data. Just like all data, you have to analyze what it really means.
The panel takes their seats.
Cynthia Johnson (far right), Coordinator of Family & Community Engagement with Danville Public Schools talks about programs that help the youth. Amanda Oakes (middle), Director of Prevention Services with Danville Pittsylvania County Community Services, gives a long list of programs her agency uses. John Moody (left), Director of Danville Social Services, says his agency sees people at “ground zero”. He said he sees stories like psychiatrist reports saying thay a child’s life is ruined because they were raped as a child. Wow. 43000 Danville residents. $21 million in SNAP (food stamp) benefits given out yearly. Danville also leads the state in prosecution for welfare fraud.
Four Danville City Council members here tonight: Sherman Saunders, Gary Miller, John Gilstrap and Alonzo Jones. City Attorney Clarke Whitfield, Police Chief Philip Broadfoot, Fire Marshal Shelby Irving, City Manager Joe King, Deputy City Manager Ken Larking, Public Information Officer Arnold Hendrix, Engineer Kent Shelton and Analyst Amanda Paez are here from the city.
Tonight’s main point is that there are plenty of programs to help with today’s youth and parenting.
Lillie Jones nails it by saying “The people who need this help aren’t here tonight. The people who need these services aren’t going to ask for these services.”
Small group discussion now:
It’s interesting to see that Danville United has evolved from the original idea of race relations discussions into community relations topics. I’m quite pleased by that.
Good quote: “You’re in a room with 41 engaged and concerned citizens”
We’re done with tonight’s meeting. We’ll have a BreakDown article on this soon.
How many of the 41 in attendance are employed by Government (including council members)? Many more started out in this group. Not all that left are uninterested, they disagree with the direction taken.
I’d say about 1/3 last night. I fully support the direction taken and last night changed my mind.
Most of the city employees were under duress.
yawn
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