Community Resilience–How Denton County is Becoming a Strong Community
You’ve heard the old adage before: if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
Tornadoes, devastating ice storms, joblessness, economic ruin, pandemics…
When seasons of severe challenges hit your community, where will you turn?
It’s crucial for individuals to initiate a forward-thinking approach to growing and sustaining resilient communities.
Communities are made up of diverse groups of people, making their challenges increasingly complex. Struggles range from homelessness, to food insecurity, to abuse (and everything in between). So how is it possible to not only help community members survive, but thrive, when challenges strike?
The answer is through community resilience.
What is community resilience?
Community resilience is the ability of a local community to utilize available resources (energy, transportation, food, communication) to respond to, withstand and recover from hardships and challenges (natural disasters, economic fallout, pandemics).
But this can only be achieved when these 5 certain attributes are the pillars of the community:
Local knowledge & understanding vulnerabilities
You can’t solve a problem if you don’t know it exists. Understanding the specific context and demographics of the community which you are a part of is essential to helping people bounce back from trials. It’s critical to know what the specific vulnerabilities your community possesses and what policies or programs you can put in place to overcome those obstacles.
Community networks and relationships
As individuals and as a community, courage to confront challenging issues and take responsibility for the collective future is crucial. Through networking with various agencies to leverage community assets, people are able to receive the holistic care they need, and hopefully, stop the cycle of dependency.
Investment
Investing in low income and other underserved parts of the community provides capital and training that these communities would otherwise lack. Community investing provides individuals and organizations with tools and skills to improve the quality of life for themselves, their families and ultimately the community as a whole.
Adaptability
A community that adapts to change is resilient. But because communities and the challenges faced are so dynamic, adaptation is an ongoing process. It’s beginning with the end in mind, while always being ready to pivot as circumstances inevitably shift.
Sustainability
Community resilience is not sustainable if it serves only us, and only for now; it needs to work for other communities and future generations. Scenario planning for foreseeable future outcomes is one of the best strategies to ensure the programs implemented will withstand the element of time.
Community resilience is best done at the local level where direct interactions are made with the people and organizations that make up the community.
Which leads to the question…
How is resiliency being built in Denton County?
Serve Denton strives to model resiliency as we consistently and effectively adapt to the ever-changing adversity of the community. Acting as a one-stop-shop, we offer colocation and networking to ensure people who are in need in Denton County can easily find help.
And more than just our ability to respond to current crises, Serve Denton acts as a resiliency hub that leverages assets and resources to ensure sustainable growth for present and future needs.
By aligning with various nonprofit agencies who share the unified mission of helping people, Serve Denton serves as a safe space for organizations to rapidly work together on complex problems the community faces. By bringing greater amounts of assets to the table, we accomplish initiatives that any one agency couldn't accomplish on their own, making a bigger community impact.
This was most prominently showcased through our response to the COVID-19 pandemic last year.
No one could have predicted that 2020 would be filled with massive challenges including homelessness, food insecurity, joblessness and health crises, but because of our forward thinking scenario planning, Serve Denton helped our nonprofit partners grow capacity so they were able to handle the 300%-500% growth in needs.
Because when needs boom that exponentially, finding help needs to be easy.
Through colocation, Serve Denton builds value and trust amongst the various agencies. It’s this trust that acts as the foundation for partnerships like Grace Like Rain and Giving Hope (organizations that provide homeless assistance) and Denton County Food Center to develop and serve families holistically.
When moms receiving assistance from Grace Like Rain and Giving Hope found themselves cobbling together resources to feed their children who were no longer receiving school meals, Denton County Food Center stepped in to partner and provide food and resources for their nightly programs.
And that is just one example among many.
Serve Denton is not just building for tomorrow.
We believe in growing capacity for the long-haul to build resiliency within the community. It’s because of this that we were able to not only survive, but thrive, when crisis struck.
Resilient communities need to have a voice of facilitation to ask the hard questions and initiate change. Currently Serve Denton convenes weekly with nearly 60 community leaders including United Way, Denton ISD, the City of Denton, and Denton County to engage the community in future scenario planning. All on the same call, all having the same conversations.
Believing in the superpower of networking so much, Serve Denton simply asks the questions, “What are your challenges, and what can you do to help?” The connection and sense of value has led to immense amounts of trust between various businesses, agencies, and organizations that Serve Denton got to witness to the rich conversation and problem solving being accomplished by the community itself.
Mother Teresa knew this better than anyone when she said, “I can do things you cannot, you can do things I cannot; together we can do great things.”
And that’s exactly the heart of Serve Denton.
We are a neutral ground for people from various belief systems, visions, and services to come together under a unified mission: helping people. We are an example of diversified success as we rally people to put differences aside and work towards a common goal, and in turn, build the community’s resilience.
By meeting with other cities and counties, and organizations like Leadership North Texas, Serve Denton looks to plant more seeds so the grove of resiliency can flourish even beyond the Denton borders. They are building a model that is not just for their community or network, but for other communities and future generations.
What part do you play in building your own community’s resilience?