WE ARE NO LONGER ACCEPTING GRANT APPLICATIONS FOR THIS PROGRAM

While the Make It Your Own Awards grants were awarded in May 2008, the projects live on. Read more about the Top 100 projects, or see what made the MIYO Awards novel. This site has been archived to serve as a resource for anyone wishing to create a similar project in their community.

Project Summary

We want to see thriving families with good jobs and great education opportunities for children. We want to see new houses built and owned by the residents of our community. We want to see residents own new businesses in our community.

About me

I have lived in South Rome for 36 of my 45 years and am now raising my children in this community. In 1979 I helped start the South Rome Community Association, Inc., because of flooding in our area. We did community surveys and drove residents to meetings. We had the city build levees to stop the flooding. In 2000 I helped to form the organization known as Grassroots Empowerment Alliance of Rome, Inc. to help build democracy in our community, helping people to identify their problems and then work to solve them. In 2004 I started Greater Rome Area Community Enterprises, Inc. a microenterprise training and development organization. We have groups from all over our community that are coming together to help bridge this gap between the residents and the resources needed for change.