The coalition includes members from a variety of nonprofits like the Nehemiah Foundation, St. Vincent de Paul, United Way and Project Woman, as well as social service agencies like Clark County Department of Job and Family Services and the Clark County Combined Health District. Many other health agencies like Mercy Health and Rocking Horse are represented, as well as several representatives from the business community.
In starting the coalition, the goal was to understand where the Haitian immigrant population needed support and what areas saw the highest levels of strain due to the large city population increase in a relatively short period of time. There are an estimated 10-15,000 Haitians living in the city now.
Shay said the rebranded coalition aims to continue what it’s been doing by educating the community about the cultures, histories and contributions from various groups in Springfield, and identifying and addressing inequities in health, education, housing and economic opportunities.
“We’re connecting all the different resources in our community to help serve our overall community,” Shay said. “So it’s not just to do things for the immigrants, but it’s for all of our agencies and organizations. How can we improve our processes to help remove barriers to all of our community?”
Springfield has always seen a collection of cultures come together, Shay said, pointing to the farming, industrial, manufacturing and service communities.
“We’ve had people from many nationalities come and stay in Springfield and make Springfield a part of just who they are, so we have many cultures and the whole idea is we want to have this braid,” Shay said. “We kind of visualize this braid of togetherness that we take our history as one braid. We take all of our organization our community that is here today and then we have all the new people coming in. As we build and strengthen our braid, it makes for a stronger community.”
Moore emphasized the importance of the coalition being all-inclusive and avoiding “competition.”
“We shouldn’t have multiple ropes being built but we want to be one rope because we recognize that even just the motto of Springfield is, ‘Forward Together,’” Moore said. “We want to be able to better equip out people ... We want to be able to work together and that requires bringing everyone to the table.”
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