At the August 9th Code for Asheville Community Meeting, I introduced the idea of “community ambassadors,” Code for Asheville members who are committed to attending meetings of other community groups and staying in contact with them.
For example, I am a community ambassador in the BeLoved homeless support community. I attend meetings of the BeLoved community, and keep their computer lab up and running, as well as provide training and support for people who need it.
A community ambassador keeps connected to a community they care about and keeps Code for Asheville informed of that community’s needs. Collectively, the ambassadors form a grassroots network to help Code for Asheville be more knowledgeable about the needs of the community and how and when we can best help.
At the meeting, I asked everyone to imagine the community they might consider, if they were to be an ambassador. Communities that people mentioned included schools/education (focused on under-served youth), isolated seniors (like the Meals on Wheels elderly community), the tech community (like Asheville Coders League, UniteWNC, and Meet The Geeks), the transportation advocacy community (like Better Buses Together), the data analysis community (like Analytics in Asheville), veterans, the equity advocacy community (like Just Economics and the Human Relations Committee), the BeLoved community, the African-American community (like The Real Asheville, The State of Black Asheville, NAACP), and the criminal justice community.
What if YOU were an ambassador? What community would YOU want to help connect with Code for Asheville? Email me at info@codeforahseville.org with a subject line of “Community Ambassador Ideas”.
– Jim March, Co-Captain, Code for Asheville