This Thursday, the Heart & Soul initiative will begin the second phase of the Orton Family Foundation’s community building project.
From 5 to 7 p.m. at The Box, the community is invited to share their stories about Galesburg.
Heart & Soul Coordinator Deb Moreno tells WGIL people will be able to write what they like about the town and what they would like to leave behind, record video messages about what is important to them, use a selfie station to share their thoughts on social media and jot ideas down on a dry erase board.
“Then we’re going to collect people’s responses,” Moreno says “and put them into our database which we started a couple of months ago and we’ve been collecting information.”
She says phase one was “laying the ground work,” which involved creating leadership teams to connect with the community. Phase two is “story telling.” Moreno expects this phase to last about eight months.
“Phase three is ‘creating a road map’ based on the information that we gather from the community,” Moreno adds. “Then phase four is ‘putting a plan into action.”
Moreno says the project aims to build a beautiful, inclusive community that is inviting and worth staying in.
Thursday will also include the unveiling of The Portrait Project, John Bakker’s art project involving paintings of community members.
