EPI

Educational Prosperity Initiative (EPI)

Recipient of the NAHRO National Award of Excellence, NAHRO Award of Merit, and GAHRA Collaborative Partnership Award, the Griffin Housing Authority’s Educational Prosperity Initiative (EPI) provides an escape from poverty for long forgotten neighborhoods. In 2010, services in the Griffin/Spalding disenfranchised community were almost non-existent with residents living in the midst of blight and all that comes with it. Today, with grassroots engagement and community collaboration, led by the Griffin Housing Authority, Spalding Collaborative, and the University of Georgia-Griffin Campus, a comprehensive system of general services in support of those neighborhoods in need. A cadre of services, programs and activities for all ages are in place including community gardening, summer youth programs, academic enrichment for youth and adults, mentoring, financial literacy/life skills and employability. 

Below you will find a snapshot of services, programs and activities for and within the targeted neighborhoods designed to provide it's residents with continual life enriching educational opportunities that will enable them to prosper and eventually achieve a higher quality of life resulting in self-sufficiency and reduce or eliminate the need for housing assistance.

As a result, residents have access to several new programs:

  1. School/community based mentoring 

  2. Let’s "RAP" - Resident assistance program for in-home tenant crisis, mental health and substance abuse response

  3. Healthy Life Living Community Garden 

  4. Taking Charge of Your Money, Your Life, Your Future personal and financial training 

  5. Backpack Food for Kids 

  6. Neighborhood-based adult education Basic computer skills training

  7. Good neighbor training

  8. Life Songs Ministires, Inc, a community-based life skills and job readiness training program to educate, encourage and empower women who desire to change their lives, but lack the resources to do so

  9. Healthy relationships training to prevent domestic violence and promote emotional  and physical healing for victims

  10. C.H.A.R.M

  11. Money Smart

  12. Stewards of Children child sexual abuse prevention training (Darkness to Light Agency)

  13. “No More Stinkin’ Thinkin’” Youth Leadership

  14. Zero-Robotics/Spalding Collaborative & UGA, Griffin Summer STEM Program

  15. First Step Learning Academy/Child Care & Learning Program

  16. Senior Services

 

Three existing programs were enhanced based on community input and need:

  1. School-based afterschool program

  2. University-based child summer academic enrichment program

  3. Young Scholars, a university-based youth summer academic enrichment program

We believe community transformation will occur when people are linked and work together for sustainable community change. We will seek grants and pursue long-term public-private partnerships to see this initiative long-lived and replicated throughout other troubled neighborhoods within our community.