COMMUNITY ASSET MAPPING TO BEGIN

House-by-house mapping of assets in four school neighborhoods in Cape Girardeau could start the first or second week of December as part of the Healthy Community Committee's assessment efforts.

Members of the committee outlined the asset mapping process Tuesday night at the Salvation Army. Six teams will be set up to collect and coordinate data, said Dr. Shelba Branscum, chairwoman of the asset mapping steering committee.

Volunteers will conduct house-by-house surveys as well as observations in neighborhoods served by Jefferson, May Greene, Washington and Franklin schools, Branscum said. Those schools are all Caring Communities sites, and the information will be used for a three-year strategic plan for the Caring Communities program as well as for the Healthier Communities assessment, she said.

Both Caring Communities and the committee are overseen by the Community Caring Council.

Deadline for the Caring Communities plan is Dec. 30, but the assessment will continue after that plan is submitted to the state.

Branscum said the surveys, or "blitz," will be conducted the week of Dec. 4 or Dec. 11. A definite date will be announced as asset mapping teams are organized.

"We intend to eventually look at all the school districts and all of Cape," Branscum said. The assessment will eventually include Cape Girardeau County in its entirety.

"The teams will allow us to gather a variety of information, much of which we don't have on any needs assessment," Branscum said. The information will be compiled and literally mapped out block by block to give committee members and residents an idea of where services and assets are located. Once the assets are located, committee members say, gaps in services can be identified and corrected.

The information gathered can be used to help neighborhoods empower themselves and to allow residents to rely on each other rather than on federal or state assistance programs, said Branscum.

"This is not rebuilding where you and I are going take our hammers and our nails and rebuild," she said. "We're going to go out and help everyone understand that they've already got the hammers and the saws and the nails and they're right there in their own hands, in their own homes, in their own selves. We just haven't asked them to use them."

John McGaha said mappers will be taking the view that the community's "glass" is half full, not half empty, in realizing that the community is capable of solving many of its own problems by utilizing residents' available strengths, knowledge and resources.

In many cases, community assessments identify needs and then the experts are sent in to fill those needs, McGaha said.

"We're not experts; the experts are already in the community. Our job is to go out and find those experts and connect them with each other," he said.

Charlotte Craig, director of the Cape Girardeau County Public Health Center, said it is important that all aspects of the community become involved in the assessment because each has its own strengths to contribute to the effort.