PORCH group aims to bring community back to Cape's south side

A “quarterback group” whose aim is to revitalize South Cape Girardeau in an effort known as “Purpose Built Communities” is taking its message out into the community.

Called PORCH, for People Organized to Revitalize Community Healing, the group Friday addressed the city’s business sector in a program during the Cape Girardeau Area Chamber of Commerce’s First Friday Coffee event.

Tamara Zellars Buck, south-side resident and Southeast Missouri State University professor, serves as vice chairwoman of PORCH.

Buck said PORCH’s aim is to move the Purpose Built Community, or PBC, idea forward. PORCH was announced as the quarterback group in November.

The PBC initiative is primarily about building and strengthening community ties, but, “It’s really about people,” Cape Girardeau city manager Scott Meyer said.

The city brought the PBC concept forward, but is not involved in PORCH’s operations.

Meyer said the statistics about Cape Girardeau’s south side are not great: Home ownership is less than 20 percent, poverty more than 40 percent.

The PBC model transformed a neighborhood in Atlanta, beginning 20 years ago, Meyer said. It’s a three-leg approach, including cradle-to-college education to end the cycle of generational poverty, an eye to community wellness and safety and mixed-income housing.

“It has to be how the people want it done,” Meyer said of the PBC initiative.

The city helped identify the area that would best benefit from this model, Meyer said. It ranges from West End Boulevard to Southern Expressway to William Street, he said, and Jefferson Elementary School, while slightly outside that zone, will be key in developing the sense of community and purpose that will benefit residents.

In Atlanta, Meyer said, the school’s aquatic center was key, and in Cape Girardeau, the school district took “a strong stance” on the placement of the proposed aquatic center at Jefferson Elementary.

Buck said it’s important to note PBC is not about gentrification, but about going back to the “porches model”: returning to a sense of community centered around front-porch conversations and community.

“When you have a place you own, you take pride in it,” Buck said.

Buck noted, too, that the south side has “been abandoned” by businesses and health-care providers, and said it’s time to work to bring them back.

The transformation in downtown Cape Girardeau is a great example of what can be done with a good model and dedicated people, Buck added.

More information, including a video and contact form, is available at www.capeporch.org. The organization is also on Facebook as PORCH Initiative of Cape Girardeau.

mniederkorn@semissourian.com

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