WEATHER DELAY FOR CCC SURVEY

Bad weather may have delayed surveys, but the Community Caring Council's asset-mapping project is continuing, organizers of the effort say.

The council's Community Partnership Resource Board, which is overseeing the project, will meet Jan. 17 to discuss volunteers' progress and the next steps necessary, said Shelba Branscum, chairman of the CPR board.

A door-to-door survey in four Cape Girardeau school neighborhoods -- Washington, Franklin, May Greene and Jefferson schools -- was originally scheduled for Dec. 9, but was canceled because of bad weather.

"We'll probably wait until the weather clears up again" in the spring before re-scheduling the "Walk the Walk" door-to-door surveys, Branscum said.

In the meantime, volunteers have been hard at work compiling data from other sources for the asset-mapping project, she said.

"We've been collecting quite a bit of data already," Branscum said. "We're just slowly bringing all of the little pieces now."

The CPR Board is collecting data from the four neighborhoods served by the Caring Communities program, which helps at-risk students and their families.

Shirley Ramsey, executive director of the Community Caring Council, said teachers and administrators in those four schools have already completed their surveys, and map coordinates identifying different assets in the community are being compiled as well.

"The door-to-door surveys are only a small part of what we intend to do," Ramsey said. "One of the things that is happening is we have some folks who are starting put the information into the computer already to start our database."

In addition, volunteers are also using census data and information from several existing community health surveys, she said.

The data is being compiled for the council's Caring Communities program and also for the community health assessment for the Healthy Community project, also overseen by the council.

Volunteers are compiling data to identify available resources and services in the community and to identify gaps in those resources and communities.