Greater Carlisle Project Timeline
The Greater Carlisle Project (GCP) emerged from a series of meetings convened by Dickinson College’s Center for Sustainability Education in November 2012 and January and March of 2013. The project took shape in the summer and fall of 2013 and activities began to be implemented early in 2014. Participants in the meetings include residents, businesses, organizations and local government agencies from across the Greater Carlisle area. Following is a brief outline of the development of the project.
November 2012: Dickinson College convened a group of sixteen community members to explore interest in a new collaboration of private and public sector organizations that would work across issue areas and across townships and boroughs to make the communities in the Carlisle area more livable and sustainable. It was agreed that a larger community should be held in January.
January 2013: A follow-up meeting attended by more than 40 people further demonstrated strong interest on the part of a variety of constituencies to create a collaborative organization that would bring people together from the greater Carlisle area to work on shared interests. Plans were developed for a March workshop.
March 2013: A community workshop was held to share ideas and generate excitement about what we as a community want to preserve and create to make the Greater Carlisle Area a better, more sustainable place to live. The workshop featured a presentation by Professor David Orr, founder of the Oberlin Project. An outcome was agreement to form an interim steering committee that would use the ideas and priorities expressed by community members at the meeting to draft vision and mission statements for the Greater Carlisle Project, and to plan for moving the project forward.
Summer 2013: The steering committee met several times over the summer and prepared draft vision & mission statements.
October 2013: An open community meeting attended by 70+ residents of the Borough of Carlisle, Mount Holly Springs, Newville, North Middleton, South Middleton, Dickinson and Middlesex endorsed the vision, mission and one-year plan of the Greater Carlisle Project. Project and education teams were formed to plan and implement activities in the coming year.
December 2013 through February 2014: The project and education teams met several times and launched a number of activities. See project accomplishments to date here. The teams are then merged into the Idea Team.
Summer 2014: A gap analysis is conducted to assess geographic, demographic and topical expertise on the Greater Carlisle Steering Committee. New steering committee invitations are conducted. Organizational status and membership is evaluated.
February 2015: The Greater Carlisle Project focuses attention on poverty in the region by hosting the Poverty Forum which attracted more than 150 local residents and community leaders to evaluate issues of our communities.
May 2015: Consensus is reached on the development operational guidelines for the Steering Committee of the Greater Carlisle Project.
Summer & Fall 2015: A poverty action team, Neighbor to Neighbor is funded and created to advance relationships that inspire neighbors to identify, strengthen and use community resources to significantly reduce poverty. Initial activities featured community focus groups and targeted surveys
January 2016: Greater Carlisle Project is awarded $50,000 grant from the Pennsylvania Humanities Council to hire a new Project Director and begin work on our Community Heart and Soul Project.
