To strengthen Jackson’s city parks, JAN is seeking volunteers to join or start a “Friends of” Jackson Parks group. The tight-knit relationship between a local park and its friends group allows a unique opportunity to interact with the surrounding community to enhance a park’s overall experience for neighbors and visitors.

After discovering the vacant building on a walk around the neighborhood picking up trash, Founder and Jackson native Stephen Brown (aka 5th Child) realized that his Briarwood Heights neighborhood and the surrounding North Jackson needed an art-based community center that was accessible to all.

Community cleanups are an important key to maintaining the health and appeal of neighborhoods, public spaces, and the overall environment. They also empower local change and foster strong connections between residents.

On Tuesday, June 10, the Jayne Avenue Neighborhood Association (JANA) held a Walk & Talk around the neighborhood to identify concerns, needs, and opportunities for the future. Ward 4 Councilman Brian C. Grizzell lead the exercise and the Jackson Police Department (JPD) provided security to ensure resident safety. Jayne Avenue is a quaint, unified, and promising community with a number of assets located in historic West Jackson.

One of the main goals of the project is to bring positive attention to the local library system and to beautify the branch. This project is in partnership with the Mississippi Arts Commission, JXN Friends of the Library, the Jackson-Hinds Library System, and Forman Watkins & Krutz, LLP.

Bridges has been with JAN for two years and has a passion for communtiy advocacy and helping others. She believes that JAN represents an opportunity to share across wards to help everyone grow and thrive as Jackson moves forward. “We are rising together,” said Bridges. “If we lift from the bottom, everyone rises.”

For a second year, Jackson will celebrate 601 Day, a collective celebration of Mississippi’s capital city. 601 Day falls on a weekend this year, June 1 – 2, 2024. Jacksonians should look forward to two days of new and existing events, promotion specials, and opportunities to connect to the people that live, work, and play in the City With Soul.

Georgetown, one of Jackson’s oldest historically Black neighborhoods, is actively revitalizing its neighborhood association. The neighborhood held its first post-COVID meeting on April 15 and continues to meet on the first Monday of every month at the Jackson Medical Mall Community Room at 6 p.m.

The historic levels of support provided by these grants will enable communities like Jackson and their partners to overcome longstanding environmental challenges and implement meaningful solutions to meet community needs now and for generations to come.

A severe storm with gusting winds came through Jackson overnight on May 9 into the early morning hours of May 10. Mayor Chowke Antar Lumumba has declared a State of Emergency for the City of Jackson following the overnight storms.

The purpose of a “Walk and Talk” is to bring residents and neighborhood stakeholders together to talk about the needs and assets in their own neighborhood and to collectively identify solutions for implementing the change they want to see.

The Ark, a non-profit organization under New Horizon Ministries, Inc., is a community center dedicated to community empowerment, restoration, and transformation. It is nestled in south Jackson across from the Alta Woods neighborhood and serves its community via sports, fitness, creative arts, education, and other programming.

Collectively, this group has years of experience in neighborhood leadership, volunteering and community strengthening, making them the ideal collective to move JAN forward.