It all started with a conversation. A group of Siouxland leaders gathered over coffee 15 years ago to discuss meeting the growing needs of the community. From those caffeinated conversations, Growing Community Connections (GCC) was born.
“This started about 15 years ago with a small group of people around a table that really believed in collaboration. It has grown now, and its journey has been amazing. I started on the board of directors ten years ago, and today I have the honor of leading the organization,” explained JoAnn Gieselman.
GCC is a Tri-State collaboration that unites partners in working together to help improve the lives of children and families in each community. It exists to connect people, organizations, and resources to empower the community to support the families and children in the Siouxland Tri-State area.
“By pulling our resources together, we can communicate and go a lot farther, a lot faster, and have much more of an impact on our communities. We are bringing all these organizations and all these people together to have conversations to better understand what is going on in our communities and what we need to do in order to serve at a higher level,” said JoAnn.
One way GCC does this is through its monthly meeting, these are held on the second Thursday of every month. Many community partners, such as health providers, law enforcement, schools, faith-based organizations, non-profits, and businesses, come together to share resources to help the communities.
“These meetings are fantastic! We have over 900 partners, and at our last meeting, 151 people showed up on Zoom. Leaders in the community come together and share information. We really believe that the more we know each other and are connected, the more we can help the families of our community thrive,” shared JoAnn.
However, reading about these meetings is nothing compared to experiencing them. The next in-person meeting will be held on Thursday, September 11, from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. at Country Connections. Coffee and breakfast will be provided; there is no cost to attend the meeting.
“We partnered with Sources for Siouxland (SFS), and they are the data gurus of our community. They focus on five key areas, which we call buckets: health, education, safety, quality of life, and economic development. We look at different buckets and determine where we are and where we need to be going. Last year, we decided to concentrate on mental health and child care. We’ll see if we’ve done enough there or need to continue to address issues with resources. We find what we need as our guiding light for the year,” said JoAnn.
The magic at those meetings happens in the partnerships that are formed. A few years back, the partners from Catholic Charities got to chatting with the partners from the Boys and Girls Club. Catholic Charities shared how they could assist with some of the mental health needs at the Boys and Girls Club, and they’ve been going strong ever since.
“We’d done a presentation for the Siouxland Chamber Board around child care solutions. We just put in a new book for the story walk in the South Sioux City area. It has 32 little stands to put the new books in. The South Sioux City Chamberettes said they could help with that. Suddenly, we had ten sets of hands helping us with that project, and we were done in an hour. It’s that kind of collaborative spirit that works with partners. They meet with each other, share ideas, and explore ways to come together because we know that working in silos is not as fast or effective as working in collaboration. There are a lot of great things happening out there! When you’re working with someone else, it’s broader and better, and we know that funders look at that too,” explained JoAnn.
From meetings to partners to programs, there isn’t much this organization does not tackle. One of their great programs is Early Child Care Support.
“One of GCC’s current priorities is Early Child Care Support. The City came to us and said that this is an economic development issue. We are in a crisis right now. We have young professionals who won’t move here because they can’t find adequate child care. Some families have three or more children, and they struggle to find child care for all of them in one place. Of course, children are one of the most important things to families when they move. So, we did a Galley Walk with many of our child care professionals in the Nebraska and Iowa area to gather their insights into child care challenges and solutions. We have just finished a business survey in our community asking area businesses about their challenges with child care, so we have a better understanding of the needs of businesses and childcare. Now we’re having conversations on how to address the challenges. Child care is one of the many ways GCC and our partners are trying to work toward a solution for our community,” stated JoAnn.
This is just the tip of the iceberg as to what this organization is doing in the Siouxland communities. Hear all about their other endeavors, such as their Family Coaching Program, where GCC coaches meet individually with families to help them achieve their goals, on our webcast.
For more information about Growing Community Connections, please visit their website at: growingcommunityconnections.info or call JoAnn at (712) 223-9614.
By Amy Buster
