community hub business plan

Setting up a community hub from scratch

Over the years I have set up and made sustainable a number of community hubs in a variety of conexts.

This blog post is for anyone who is interested in starting, developing or supporting a community hub.

Introduction:

Below is quite a lenththy introduction which explains what a community hub is. Following the introduction is my ten steps to setting up your community hub.

So you may be a local resident, a member of a community group or a charity, this bloog post provides you with the insights that will ensure your community hub will support and help your local community to thrive.

A well planned community hub provides a opportunity for alternative approaches to service delivery underpinned by the principles of community involvement and partnership

Community hubs facilitate community cohesion by providing a place where different local partners and groups can come together to address local issues and support local people. A good community hub therefore supports a community-focused approach.

A good community hub delivers a range of services that are evidenced and provide endless oppertunities for volunteering.

A hub can deliver services focused on a specific theme for example; a family focused hub, a elderly focused hub, a intergenerational focused hub, a military focused hub or a hub focused on alleviating loneliness and mental health issues.

Listening to the local community is very important to starting the process. Therefore a community survey to understand the needs of the local community is the first piece of work to deliver. A good community survey will also provide evidenece for funders to support your project.

See my blog post about carrying out a community survey https://imagineprojects.co.uk/community-survey-3/

A good community survey also highlights that you have consulted as widely as possible with local people.

Community hubs usually operate out of buildings, from which multi-purpose, community-led services are delivered. With partners providing access to public services. These co-location approaches are an efficient and effective use of resources and local assets.

Community hubs should always provide services ‘for the community by the community’. Local people are involved both in making decisions about how services are run, how buildings are managed, and also supporting delivery through volunteering this model will underpin an enterprising and resilient community organisation.

Typically, community hubs are run and managed by a dedicated community organisation, but in other instances they may be owned or managed by a public agency such as a housing association, or local authority but with substantial input and influence from the community.

Ideally community hubs are multi purpose, providing or hosting a range of activities and services used by lots of different people.

Examples include

• Parent and toddler groups
• Health and wellbeing activities
• Employment support
• Library services

A good community hub will utalise local buildings and land to provide a base for activites and services. These can be assets acquied through a community asset transfer. Utalising an old school, town hall or sports ground.

Other hubs are created as the result of new development and the utalisation of a 106 agreement.

Community hubs need an income to be sustainable, and ensure they will be there in years to come.  A  range of income sources is usually required to cover all of the costs for looking after the building, running activities and paying staff. Funding streams can include, grants, donations, hiring out space, delivering contracts, a community cafe or some form of business with a social pupose.

Effective community hubs make use of good ideas and resources within the community and are able to adapt to changing circumstances.

Hubs can bring people together and help them form new relationships and support networks.

They often provide early intervention services, helping people to solve problems before they escalate into bigger problems

They can offer a safe place where people can come in for a coffee or a training course, and access additional services needed such as debt advice, mental health services or counselling without any stigma. In short hubs should be safe places for people of all ages.

Community hubs can provide a more holistic approach to helping people with their problems. They often have an ‘open door’ policy and are able to help people access a range of services under one roof.

Some of my community hubs have transformed under used buildings – mainly churches into thriving hubs of activity, making neighbourhoods more resilient

Community hubs provide a focus for community  led  regeneration

Community hubs often act as a catalyst to develop local projects, activities and businesses. They can also  provide a base for local jobs and services, helping to keep economic activity local.  Some hubs act as a location for local economic development.

I’m aware of hubs that have helped establish neighbourhood plans, others have been developed as a result of them

Some community hubs start life as a publicly owned building that are eventually  transferred into community ownership when no longer required by the local authority. Old Schools, Town Halls, Libraries, Leisure Centres and Office buildings have all been re-purposed as community hubs.

The diversification of services

Some hubs begin life as a specialist building delivering a service, and diversify the range of activity they provide to become a community hub.

Here are my ‘Ten Steps to Delivering a Sutainable Community Hub

1: Understand local needs and demand

Every community hub is different, influenced by its founding members and the environment it exists within. Before a detailed plan for your hub can be established you need to identify and understand the issues which matter most to local people in your community.

Also consider these options.

A community hub must be grounded in a real understanding of local needs.

Have a look at statistics about your area to understand what  the priorities and trends are locally.

Mapping existing community assests, their functions and characteristics in order to understand the local provision.

Developing a community engagement plan setting out how you will continue to involve others as your vision moves forward. A community engagement plan is an ongoing requirement for an effective community hub. The plan could include, knocking on doors, sending out informed surveys, use of social media and public meetings.

2: As part of your planning establish a clear vision and mission with your community

A clear vision and mission helps to provide a clear purpose to your hub, helping to articulate and communicate what you are seeking to achieve. This will help you to remain focussed, and engage with people more effectively.

Once a vision and mission have been shaped by them, a useful next step is to gather and consider ideas for activities and projects that will help you to achieve them.

3: Develop partnerships, and build relationships

The most effective hubs develop strong networks within their communities, and beyond, underpinned by shared values and buy-in to the vision. Useful activities to undertake include, stakeholder mapping, local community leaders, councillors, officers and public agencies about what you want to do

Where possible identify where you have common causes. Think ‘what are their priorities, what can we offer them, how does this help them with what they are trying to do?’

4: Develop your strategic objectives

Develop a set of clear objectives that set out what you will actually do in order to achieve your mission. Your objectives should reflect community needs, as well as local context, focussing on the areas that will make the most difference

The aim is to not develop a huge list of everything that you will do, but develop agreement of the key strategic priorities for the time being. Your specific objectives may be reviewed in time.

5: Develop a business model for your hub

Community Hubs can only be effective if they are sustainable and resilient. Whilst grant funding may be hugely important in helping hubs get going, over- reliance on grants will make your community hub vulnerable

Community hubs often have quite complex business models, relying on a range of income sources to cover their costs and make a profit

6: Secure support and resources to make it happen

Successful hubs need to secure support from a wide range of people and organisations to be successful. This may include, support from local authority officers and councillors, making informed effective proposals to funders

Securing support from the local community to volunteer.

7: Acquire any assets required

Community hubs may be acquired through asset transfer, purchased directly, or built from scratch. Sometimes a trial period provides an opportunity for community groups to test things out before taking on the full responsibility of owning or managing a building or piece of land.

8: Establish an appropriate governance structure

Before formally taking over the management of a building, employing any staff,  or securing funding, an organisation will need to be formally set up

Community hubs should regularly undertake governance reviews to make sure that they are working effectively. Useful exercises to keep in good shape include, a review of your strategic plan and business plan at regular intervals.

Capture information and monitor the impact that your hub is making on people and your community.

Review your community engagement methods to keep them fresh and fit for purpose as local needs might change over time.

A very important aspect to consider is how your hub will manage the quality of its services

PQASSO is a  example of a quality standard tailored to third sector organisations

Some hubs may be more suited to industry specific quality standards, depending on the focus of work such as the care Quality Commission standards, OFSTED or Matrix Standard

Understanding, and being able to prove the difference your hub makes to individuals, the wider community and other stakeholders will help you to maintain support, and secure funding and resources

9: Diversify your income to develop resilience

Over-reliance on one or two sources of income is a common cause of organisational failure. Seek to establish a range of income sources so that you are less vulnerable or dependent.

• Contracts and service delivery
• Trading income
• Asset based income.
• Don’t be ashamed of making money.

Whilst grants are not a sustainable source of ongoing income, they can be very helpful for start up projects, or piloting projects.

Talk to local agencies about opportunities to deliver services that are in line with your objectives as an organisation.

The bar is generally set higher for organisations wishing to secure and deliver public service contracts compared with grants, so it helps to invest some time in becoming contract ready if you are seeking to establish this as an income stream.

As community hubs often operate at a local level, they sometimes need to collaborate with others in order to compete to deliver service contracts .

Community hubs can often develop locally rooted social enterprises that support their aims, and help cover costs.

Trading income may come from selling services such as childcare, or gym membership, or, through the sale of products whether it is arts and crafts, locally made produce or a pint of ale!

In addition community run shops, pubs, markets, cafes and bakeries  are all potential avenues to explore to generate income and provide vital services.

Asset based income

Community hubs often generate income from rent, room hire and license agreements.

This can work particularly well where the tenants complement the social objectives of the organisation.

For example, public agencies sometimes rent space in hubs so that they can provide services at a neighbourhood level such as housing advice surgeries, or health screening services.

10: Adapt to changing needs and environment

Sustainable community hubs remain alive to and responsive to the changing needs and demands within the community. It is good practice for all community organisations to undertake a regular review. This may involve looking at customer feedback, statistics and impacts to date.

It is also helpful to be keyed into local networks, e.g. Resident’s Associations or the local Council for Voluntary Services, in order to be up to date regarding new funding or learning opportunities locally.

Imagine Projects will carry out an imaginative project, at an affordable cost so you can spend your time growing your business.

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Community hubs – the importance of developing a sustainable business model

A blog by Niamh Goggin, Director of Small Change and member of Local Trust’s community hubs advisory panel

Local Trust and Power to Change have commissioned research on community hubs , to help groups starting, developing and managing them. We hope that, by sharing learning, more hubs will survive and thrive and continue supporting their local communities.

What is a community hub?

A community hub is a building or space that is;

• open and accessible to the local community;
• providing services that the local community wants and needs;
• where formal decisions about running and managing the hub are taken by people who come mainly from within the local community.

There is no “one-size-fits-all” community hub. Some are traditional community centres; others range from an allotment shed, to a local shop, a bus or a house. Some are run and staffed by volunteers while other well-established hubs employ professional management and well-qualified staff.

Scotlands and Bushbury Hill Big Local opened the Big Venture Centre, in 2017. Wolverhampton Council announced the closure of the Scotland’s Adventure Playground, which had been a community hub for many years. The Partnership set up a Community Interest Company (CIC) and successfully achieved a Community Asset Transfer of the playground to the Big Venture Ltd CIC. They spent £180,000 improving the centre’s facilities, bringing new services into the area and creating a thriving and sustainable social enterprise.

The Big Venture Centre runs a community cafe; The Shop in the Shed (clothes recycling), dance, fitness and personal training sessions; Rock School; bootcamps and a summer beach area with play sand and a paddling pool.

What have we learned so far from our research?

Community hubs range in scale from micro (turnover < £100k); small (£100k – £250k); medium (£250k – £750k) to large (more than £750k). Micro-hubs mainly rely on grants and donations, followed by building (rental) income. Small hubs are also reliant on grants and donations, followed by building income, but with social enterprise income becoming important. Medium hubs also rely on grants and donations, followed by building income, but social enterprise, fees and retail sales and service contract incomes are becoming significant. There is a step-change in income sources for large hubs, who receive over 40% of their income from service contracts, following by fees and retail sales; and social enterprise income.

The most common main activities are;

• Community hall or meeting space;
• Health or well-being activities;
• Educational activities;
• Skills and employment training;
• Community cafe.

Activities delivered by others, using the community hub space include;

• Sports or fitness activities;
• Other arts or cultural activities;
• Skills and employment training.

Balancing needs

Thinking about your business model can help your community hub to become sustainable. When starting a hub, many groups have a long list of services that their community wants and needs. Some of these activities activities can generate income to cover their costs in full. Some will cost money and generate no income. Many will fall somewhere in between, generating some income but not covering costs in full.

What we call the “value proposition” is what the hub provides that benefits the local community. The “revenue model” is what the hub provides that people or organisations are willing to pay for. This might be income from renting space or providing services, but also includes grants and donations. The trick is to balance between delivering what the community wants and bringing in enough income to sustain the hub over the long term.

Community hubs have an important role to play in supporting local communities. Developing a sustainable business model means that they are more likely to survive and thrive for generations of local people.

The research report for Local Trust and Power to Change, Community Hubs: Understanding Survival and Success , by Neal Trup, David Carrington, and Steve Wyler, is available  here . 

As a response to this research, we commissioned The Community Hub Handbook which is a practical, go-to guide for anyone running their own local community hub. 

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The community hub handbook

Guide published: 6 may 2020  minute read.

The Community Hub Handbook provides detailed support on how to run a thriving community hub and ensure that it has a financially secure future.

Packed with information, checklists, templates, case studies and practical tools, the handbook covers a wide range of business essentials such as building relationships, acquiring premises, securing sustainable income, marketing, staffing, governance and more.

This guide is essential reading for anyone involved in setting up or managing a community hub.

What will I learn?

• Understanding what community hubs are and their role in the community
• Identifying what your local community needs
• Building your team – recruiting trustees, staff and volunteers
• Engaging your community – including local businesses, the local authority and local people.
• Acquiring community hub premises
• Finding appropriate financial support for your project
• Managing your premises and organisation
• Effective organisational models and processes
• Understanding and measuring your impact

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• Sample Business Plans
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Community Center Business Plan

If you are planning to start a new community center, the first thing you will need is a business plan. Use our Northern Park – Community center business plan example created using Upmetrics business plan software to start writing your business plan in no time.

Before you start writing a business plan for your new community center, spend as much time as you can reading through some samples of the community center or nonprofit business plans.

Reading some sample business plans will give you a good idea of what you’re aiming for, and also it will show you the different sections that different entrepreneurs include and the language they use to write about themselves and their business plans.

We have created this sample community center business plan for you to get a good idea about how perfect a community center business plan should look and what details you will need to include in your stunning business plan.

Community Center Business Plan Outline

This is the standard community center business plan outline which will cover all important sections that you should include in your business plan.

• Mission Statement
• NPCC Theory & Overview
• History of NPCC
• Moving forward: The Future of NPCC
• Accomplishments
• Etienne Wenger-Trayner
• Proposed Location & Service Area
• Hours of Operation & Staffing
• Key Strategies
• Research & Development
• Asset Development
• Why now and why NPCC?
• Why we need a youth & Community center
• How local youth & the Community will Benefit from the Center
• Youth Target Market
• Target population
• Advertising & Promotions
• Weekend Events
• Outdoor & Recreation Space
• Creative & Expressive Arts
• Experiential Learning Opportunities
• A Hub for Services
• Check-in Policy
• Youth Center Rules & Agreements
• Social & Environmental Responsibility
• Lynn Skrukrud
• Halli Ellis
• Staffing Matrix
• Assumptions & Projections
• Sustainability
• Projected Profit and Loss
• Projected Cash Flow
• Projected Balance Sheet

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After  getting started with upmetrics , you can copy this community center business plan example into your business plan and modify the required information and download your community center business plan pdf and doc file . It’s the fastest and easiest way to start writing your business plan.

Download a sample community center business plan

Need help writing your business plan from scratch? Here you go;  download our free community center business plan pdf  to start.

It’s a modern business plan template specifically designed for your community center business. Use the example business plan as a guide for writing your own.

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More From Forbes

How To Start A Business Plan: A Step-By-Step Guide

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Creating a business plan is a critical first step for any entrepreneur. Knowing how to start a business plan will help you create a roadmap, guiding your business from startup to growth and beyond. Whether you're looking for investment, trying to set clear goals, or simply organizing your thoughts, a solid business plan can make all the difference.

Here is a guide to help you get started on your business plan:

1. executive summary.

What It Is: This section summarizes your business plan as a whole and outlines your company profile and goals.

What to Include:

• Business name and location
• Products or services offered
• Mission statement
• The purpose of the plan (e.g., seeking funding, guiding the startup process)

Tip: Keep it concise. Although it's the first section, it's often best to write it last, after you’ve detailed everything else.

2. Company Description

What It Is: This section provides detailed information about your company, including who you are, what you do, and what markets you serve.

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• Your business structure (e.g., sole proprietorship, LLC, corporation)
• The industry and marketplace needs your business meets
• Your business’s objectives and how you stand out from competitors

Tip: Use this section to highlight your company’s strengths and what makes you unique.

3. Market Research

What It Is: Market research demonstrates your understanding of the industry and target market.

• Market size and growth potential
• Target customer demographics
• Market trends and outlook
• Competitive analysis, including strengths and weaknesses of competitors

Tip: Include data and statistics to back up your findings and show that you’ve done your homework.

4. Organization and Management

What It Is: This section outlines your business’s organizational structure and management team.

• Organizational chart
• Information about the ownership of the company
• Backgrounds and qualifications of the management team
• Roles and responsibilities within the company

Tip: Highlight the skills and experiences of your team that will help the business succeed.

5. Products or Services Line

What It Is: Here, you detail the products or services you offer or plan to offer.

• A description of each product or service
• The lifecycle of products or services
• Research and development activities, if applicable
• Intellectual property, such as patents or trademarks

Tip: Focus on the benefits your products or services bring to your customers.

6. Marketing and Sales Strategy

What It Is: This section explains how you will attract and retain customers.

• Marketing strategies, including advertising, promotions, and public relations
• Sales strategies, including sales processes, channels, and tactics
• Pricing strategy and how it compares to competitors

Tip: Ensure your marketing and sales strategies are aligned with your market research findings.

7. Funding Request

What It Is: If you’re seeking funding , this section outlines your requirements.

• Your current funding needs
• Future funding requirements over the next five years
• How you intend to use the funds
• Potential future financial plans (e.g., selling the business, repaying debt)

Tip: Be specific and realistic about how much funding you need and how it will be used.

8. Financial Projections

What It Is: Financial projections provide a forecast of your business’s financial future.

• Income statements
• Cash flow statements
• Balance sheets
• Break-even analysis

Tip: Use realistic and conservative estimates. Consider hiring a financial professional to help with this section if needed.

9. Appendix

What It Is: The appendix includes any additional information that supports your business plan.

• Resumes of key management team members
• Permits and leases
• Legal documents
• Detailed market research data
• Product photos

Tip: Only include essential information that adds value to your business plan.

Final Tips for Creating a Business Plan

Creating a business plan requires clarity and precision. First and foremost, keep your business plan clear and concise. Avoid using jargon or complex language that could make the plan difficult to read or understand. Your aim should be to communicate your ideas effectively and efficiently.

Next, be realistic in your approach. Ensure that your goals and financial projections are attainable based on your research and understanding of the market. Overly ambitious projections can undermine your credibility and potentially lead to unrealistic expectations.

It's also essential to remember that a business plan is a dynamic document. As your business grows and market conditions change, you should revisit and revise your plan regularly. This helps you stay aligned with your goals and adapt to new challenges and opportunities.

Finally, seek feedback from experienced business professionals. Having someone with business experience review your plan can provide valuable insights and help identify any potential issues or areas for improvement. Their feedback can enhance the overall quality and effectiveness of your business plan.

By following these tips, you'll be better equipped to create a robust and effective business plan that can guide your business towards success.

The bottom line is that starting a business plan may seem challenging, but with careful planning and attention to detail, you can create a comprehensive guide to steer your business toward success. Use this step-by-step guide to ensure that all essential components are covered, giving your business the best possible start.

Melissa Houston, CPA is the author of Cash Confident: An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Creating a Profitable Business and the founder of She Means Profit . As a Business Strategist for small business owners, Melissa helps women making mid-career shifts, to launch their dream businesses, and I also guide established business owners to grow their businesses to more profitably.

The opinions expressed in this article are not intended to replace any professional or expert accounting and/or tax advice whatsoever.

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6 Types of Community Management (+ Tips from the Experts Who Manage Them)

Published: July 12, 2024

Jenny Sowyrda, manager of community strategy and operations at HubSpot, shared a great analogy with me about community management:

“As the community manager, you’re hosting a party. At first you have to welcome everyone, take their jackets, and offer them food or a drink.

But once more guests start to arrive, you can make connections amongst guests who have things in common, and you can slowly pull back … to just being in the background.”

It’s also worth noting that the party may look a little different based on the types of community management out there. So, let’s review the top six together.

Table of Contents

The SPACES Model

Types of community management, community management strategies.

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You can look at community management in many ways, but the easiest one is through the SPACES model .

No need to take my word for it because the experts agree that this is a pretty solid foundation.

“The SPACES model is a fantastic framework to help brands determine how the community can help the business with a specific focus ...” says Christina Garnett, founder and fractional CCO at Pocket CCO .

“... Especially for non-community builders. It helps provide clarity about what the business wants the community to provide,” she continues.

The SPACES model, proposed by CMX, organizes community management strategies based on their primary function and the focus of the community in question.

Sowyrda adds, “The SPACES model makes sense in the fact that you really do have to focus on one thing at a time. It does a good job of highlighting the different ways your company can use a community.”

The acronym “SPACES” represents six distinct community management categories: S upport, P roduct, A cquisition, C ontribution, E ngagement, and S uccess.

Now, onto the specifics.

Enter: the specifics. Here are the six types of community management to consider based on the SPACES model.

Pro tip: As you start building your community management strategy , Sowyrda recommends focusing on one (or two) of the elements below and mastering those before expanding your approach .

1. S upport

Support communities empower members to help each other out by answering questions or solving problems. These communities can be organized as an online forum or discussion board, where members can ask and answer questions.

I’d also recommend offering other support resources like knowledge bases and FAQs, so people can find answers quickly on their own.

• Reduced customer support costs
• Lower workload for your customer service teams
• Quicker resolution of common issues
• A greater sense of community among members

Best for : Brands with in-depth product lines, like software or electronics, where users can benefit from sharing tips, tricks, and troubleshooting advice.

Example: Apple Support Community

4. C ontent and Contribution

Content and contribution communities encourage users to share content and ideas or participate in collaborative projects.

Contributions can range from guest blog posts and media submissions to involvement in open-source software projects on your website.

Dedicated team members typically curate the user-generated content to ensure it’s appropriate, meets quality standards, and aligns with your community guidelines.

• Increased member engagement
• A strong sense of ownership among contributors
• More valuable content for the entire community

Best for: Media companies, creative industries, and open-source projects that thrive from UGC.

Example: Adobe Lightroom

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• Nation & World

Florence Gray Center to become regional community hub for Newport, Middletown. How it works

NEWPORT – Newport and Middletown are planning to use a $7.5 million federal grant to reinvigorate the Florence Gray Center and establish it further as a regional community hub.

“This is going to be a place where working families in Newport can come to get the support and resources they need to succeed, whether it is a parent coming to think about retraining for a future job in our emerging economy or a student coming here for afterschool programs, the idea is that it's a one-stop shop for families, ” Mayor Xay Khamsyvoravong said.

Initially, Newport and Middletown received a combined $2.9 million to renovate and expand the programming at Florence Gray Community Center, turning the Newport Housing Authority-owned facility into a regional Newport-Middletown community hub. That number has now jumped up to $7.5 million for the project, not including the additional funds set aside in the governor’s budget to operate the facility.

“For me, it’s all about this culture change that you’re creating where in every home, every day, learning matters,” Gov. Dan McKee said at a press conference. “If we can shift that culture into every home: every day, learning matters; and providing these types of facilities that can help make that happen – it won’t happen all overnight, but you will start developing this culture in the state, and it’s not even just the kids K-12, we want to make sure this penetrates to our younger adults and older adults…this is a game changer.”

The funds come from the Coronavirus Capital Projects Fund established by the American Rescue Plan Act and is administered by the U.S. Treasury. It was designed to address problems that occurred as a result of or were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, with preference given to pre-approved project plans outlined by the Treasury. Rhode Island received over $112 million of the $9.8 billion made available across the states and territories to tackle two of the Treasury Department’s three pre-approved projects: Broadband accessibility and multi-purpose community centers.

The Florence Gray Center project is one of the first of 19 community center projects that have been approved to use these funds throughout the state, each of which had to get approval from the Treasury Department to receive funding. The additional $4.6 million allotted to the project came from funds that were supposed to go toward a proposed Rhode Island College project that did not meet the Treasury Department's specifications, McKee said.

It’s still too early to know what the building will look like and what programming it will have when all is said and done. Boys and Girls Club of Newport Executive Director Joe Pratt said the organization has just hired an architecture firm to take on the task and the organization and its partners will conduct public outreach to help decide what is needed at the center. The funding requirements specify that the funds be used on capital projects that provide educational services, job assistance and health monitoring to the community.

The Florence Gray Center already provides programming that meets the guidelines established by the federal government. It provides space for several community organizations dedicated to after-school education, including the Boys and Girls Club of Newport, which is serving as a major partner in the city’s participation with Learn365.

At the press conference, McKee emphasized how the state hopes investing in these community centers will further its education goals, noting that it is a part of the broader Learn365 Initiative designed to provide more out-of-school education opportunities with the hope to meet the McKee Administration’s goal to catch up to Massachusetts’ educational outcomes by 2030. He said the broader, statewide community center project will help meet other goals outlined in the Rhode Island 2030 plan, including the goal to raise per capita income by at least $20,000 by establishing more career development programming.

The federal government requires the program operations to be funded through the next five years, however, later on, funding will be assessed in terms of whether the programs have met specific outcomes.

In addition to those organizations inside of the Florence Gray Center, Newport is home to several community organizations that provide these kinds of services to the broader Newport County and Aquidneck Island region, including the Aquidneck Island Adult Learning Center, which offers GED class, certifications and English classes to community members, and the Newport Area Career and Technical Center, which provides classes based on non-academic career paths like Culinary, Construction, Cosmetology, and Automotive Technology. The latter two programs are currently in a state of semi-homelessness, however, as the new Rogers High School build design was not able to fit space for the programs as a result of inflation strains to the construction budget. The school building project, as well as the department itself, is still experiencing a funding gap of a couple million dollars, despite the city providing additional funds toward the project.

When asked why the Boys and Girls Club of Newport and the Florence Gray Center were chosen as the recipients of these funds, McKee said it came down to the restrictions placed on the funds by the federal government, and that it was up to the municipality to decide how to use those funds within those guardrails. Khamsyvoravong, one of the first to sign onto McKee’s Learn 365 Compact, said the city is trying to look beyond the public school system to help improve education outcomes.

“We are ending the business of thinking about education solely as our public schools and we’re looking at it holistically as an education system,” Khamsyvoravong said. “What we’re doing here… is being intentional about building continuity across the entirety of our education system.”

Middletown’s Community Relations Director Lori Turner noted the location so close to the border of Middletown and Newport made the Florence Gray Center ideal for this opportunity.

“It’s a significant opportunity for our residents and for our community,” Turner said. “All of our community partners that we’ve mentioned here, they work across the island, they work across the region, and so they’re used to working alongside our residents just as they work alongside Newport residents.”

This is a welcome investment to the Florence Gray Center, which was operating at a $40,000 deficit as recently as 2019. Since then, the Housing Authority has been applying for Community Block Grants to fulfill capital improvement projects.

“Having the community learning center located in the heart of an affordable housing community, particularly given that the poverty rate here in Newport’s North End is one-and-a-half times that of the city of Newport and three times that of Middletown, really allows us to make a difference here in the community,” Newport Housing Authority Executive Director Rhonda Mitchell said.

Renewing Hawkesbury's Roads

• Media Releases

Public Library Infrastructure Grant for New Technology Hub

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18 July 2024

Hawkesbury Central Library in Windsor will receive $200,000 for a New Technology Hub to be created in its existing computer room.

The Mayor of Hawkesbury, Councillor Sarah McMahon congratulated Library staff on receiving the grant

“Our community will benefit in many ways from this substantial upgrade,” Mayor McMahon said.

“These improvements will make it easier for more people to access the high-quality collections, enhance connectivity and make available contemporary library functions such as podcast creation.

“Congratulations to the staff who worked on this competitive application to make our Library an even better space for our community!”

Proudly funded by the NSW Government under the Public Library Infrastructure Grant program.

Page ID: 264634

Acknowledgement of Country

Council acknowledges the Dharug and Darkinjung people as the Traditional Custodians of the Hawkesbury and pays respect to Elders past, present and emerging.

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