-Visioning Program For 2020-
Chapter 2
A Community Coming Together

The youth partnership first emerged from a city led public outreach campaign including a series of town hall meetings held in neighborhoods throughout the city. These town hall meetings enabled residents to talk directly with City Council and other community leaders about how the city might need to change to better serve its youth. These forums stimulated tremendous interest not only on the part of those who attended the meetings but also among an even wider audience that had viewed the sessions on Channel 56, the local cable access channel.

This experience proved so successful it became the inspiration for making the local public access channel more interactive. Now residents utilize the latest technology to create an electronic version of the town hall meeting that has facilitated an ongoing community dialogue, enhanced collaborative decision-making, and strengthened the citywide partnership to serve all the youth of the community.

To make certain that the actions of the various players in this partnership complemented and reinforced each other, they developed a strategic plan designed to maximize community resources by focusing them on the areas of greatest need and potential impact. The citywide strategic planning process occurred soon after the completion of the first series of town hall meetings. The strategic plan clarified priorities and objectives, identified action projects, established timelines, and most importantly determined responsibilities for implementing these projects. As these responsibilities were intended to be shared by the entire community, they were not limited to city departments but also encompassed the school districts, other community organizations, as well as citizen volunteers.

Volunteers played a large role implementing many of the projects identified in the strategic plan. This was not surprising given West Covina's tradition of volunteerism. This time, however, the strategic plan highlighted the importance of creating a center to coordinate volunteer activities by matching community needs and projects with the skills and interests of those who had registered as volunteers. A community mapping effort, also identified in the strategic plan, had contributed to the development of a volunteer database that listed many of the assets and resources existing in the community that could be drawn upon to help implement the strategic plan.

The volunteer center attracted not only many retired residents but also members of the workforce who were willing to devote a few hours each week to contribute to their community. Many local employers, especially those participating in the citywide youth partnership, sponsored employees who were willing to serve as citizen volunteers. The volunteer center also succeeded in recruiting many young people to serve as volunteers, enabling them to help others while also gaining a strong positive connection to the larger community.

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