When you attend a NeighborWorks training, there's a good chance you may see Robin Gordon. She's been learning with NeighborWorks for over 15 years. She's incorporated what she's learned into her work so much, that when she shares ideas in staff meetings, her colleagues expect her to end with "I learned that at NeighborWorks training." In fact, it's become somewhat of an office slogan. 

For a learning cohort process supported by NeighborWorks America, community development organizations worked hand in hand with arts organizations as they re-imagined the future of their neighborhoods. What they found was often unexpected and revealed ways that the milestones found on the journey are just as important as the final destination. 

A Puerto Rico leadership initiative, sponsored by NeighborWorks America and its partners, is helping leaders tap into larger networks of support to help them in their work managing nonprofits and supporting residents on the island.

The residents who live in Lee House, a senior apartment building owned and operated by the Housing Assistance Program of Essex County (HAPEC), take care of each other. The building, an historic Port Henry hotel in Elizabethtown, New York, converted to affordable housing, has 25 residents who make sure their neighbors make it to doctor’s appointments or to the grocery store to pick up food or an extra container of wipes.

Angela Bannerman Ankoma wanted her mother to have peppers, yams, and other foods she missed from her native Ghana. A 30-year resident of the densely populated, culturally diverse West End in Providence, Rhode Island, the community where she grew up, Ankoma says she knew immigrants in her community who would travel as far as New Jersey to find or sell produce and specialty items that were native to their diet. And she felt for the people in her neighborhood who just needed access healthy food that was culturally responsive.  

Susan M. Ifill has been NeighborWorks America's executive vice president and chief operating officer for just over a year now – and what a year it's been! She brought with her more than 35 years of nonprofit and private sector experience, most recently serving as CEO of Neighborhood Housing Services of New York City Inc., a NeighborWorks organization.

The application looked official. There was letterhead. And there were catch phrases like "specialized counselors" and "hardship." But a client who was assisted by Housing Partnership for Morris County stopped just short of working with the company, which would have charged him $1,300 just to begin a loan modification process. The client sought a modification due to financial stress caused by COVID-19. 

Rasheada Caldwell founded Let Me Be Great #44 in 2018 to honor the memory of her beloved son, Rasheed Baker. The young man was known for being patient and kind; for his ability to make people around him smile; and for his positivity.

In November, just before Thanksgiving, ONE Neighborhood Builders paraded through the streets of their community with an announcement, posted on signs and shouted from the back of a truck. "Free WiFi," they said. And then in Spanish, "Gratis WiFi."

The announcement was for the community's new WiFi network, providing about 3,000 households in the Olneyville neighborhood of Providence, Rhode Island, with free high-speed internet.