You may have noticed that we are promoting our Community Needs Assessment and encouraging you to take it, and you probably have questions. Why are we doing this? What will we use this information for? Why should I participate? Keep reading and you'll find out.
Why is Community Action Duluth doing a Community Needs Assessment?
A Community Needs Assessment (CNA)
helps us to identify emerging or longstanding needs in the community. Our mission is to empower and engage our community to eliminate poverty. In order to know what our community needs to move out of poverty, we have to collect input from folks who are experiencing poverty.
What will we use this information for?
We will use this information to try to address
our community's needs through
the programs that we offer. A recent example is the work that we have done to address food insecurity in Duluth. We began with the Deep Winter Greenhouse, then the Lincoln Park and Central Hillside Farmer's Markets, and most recently added the Mobile Market. We learned that food insecurity was an issue in Lincoln Park and Central Hillside, and the programs that we started there were really helpful to the communities they are located in. However, we learned that we weren't doing enough for other food insecure areas in Duluth. This became clear in our 2018 Community Needs Assessment, and then was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Mobile Market launched last year and has been very popular and utilized by many in our community
Why should I participate?
You should participate so that your voice is heard. If you are struggling with a particular problem and you think that we could help you with it, then you should participate. You should especially participate if poverty is a problem for you and your family. Our focus is to alleviate poverty, and we can't do that without your input. Please take the survey here.
Do you still have questions or prefer a paper survey? Please contact Maria and she will be happy to help.