Asheville, NC — Self-Help Credit Union announces the third annual “Bringing it Home: Building a Local Economy for Everyone” conference on Saturday, October 7, 2017, from 8:30 to 3:30. The conference’s main venue will be the YMI Cultural Center, at 39 S. Market Street in downtown Asheville, with some of the workshops taking place next door, at the Block off Biltmore and at Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church.

Childcare and transportation (within the city limits) are available, if signed up for in advance with registration. The event is free and open to the public, with registration available on a first-come, first-served basis at www.bringingithomewnc.org.

Breakfast and lunch will be served by a “Cornucopia of Caterers,” featuring several local businesses owned by people of color. Free parking will be available at the corners of Spruce and Marjorie Streets or at the bottom of the hill, at the corner of Market and S. Charlotte streets.  

The theme of this year’s conference is “Connecting the Dots: Working Together Toward a Stronger, More Equitable Local Economy.”

The keynote speaker will be Deena Hayes-Greene, Managing Director of the Racial Equity Institute in Greensboro. Ms. Hayes-Greene brings over 15 years of experience as a community and institutional organizer to the trainings she conducts across the country. These trainings include an in-depth analysis of systemic and historically constructed racism and its impact on contemporary systems and institutions across the U.S.

Deena’s institutional work has been primarily in the areas of social services/health and human services, public and private education, higher education, judicial/disproportionate minority contact initiatives, public health and nonprofits. She was initially elected to the Guilford County Board of Education in 2002 and re-elected in 2006, 2010, 2014 and 2016. She currently chairs the Achievement Gap, School Safety, and the Historically Underutilized Business advisory committees for Guilford County Schools.

She also serves on the Ole Asheboro Street Neighborhood Association, the Guilford County Gang Commission and as board chair at the International Civil Rights Center and Museum. Deena is a former Human Relations Commissioner for the City of Greensboro and has received numerous awards and citations for outstanding leadership.

Other workshops to be featured include:

• “Money, Money, Money,” with Dr. Joseph Fox (on finding grant money and other sources of revenue for your organization or business)
• “Developing a Successful Built Environment Project,” with a panel of experts in the field (on understanding and carrying out a large project involving real estate)
• “Our Youth, Our Future,” a panel of people working in organizations working with youth and two panels of local business owners who are people of color—one of African-American entrepreneurs, the other of Latinx.

Marisol Jimenez will open the conference with an interactive activity on “Establishing Group Norms, Common Language.” Some of the other special features will be performances by Word on the Street youth, a travelling exhibit from Duke University on “Trying to Get By. [Not] Making Ends Meet in NC” and networking sessions where folks are encouraged to meet and interact with people who are engaged in both similar and different work. The exhibit “Courage, Truth, Change: Inspiring and Engaging Youth Through Art and Story,” which features portraits of several local youth leaders, will also be on exhibit at the YMI at the time of the conference.

Community organizations and businesses joining Self-Help this year as sponsors of the conference include Asheville Grown, Big Path Capital, Carolina Small Business Development Fund, the City of Asheville Office of Economic Development, Community Action Opportunities, Eagle Market Streets Development, Fox Management Consulting, Hola Carolina magazine, HomeTrust Bank, Mountain BizWorks, Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church, SheVille, the WNC Women’s Magazine, the Urban News and the YMI Cultural Center. 

For more information, contact Jane Hatley at 828.239.9231, ext. 3473 or jane.hatley@self-help.org.