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Lana B. Carter's Page

Lana B. Carter Female Riegelwood, NC 28456, United States: 1tpwo0tl3bzj8; Share

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Lana B. Carter joined Rural Innovation Network by SRDI. Leave a Comment for Lana B. Carter. Jun 14

What type of work does your organization do?: Community Service Projects for our small rural community including but not limited to youth projects, community improvements, servicing the citizens needs, tapping onto economic development projects, and partnering with organizations and agencies that can help us improve ourselves by tapping onto resources and other services that are out there.

What area of the country do you work in?: East Arcadia Community, Rural Bladen County, (lower end of County) Southeastern North Carolina, Coastal

Who do you work with?: Our Town of East Arcadia and our citizens, our youth and senior citizens and the general public of this small community.
We have also been working with our Bladen Co. Board of Education, our local East Arcadia School with an annual Career and Health Fair sponsored by our organization. We sponsor Health Field Trips to Universities for a weekend or week, (via partnering with Area Health Education Centers in NC), for at least 10 students yearly. Our organization sponsors an annual summer lunch program where we partner with Bladen Family Support and Initiative , Clarkton, NC. We established our Senior Lunch program in 2001, where approx. 30 seniors eat a nutritious meal Monday thru Friday.

What is the main obstacle your organization encounters that prevents you from doing your work most effectively?: # 1) Our location. We are 30 miles from the nearest major "city". Our "local" supermarket, gas and post office is 6 miles from our town.
#2) Transportaion is and has been a problem for us.
#3) Finding access to programs, organizations & agencies that can enable our citizens to existing opportunities of learning, experiences, services, and exposure to what is available to and for us all here.
#4 Funding. We do a lot of our projects out of pocket because we have yet to obtain our Tax Exempt (mainly due to the fee for the Tax ID # fee).
So when a project is presented to us, A Step Forward puts up fees it can pay (usually it may be the registration fee and some "pocket money" for the selected participant) when they are selected for a program they will be attending, this is usually for our youth activities.

Finding access to organizations who may provide services, but not easily accessible due to our location.
We have found out that there are many programs out there, but because we are so far removed, some organizations know they should be serving us, but until we contact them, they don't contact us, so a lot of researching and networking is done fatithfully on our part here at A Step Forward to find those programs and bring them here to our citizens.

What do you hope to gain from joining the Rural Innovation Network?: Partnership, Rural Issue Dialogue, Information

If you listed "Other" above, please list specifics below:: Maybe your organization can help us with directions to better help our organization to better serve our community and adjacent neigborhoods.
Also, directing us on some agencies that may be willing to sponsor us on the fees for the Tax ID #, so we can obtain grants which will certainly increase our provision of services and outcomes of our existing programs. Or, at least, guide us in the right direction