Growth Fund
Selma
Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation
In response to needs identified through the Dallas County Area Study, TRHT Selma is working to launch an innovation center to serve as a hub for transformation in Selma, Alabama. The 2020-2021 Study was led by Dr. Sekou Franklin of Middle Tennessee State University and designed to measure resource availability and attitudes related to financial mobility across Dallas County. The innovation center will offer residents and tourists alike the chance to envision, support, and experience an economically trans- forming Selma. Located directly adjacent to the Ancient Africa, Slavery, and Civil War Museum in downtown Selma, the innovation center will house two merchandise showrooms, a community classroom space, and co-working facilities.
The innovation center will exemplify our theory of change by tackling the work of changing hearts and minds for the better as we increase access to resources related to improving material conditions across our community. Transformation Coaches will specialize in walking step-by-step with members of the innovation center to define and create a success plan as well as help address challenges to success as they occur.
TRHT Selma in partnership with the City of Selma as well as the Selma and Dallas County Chamber of Commerce and Tourism Information will work to host ten weeks of free concerts at the Riverfront Amphitheater and Park thanks to funding from the Levitt Foundation.
The Levitt AMP Selma Concert Series events are free to the public and scheduled for May 27th through July 29th, with shows being held at Selma’s Riverfront Amphitheater and Park each Saturday throughout the summer. Musical genres represented will include rhythm and blues, country, bluegrass, jazz, and zydeco.
Last year TRHT Selma, through the Black Belt Community Foundation (BBCF), applied to receive funding to help incorporate the performance arts into the work of equity, inclusion, and economic development. BBCF applied to the Levitt Foundation and won designation as an AMP city in 2022
TRHT is a comprehensive, national and community-based process to plan for and bring about transformational and sustainable change, and to address the historic and contemporary effects of racism. A primary focus of TRHT is jettisoning the deeply held, and often unconscious, beliefs that undergird racism: that a person’s or group’s inferiority or superiority is based on physical characteristics, race, ethnicity or place of origin. This belief has fueled racism and conscious and unconscious bias throughout American culture.
TRHT Selma was initiated in Selma in May 2017 with the Black Belt Community Foundation (BBCF) established as a TRHT grantee by funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. BBCF has joined forces with the Selma Center for Nonviolence as their programmatic place partner to implement the THRT process for Selma and Dallas County.
The Black Belt Community Foundation (BBCF) Annual “Throw & Go Contest” has kicked off for 2023 to support BBCF’s Community Grants Program. This year’s prize is a pair of tickets to the 2023 IRON BOWL (Alabama vs. Auburn Football Game) to be played at Jordan-Hare......
BBCF Head Start students are among the 3.3 million children that receive nutritious meals and snacks through the U.S. Department of Agriculture‘s Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFB). The goal of BBCF Head Start’s participation in the CACFP is to see that all students......
BBCF President, Felecia Lucky, sat down with Inside Philanthropy reporter, Mike Scutari, to discuss the Foundation’s history, along with its strengths in trust-based philanthropy and participatory grantmaking. Read the full article on the Inside Philanthropy website – or – view a PDF version of the......
Dallas County Area Study (DCAS). was conducted between December 2019 and May 2021. It entails a 500-person survey with 300 respondents residing in Selma-Dallas County and the remaining 200 people drawn from more than a dozen smaller, rural counties. The project is part of the Truth, Racial Healing, & Transformation Selma (TRHT Selma) initiative sponsored by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation and implemented by the Black Belt Community Foundation (BBCF) and the Selma Center for Nonviolence, Truth & Reconciliation (SCNTR).