The Hampton Neighborhood Initiative

The design of the Hampton Neighborhood Initiative was approved by City Council in 1994. Its mission is to bring all of the resources of the community together in a partnership relationship to make all of Hampton's neighborhoods places we can proudly call home. People, skills, knowledge, and physical places of importance are all key resources that neighborhoods need to succeed.

The Vision:

A city where individuals and families, by creating healthy neighborhoods, have the opportunity to succeed in realizing their full potential for a better quality of life.

Guiding Principles:

• Hampton neighborhoods are valuable community assets.
• City government should be flexible enough to serve the unique needs of individual neighborhoods.
• Partnerships are critical. Everyone has a stake in neighborhoods and everyone has a contribution to make.
• Neighborhoods should be places where families are strengthened and youth are supported.
• Neighborhoods should be safe, offer economic opportunity, support social interaction and civic involvement, and provide recreation and education opportunities to all residents.
• Neighborhoods should be places where people want to live.

Support Partners:

• Neighborhood Commission: a 21-member body that is appointed by City Council with representation from neighborhoods, institutions (such as business, non-profits and the faith community), schools, city government and youth. The Neighborhood Commission meets monthly and provides leadership, policy guidance and support to the Neighborhood Initiative. See the Calendar of events for meeting times.
• Neighborhood Office: a City department established in 1993 to lead and staff the City's strategic focus on neighborhoods. Staff are consultants and coaches to neighborhood leaders and organizations as they move through the process of outreach, organizing, planning and project implementation.
• Neighborhood Task Force: a group of city department heads that is charged with directing city government's relationship with, and resource allocation to, neighborhoods.
• Neighborhood Organizations: the neighborhood based and neighborhood-serving organizations and the neighbors who work to make neighborhoods the best they can be. They are the bases of support for Hampton Neighborhood Initiative.

Neighborhood College
The Neighborhood College and related educational and skill building opportunities provide training for neighborhood and community leaders on city government, partnerships and community involvement. The Neighborhood College is one of the first and most enduring successes of the Neighborhood Initiative.

In the past year, Neighborhood College has graduated 251 people from its core program and begun offerings in skills training needed for neighborhood improvement activities. These new skills training sessions filled quickly to capacity and offered 288 city staff and community leaders the opportunity to increase their leadership and organizational skills. Since its inception in 1995, the Neighborhood College has graduated 192 people.

IN-SYNC
In-SYNC, which stands for "Innovations for Schools, Youth, Neighborhoods and Communities", is a relatively new effort that was developed as a result of the goals that are outlined in Hampton' Strategic Plan. In-SYNC is working to build Neighborhood Development Partnerships for youth where the neighborhood is guiding decisions about programs for youth that meet high quality standards and can be sustained into the future. This past year, over 200 young people have participated in free after school programs held at our neighborhood centers and over 160 individuals volunteered in schools and centers. In-SYNC has its own annual report that has been attached to this report for reference.