Lancaster Equity CDC

We are so thankful for the City of Lancaster’s partnership and commitment to creating a more equitable Lancaster!

Join Lancaster Equity CDC to raise funds for the Beaver Street Park project being finalized this year! . . . If you'd like to learn more about the Beaver Street Park project, feel free to contact our current VISTA, Julie Heisey, at [email protected].

Happy Friday Lancaster!! Join our incredible community on this ExtraGive day to support organizations working to build a better Lancaster. Visit https://www.extragive.org/organizations/caplanc to give today!!

We are pleased to welcome Julie, Lancaster Equity’s fourth AmeriCorps VISTA! Thanks to all the VISTAs for their service to our community. We appreciate you!

Are you registered to vote? Watch this short video to learn how you can make sure you're registered to vote. Registration deadline for PA is October 19th.

Join us next week for the virtual Neighbor to Neighbor Forum! Sign up via the form in the comments.

It's time to register for the 2020 Neighbor to Neighbor Forum! Join us for a week of virtual community building, full of learning, discussing, and celebrating! This year we are offering a variety of breakout sessions and panels, and a new way the whole family can get involved! https://docs.google.com//1FAIpQLSdawdqDqbM0ot30WQ/viewform

Join us for a week of virtual community building!

Lancaster Equity is a coalition of organizations committed to contributing to a Lancaster where housing is affordable, where economic development includes everyone, and where neighbors, regardless of their skin color, are safe, respected, and treated with dignity. As Martin Luther King wrote from his Birmingham jail cell in 1963, Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Wh...atever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Our hearts grieve for the senseless loss of life of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and far too many others to name here, victims of systemic racism that infects our nation. But our spirits remain resolute that we must stand up for our values, we must denounce hate, and we must create true opportunity for our black and brown and all neighbors to thrive. As a coalition, we have focused on expanding affordable housing and quality of life in Lancaster. It’s not lost on any of us that the challenges of our neighborhoods are the consequences of decades of systemic racism at play. Redlining that made it hard for people of color to become homeowners. Economic development campaigns that disconnected neighborhoods and gutted small businesses. Greater likelihood of incarceration. Fewer opportunities for jobs that offer upward mobility. Landlords who wield the threat of eviction to keep tenants frustrated by substandard housing from speaking up. But we also know that these communities are resilient. That people of color are leading efforts for change within our neighborhoods and with their neighbors. That black and brown entrepreneurs are starting businesses and creating new jobs. That families are becoming homeowners on streets where they once rented. Beyond this progress, however, we recognize that achieving true, sustained racial equity will require a confrontation with white privilege inherent in our society’s institutions and policies. And each of us, including the membership of this coalition, tackling our own privilege and implicit biases. We must practice anti-racism every day. Rooted in a belief that housing and economic opportunity are basic human rights, and clear-eyed that racism is an insidious threat to the well being of our entire community, we reiterate our commitment as a collective to invest our resources and deploy our services in a way that lives up to our name with EQUITY. For more information, visit out website: www.combatpovertylancaster.org/lancaster-equity

The deadline to return your mail-in or absentee ballot is approaching! Voted ballots must be returned to your county election office by 8pm on June 2, 2020. For more information about mail-in ballots and absentee ballots, or to check your mail-in ballot status visit https://www.votespa.com/.

Mike McKenna (Lancaster Equity Board President) and Shelby Nauman (also a Lancaster board member) have a special announcement regarding their respective organizations: Tabor Community Services, Inc., and Lancaster Housing Opportunity Partnership.