Connected To Community
Alison’s experience at the local level in Miami has a direct grassroots connection to the people of District 5. Through her work as the CEO of the Belafonte TACOLCY center, she engages with over 100 organizations to effect change at the community level.
TACOLCY is not just a community center; it is the center of the community. It reaches over 2,000 children, youth and families annually, and has served over 1 million in its 43 years of work. TACOLCY’s purpose is to provide the leadership, partnerships, advocacy, programs and services necessary to move the community forward.
Austin’s work at TACOLCY has been to provide an environment where children are safe, where youth come together to engage in constructive dialogue, to retreat from pressures at home or on the streets, to find adults offering information, patience and guidance. To discover through constructive activities their passions and talents, and perhaps even be hired and mentored in their first job.
Using community connections and resources, Austin analyzes what obstacles stand in families’ way to help their children, intervening with support, reaching children at younger ages with preventive services, speaking with assurance, facts and models of success with policymakers and the media, and weaving a holistic set of values, programs and mentors to safeguard and nurture youth development in their transition to adulthood.
In 2009, TACOLCY became the first Freedom School site in South Florida and through Austin’s leadership; there are currently seven additional CDF Freedom Schools programs throughout Miami-Dade and Broward Counties. The Children’s Defense Funds (CDF) Freedom School model is designed to ensure each Scholar improves in their literacy proficiency over the course of the summer.
Elect Alison Austin Photogallery
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