The Face of S ervice

Special points of interest:

> Partnership Facilitates Finan-cial Literacy Class

> FSCIA Gets Tractor

> Cooking Matters Graduation

Inside this issue:

Fisher Street Tractor 2

Financial Literacy 2

Meeting Highlights 2

Cooking Matters 3

Board of Directors 4

Community Calendar 4

April 12, 2013 Volume 2, Issue 10

Jonesboro and the surrounding area serve as host to 26 AmeriCorps members, 13 of whom are affiliated with the NJNI. As part of a national recognition of mayors from cities across the country, local AmeriCorps members were recognized by Mayor Har-old Perrin during a ceremony in their honor. The Mayor read a proclamation and pre-sented the proclamation to Dr. Clint Relyea, Associate Professor of Management and Coordinator of the International Business Program at ASU and Chairman of the Ar-kansas Service Commission. Dr. Relyea assisted the Mayor in presenting certificates of appreciation to each member. After the ceremony, members and guests attended a reception in the lobby of City Hall. A small way of saying ‘thank you’ to a few indi-viduals who do so much for our community.

Thank you, AmeriCorps members, for all you do!

Area AmeriCorps members on the fronts steps of Jonesboro City Hall. back row (left to right): Dr. Clint Relyea, Mayor Perrin, Emma Agnew

control over your money, as well as budg-eting and strategies for saving money. The re-maining three sessions (which will end in late April) will cover budget-ing.

The first step in learning how to budget your money is to track spending. An effective way to track spending is by simply writing down your expenses, so that you can see where you spend your money and how you spend it.

Additional discussions of the financial literacy presentations include:

• For those with bank accounts, learning how to avoid over-draft charges and Other bank fees is a challenge, but using available tools such as online

In late March, NJNI sponsored the first of four hour-long presenta-tions to low-income pub-lic housing residents of the Jonesboro Urban Renewal and Housing Authority (JURHA) and the north Jonesboro community. Presenta-tions are held each Wednesday at the Public Housing Computer Lab at 601 Marshall Street in Jonesboro, thanks to Malia Salvador, Resident Opportunity and Self-Sufficiency (ROSS) pro-gram coordinator for JURHA. Ms. Salvador hosts each presentation and Caryl Steele, market-ing officer for Bancorp-South and Valencia Cash, NJNI AmeriCorps mem-ber are the presenters for each of the four pro-grams.

The first presentation focused on ways to get

Page 2 North Jonesboro Neighborhood Initiative

Caption describing picture or graphic.

F inancial L iteracy C lasses in N orth Jonesboro B y C a r yl S te e l e , B a nc o rpS ou th

Through a generous dona-tion and a grant from the Jonesboro Rotary Club, the Fisher Street Community in Action now owns a tractor. The tractor is receiving mi-nor repairs and will be used on Sunday, April 28, when Home Depot partners with FSCIA to begin working the Spring garden and planting the donation of seeds and plants they will bring with them. This will be the sec-ond year of the Home De-pot/FSCIA gardening part-nership. The fun starts at 11:00 a.m. and volunteers are invited and welcome to participate.

FSCIA Gets Tractor

Rev. Dr. Charles Coleman and the FSCIA tractor.

• banking and balance notification alerts can help keep you on track to avoid over-spending. Bal-ancing your check-book each month is another essential skill to track and monitor spending.

• Budgeting is simply a tool to help you see where your money is spent. Developing and sticking to a budget will help you see where you might be able to save some money. For example: making your lunch every day instead of buying it can save you almost $25 in one week. Times four equals $100 saved per month.

Meeting Highlights

MFBNJ—Thursday, April 18th at the E. Boone Wat-son Center: ASU Depart-ment of Psychology and Counseling has completed a survey to be used to con-duct a needs assessment for the mentoring program . Volunteers will be trained how to administer the sur-vey.

NJNI Board—Thursday, April 18th at the E. Boone Watson Center: Heater Clements, Grants Administrator for the City, gave an update on plans to revitalize North Jonesboro .

Emma Agnew, NJNI Coordinator, discussed current classes and the Cooking Matters graduation. Board members were reminded of the Community Meeting on April 25th and encouraged to attend.

Checking your credit report is important to make sure our credit history is accurate. Sample pages from a credit report will be reviewed so partici-pants become familiar with how to obtain a free copy of their credit report, various terms used in a credit report, what to do when an error is found, and other practical tips on reviewing your credit history on a regular

basis. You can obtain a free copy of your credit r e p o r t a t : www.annualcredit re-port.com. Bank fees and account information: Having and keeping a checking ac-count is an important step in financial literacy. Learning how to get the right account for you and avoiding fees will also be covered.

Page 3 Volume 2, Issue 10

C ooking M atters Graduates

Financial L iteracy (cont ’d from P age 2 )

“We are currently

accepting

registrations for

upcoming classes.”

Left to Right: Emma Agnew, Coordinator, Beulah Scales, Nancy Metz, Nina Coleman, Carrie Scales, Tawauna Hooper, Bridgett Clark-Mays and Debbie DeRossitte, Class Instructor

Cooking Matters participants attended four nutrition and hands-on cooking classes, toured a local grocery store to learn how to make healthy, cost-effective choices and received several incentives throughout the duration of the class and graduation. Seven graduates were recognized (one graduate, Carolyn Wooden, is not pictured.) The pro-gram will be featured in the Jonesboro sun on April 24, 2013.

The class is a successful partnership between the Craighead County Extension Office and NJNI. Cooking Matters is funded through the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance and

To inquire about future classes, please contact Emma Agnew, NJNI Coor-dinator, at 870-336-7210.

North Jonesboro Neighborhood Initiative

“You can obtain a free copy of your credit report at www.annual

credit report.com”

April 22—Health & Wellness Classes (5:30 p.m.) April 24—Financial Literacy Class Graduation (1:30 p.m.) April 25—Communitty Meeting (4:00 p.m.) April 28—FSCIA/Home Depot Gardening (11:00 a.m.) May 7—Cooking Matters Class(5:30 p.m.) May 9—Cooking Matters Class (10:00 a.m.) May 16—MFBNJ (10:00 a.m.) May 16—NJNI Board Meeting (5:00 p.m.) June 8—West End Annual Rummage Sale (MicroSociety) September 14—NJNI 5K October 1—NJNI National Night Out & Community Fair

C ommunity C alendar

Caption describing picture or graphic.

City of Jonesboro North Jonesboro Neighborhood Initiative P.O. Box 1845 519 W. Washington Ave. Jonesboro, AR 72401-1845

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BOARD OF DIRECTORS

WILLIAM CASH-Entrepreneur, Vice Chairman

CHARLES COLEMAN-Retired, ASU

JEANETTE DOTSON-East AR Area Agency on Aging

DAISY FREEMAN-Retired, St. Bernards, Secretary

JANICE GRIFFIN –Craighead County DHS

AMY HUTSON-Frito Lay

BLAKE JOHNSON-Liberty Bank

JANE MCDANIEL–Retired, St. Bernards

M.G. MEYERING-Habitat for Humanity

JOHN MIXON–STUCK & ASSOCIATES

BEN OWENS, Retired-St. Bernards, Chairman

Melody Robinson, Jonesboro Human Development Center

Emma Agnew, Editor and NJNI Coordinator

870-336-7210

eagnew@jonesboro.org