Connecting Communities Across the Commonwealth to Create Change

How many community leaders will it take to bend political will to address the crises in our older cities and towns? Hundreds? Thousands?

However many it will take, Building One PA will bring them together to speak with one voice.

It all started last summer when 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania and Good Schools Pennsylvania took the lead with York Counts, the Southeastern PA First Suburbs Project, and the PA Council of Churches to produce an event in Lancaster on July 16, 2010. Six hundred leaders from all walks of life (elected officials, community leaders, faith leaders, and school board members) came together, heard about the policy underpinnings of the plight that faces our older cities, towns and suburbs, and pledged to work together to bring it into focus for state and federal representatives.

Terry Madonna, a well know pollster from Franklin and Marshall College, introduced the ”Call to Action” by telling the audience that government is broken in Pennsylvania because of hyper partisan ideological divides on top of the fragmented local governments and regions of the state. He assured those present that “if this group can’t fix it, no one can.”

And now Building One PA is partnering with leaders to create regional bases in five areas of the state: the Northeast, the Lehigh Valley, the Southeast, South Central PA and Southwest PA.

The 2011 calendar includes regional trainings for a listening campaign, a July issue summit to develop a practical agenda to fight for, and a very large public meeting in October to present public officials with prioritized concerns and proposed solutions.

For more information or to get involved, please contact mwood@10000friends.org.