My Life. My neighborhood. Our world.

This sentence captures the overall positive and supportive reply by Mayor Halloran to the Rebuild And Grow August 20th proposal to the Cedar Rapids City Council: "We share your confidence that the citizens of Cedar Rapids are capable of anything we undertake together, and we look forward to working together to help our neighbors." The full letter further explains some of the programs and resources available to our grassroots initiatives.

KGAN talks to Mike RichardsAs a companion "human interest" story to the excellent feature story on the Rebuild And Grow petition to City Council and civic leaders, KGAN News talked with Mike Richards to learn "more about the man behind the petition." (Actually, it's the man and woman behind the petition, but Lynette wasn't available when the story was taped.) This interview gave Rebuild And Grow co-founder Mike Richards an opportunity to drive home the message that each of us, whether flooded or not, need to reach inside ourselves and decide if we want to be pitiful or powerful.

Momentum is building city-wide to get behind the Rebuild And Grow program to mobilize ourselves, our friends, and neighbors as we swing back into emergency mode to prepare our flood-ravaged neighborhoods for the coming Winter. Just we we pulled together to sandbag before the flood, we need an aggressive, volunteer-powered effort to gut and seal properties before Winter adds further damage to what the flood has done. A Top Story feature on CBS affiliate KGAN is helping to spread the word about our recent petition to City Council and area civic leaders. In addition to the excellent on-air story, the KGAN web site has a detailed story on-line that includes details of our request and response from City leaders. In addition, the full petition copy is included. Click on the image at left or follow this link to the KGAN web site where you can watch the video and read the companion story.

The Green Shirts are coming to – or are already in – your neighborhood! We strongly encourage you to participate in the neighborhood assessments being conducted by the Linn Area Long Term Recovery Coalition (LALTRC).

Best Practice Recommendation – The Broadmoor Improvement Association Redevelopment Plan is an extensive (335 pages!) document that is a prime example of what a motivated community can do to not just rebuild its neighborhood but to make their neighborhood better than before Hurricane Katrina changed their lives forever.

One of the things that we heard from all six of the disaster recovery groups that we met with in New Orleans was the importance of gutting and sealing up neighborhood buildings, regardless of their anticipated future.

One of the most important goals of Rebuild And Grow is to "help the self-helpers" as we work together to rebuild our lives and neighborhoods in flood-devasted Cedar Rapids. The Neighborhood Self-Help Resource Network will be a strategic program to address this mission.