Chattanooga Organized for Action has been awarded a $40,000 community grant from the Benwood Foundation to further the group's efforts at community organizing in Chattanooga's poor and low-income communities.
Awarded to organizations that share a groundbreaking vision for change in Hamilton County, the Benwood Community Grant will be used by COA organizers to extend its Westside community organizing work to many more low-income and public and subsidized housing communities all throughout the city, officials said.
The Benwood Foundation Grant was awarded to fund, among other things, the Chattanooga Organized for Action Justice School, a series of workshops and organizing efforts aimed at educating members of low-income and marginalized communities the theory and skills of community organizing for change.
Gayle Tyree, newly-elected board member for COA, said, "We want to carry on the proud tradition of social justice that Southeast Tennessee has been giving the world. The Highlander Folk School invested in everyday people who became the leaders that changed the world. At COA, we're going to do the same thing in this century, in this city. We're going to give everyday people the chance to make the world-as-it-is into the world-as-it-should-be.”