A community organization seeks to revitalize a small rural community through a series of beautification and improvement initiatives. Focused on the downtown area, projects include turning a neglected park into an exercise yard for an animal hospital’s patients, repairing and prepping a wall that faces the town hall for a mural painting, refreshing painted trash cans and painting playground equipment in the children’s park. Each improvement will help make the downtown area a bit more vibrant.

A town with no park is working to complete a Town Square park project that will serve as a place for children and adults alike to come together to play, relax and enjoy one another’s company. Centrally located in the town, the ADA-accessible park will be a gathering place for residents and a spot for a variety of community activities.

An organization that helps the homeless, people transitioning from prison and those coming out of addiction by offering shelter, mentoring, job training, accountability and education would like to renovate its kitchen facilities and update its appliances so it can continue to provide its services to those in need, specifically the organization’s ability to regularly and on special occasions serve hot meals.

A community wishes to transform a vacant parcel of land in an overlooked neighborhood into a vibrant community-driven plaza and park. The inviting space will be a destination hub for community members to come together and celebrate the strength of their neighborhood. Built on the ideas of positivity, inclusiveness and belonging, the park will confront and address social, economic, education, health disparities and work to preserve the history and culture of the neighborhood.

Anchor Ridge has been serving the North Wilkesboro and greater Wilkes County area since 2012, and its mission is to fight poverty by providing hungry families with food, basic hygiene items, household goods, and home repair supplies. Located in one of the original Lowe's distribution centers, Anchor Ridge serves thousands of people on a monthly basis throughout the Appalachian Mountain region. Anchor Ridge's Kid's Club program, serving hundreds of local Wilkes County kids on a monthly basis also operates from this facility.

A county council on aging that promotes independent living and wellness for those aged 60 and older seeks to repair and rehabilitate homes in need of critical home health and safety modifications for low-income senior homeowners as well as create a fun outdoor bocce ball court for the senior center clientele.

A downtown area at a tipping point in revitalization driven by a community-wide entrepreneurial spirit and town pride wishes to transform a centrally located dilapidated strip of alleyway into an experience-based community space. The outdoor space, which sits in the middle of five prominent historic buildings that have been recently restored, will give community members and visitors a place to congregate and contribute to the town’s strategic transition to an entertainment and economic hub for the community.

BlockWork is a grass-roots program developed in 2010 that strives to bring residents and community volunteers together to build cleaner and safer neighborhoods, one block at a time. Working together with property owners, residents, city staff and other support groups, participants help to stop the deterioration of a block of homes each year by painting, landscaping, and revitalizing the area. It serves the residents of the chosen block who don't have the funds or the skills to fix the problems themselves.