Public Allies Community Conversation

By Antoinette McCrary
Public Allies, an Americorps group located in Hartford, CT, held a community conversation on December 13th at the Hartford Public Library community room. A number of Allies presented on the work of the organization. The Public Allies program takes young adults and places them with different non-profits around Connecticut and Hartford for 10 months at a time. The Allies explained that the meeting was organized to discuss their Team Service Project, and what sort of project they should do this year.

We then broke into smaller groups and talked about the city and what we like and don’t like about it. We focused on what young people need in Hartford, including how to get them off the street, how to get them into afterschool programs that they enjoy, how they go about doing their homework, and different activities that teens could participate in to meet other teens from around the city. There were roughly 40 people who attended the conversation, while there are about 800,000 people who live in the Hartford region. After the conversation was over and we finished the food that was provided, we went home.