Community Profile
VISION
It is the desire of the Columbia/Boone County Community Partnership to have a safe, diverse community wherein all persons, families, and friends are respected and have full opportunity to be involved and to achieve productive, happy, and healthy lives. The Columbia/Boone County Community Partnership shall serve Boone County, Missouri.
PURPOSE
The Columbia/Boone County Community Partnership is a 501©3 not for profit organization whose purpose is to promote coordination and cooperation among schools, social service providers, churches, associations, businesses, parents, governmental agencies and other individuals. In so doing, the Partnership strives toward empowering the community to work together to address the issues and concerns relevant to where individuals study, live and work.
COMMUNITY PROFILE
The geographic area served by the Columbia/Boone County Community Partnership is Boone County Missouri. Boone County is located in the central area of the state. Boone County is fundamentally a rural county with an area of 685 square miles. The city of Columbia represents 62% of the population of Boone County. Other incorporated areas of Boone County are Ashland, Centralia, Hallsville, Sturgeon, Rocheport and Harrisburg. The combined population of those towns is 8065 residents. Significantly, 31.7% of the county population lives in rural un-incorporated areas. Boone County is generally experiencing a healthy economy. Boone County is faring better than the state in most, if not all, economic indicators, including poverty rate, median household income and number of children living in poverty. Although the economy in Boone County is healthy, there are some areas of Boone County that residents are not sharing in the well being of the economy. Central and south-central Columbia data indicates that those areas have a median annual income per household of less than $20,000 annually as compared to a countywide median household of $38,421. Much of the northeast and southeast parts of Columbia as well as the city of Ashland and the northern extreme of Boone County, which includes the cities of Centralia and Sturgeon, have a median household income of $20,000 to $30,000 annually. In the seven years since the founding of the Columbia/Boone County Community Partnership, there have been site councils at ten schools in the Columbia Public School District as well as various other neighborhood and community groups involved in the development of plans. The work of these groups has resulted in programs and strategies around each of the six core results. The broad community wide results that have been focused on are Children Ready to Enter School, Children Succeeding in School, and Adults Working. These results were identified either through broad-based community groups or by a variety of local site councils working on common issues. The Columbia/Boone County Community Partnership has been able to leverage $3.40 of other funding for each $1 of Caring Communities funds received. The Partnership has a total budget of $3,170,756 for fiscal year 2002. Of that budget, $930,027 is from the Caring Communities pooled funds. The Partnership has been able to attract other local, state and federal funds as well as private funds as a result of the capacity made possible from the Caring Communities funds. The Partnership would like to specifically thank the following local partners for all they have done to assist in the development of a stronger community in Boone County:
City of Columbia
Boone County
Columbia Public Schools
Columbia Area Chamber of Commerce
Columbia Area United Way
Boone Hospital Center
Advent Enterprises
University of Missouri
Columbia College
Boone Early Childhood Partners
City of Centralia
Centralia Chamber of Commerce
Boone County Extension Office
The primary success of the Partnership has been the ability to engage local partners to identify gaps in services and develop strategies to address those gaps. Some of those gap-filling strategies include access to mental health services, before and after school programs and summer programs for youth. There has also been success in assisting neighborhood groups and residents of Centralia in developing action plans to build stronger communities.
The primary challenge in Boone County is related to the way the Partnership, and most particularly Caring Communities, was initially designed and managed. The evolution of the initiative over the years has left many in the community confused regarding the role of the Partnership and with expectations that are difficult to respond to. Progress has been made. The Partnership Board of Directors has done very hard work to clarify the role of the Partnership in the community. The Partnerships involvement in various community issues currently before the community will serve as a major step in clearly identifying the governance role of the partnership in Boone County.
