The Alliance for Stronger Communities' purpose is to help stimulate civic involvement in the Farmingdale school district community. It is acting as a civic forum to allow citizens to discuss issues of local concern in a format of open, candid and informed dialogues and grassroots decision making that empower Farmingdale residents to find ideas and craft solutions for their local problems. It seeks to stimulate civic entrepreneurship as a means to achieving shared community goals. The Discover Farmingdale community initiative is an educational development and grassroots community building program. This grant will allow us to: staff a local program development office, acquire an accurate profile of our community, offer adult education programs and other educational projects to advance citizen awareness, conduct an outreach campaign for civic awareness and organize new civic institutions such as a community land trust and a community support center. The funds will be used to establish our program management office and to engage the services of the academic associates and community service practitioners in the team building networks of our program development consultants, New Directions Community-Based Research Institute (New Directions).

1. History and mission. The Alliance for Stronger Communities (ASC) has adopted a mission of promoting civic empowerment on a community-wide level in the school district community of Farmingdale. ASC was formed in 2003 to promote intergenerational opportunities that support social services for youth, teens, families and senior members of our community. In 2005, a series of workshops for Farmingdale citizens was hosted by ASC; the workshop introduced the community land trust, a grassroots membership corporation that holds land for the benefit of the community and its citizens. Subsequent workshops explored intergenerational concepts and programs offered elsewhere in the country. We began a process of self study as a prelude to a comprehensive review of our community.

2. The need. The Farmingdale Union-Free School District (UFSD) occupies an area of approximately 10 sq. miles on both sides of the Nassau-Suffolk County line, in the towns of Oyster Bay, Nassau County, on the west, and Babylon, Suffolk County, on the eastern side. It includes the Incorporated Village of Farmingdale in Oyster Bay Town, with 8401 inhabitants, according to the 2000 census. In that year, the total population of the school district was 41,080 and the number of households was 13,832. Although large parts of the school district are taken up by Republic Airport, cemeteries, and the southern edge of Bethpage State Park, the overall population density of over 4000 per square mile is high.

The Farmingdale UFSD population is slightly older than that of the Long Island region. The age group 5-19 made up 19.2 percent of the population, compared with 20.9 percent in the Nassau-Suffolk Primary Metropolitan Area. Persons aged 65 and over were 15.4 percent of the district population and 13.4 percent of the Area population. Homeowners make up 82.2 percent of the households in the district, which is slightly higher than the figure of 80.0 percent for the region. Although it cannot be regarded as a low-income or black or Hispanic community, greater Farmingdale has within it substantial numbers of each of these groups. Forty percent of the households had less than 80% of the Area median income ($54,681 in 1999); nearly 8% were Hispanic and 4% black in the 2000 census. It is intended that all groups will benefit as the community works together to meet individual and collective needs.

Through their Village of Farmingdale institutions, a fortunate few have the means to exert some control over the direction that their neighborhoods take. But the 4 out of 5 who live outside of the village are in a civic desert. There is a need for new civic institutions to empower people to take charge of their own community and neighborhoods. Instead of standing by to see what others from outside are going to do, they should be able to form their own vision of the future and take action to realize it.

3. Current programs and accomplishments. Discover Farmingdale's purpose prominently includes the creation of new civic institutions such as a community land trust and a community & family support center. The Farmingdale Community Land Trust (FCLT) will be incorporated in May, 2006 and the team of academic associates and community service practitioners needed to execute Discover Farmingdale is currently being assembled. The program will build on the Discover Your Community program developed and demonstrated by New Directions in the South Country Central School District (SCCSD) in southwestern Brookhaven Township, Suffolk County, in 2004 and 2005. Accomplishments in that community included (1) a South Country Hamlet Study (self study jointly sponsored by SCCSD and Brookhaven Township), which was presented to the Brookhaven Town Board in August, 2004; (2) a pilot South Country Community Circles program, completed in the Spring of 2004; and (3) a South Country Community Land Trust, organized in the winter of 2005.

There are seven volunteers working on ASC's Steering Committee to form and introduce Discover Farmingdale, three volunteers are staffing the Governance Committee for the anticipated FCLT, another four volunteers are serving on the FCLT Project Selection and Development Committee, and finally five additional volunteers are working on a Communications and Membership Development Committee. The Steering Committee continues to outreach to other parts of Farmingdale's existing civic structure, explaining its plans and inviting others to help shape this grassroots strategy, so we expect our volunteer ranks to grow.

5. Relationships with other organizations. ASC has established a formal relationship with New Directions to introduce and install the Discover Your Community educational development and grassroots community building program in the Farmingdale school district community, starting with the organization of the FCLT.

ASC is an organization of community civic-minded people who are active across a broad front. Therefore, they enjoy strong informal relations with elected, appointed and administrative leaders in the Village of Farmingdale, the Town of Oyster Bay (primarily), the County of Nassau (primarily), plus the elected members of the Farmingdale Union-Free School District and its administrative leaders. They also enjoy a connection with their elected state legislators. ASC leadership and its members also maintain informal relationships with the three local civic associations within the school district community, with the Chamber of Commerce and area corporations interested in the workforce housing issue. Their connections also include acquaintance with local banks, the Long Island Association leadership, developers and environmental groups. The ASC membership of its Steering Committee is drawn from these institutions. Its Executive Director has spent several years volunteering in a school district program for youth as well as 5+ years serving on the Village Planning Board. Local churches, the Fire Department and building trade residents of the Farmingdale school district community are also among the supporting members of this community forum effort.

ASC has engaged New Directions as its development consultant. New Directions has assisted ASC in the process of customizing Discover Your Community to meet the needs to be illuminated in Discover Farmingdale. ASC and New Directions have been reaching out to build the team of Academic Associates and Community Service Practitioners needed to implement this grassroots community initiative.

This process formalizes existing and new relationships. We are seeking help from (1) Farmingdale UFSD administration and Board of Education at first and then from teachers and students in service-learning projects; (2) New York Institute of Technology School of Architecture; (3) faculty and students at SUNY Farmingdale and at (4) Stony Brook University, who will be invited to contribute research to the adult education community self study course. (5) New Directions affiliate, Community Insight, will help form a factual and analytical profile of the community with the aid of which citizens will be able to develop shared preferences and arrive at decisions. (6) New Directions' affiliate, Neighborhood Realty Services, can provide guidance in the area of real estate management. (7) Burlington Associates in Community Development, which nationally offers Training and Technical Assistance for the formation and development of Community Land Trusts across the country will be available for assistance as needed. (8) New Directions' affiliate, Circles Associates, will guide the formation and conduct of the Farmingdale community-wide discussion circles, backed by the expertise of (9) the Study Circles Resource Center, a national trainer and technical assistance provider. (10) ASC is contact with Intergenerational Strategies, Inc., a Long Island Health and Human Services consultant with experience in the area of forming and managing community & family support centers.