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Neighborhood Outreach Connection, formerly known as the Latin American Council of South Carolina, is a nonprofit group that focuses on low-income families.
The new occupants asked a lot of questions and extended invitations that most of the residents were unaccustomed to receiving in the low-income neighborhood.
“They wanted to know who we represented and what we were doing there. Were we the police? Were we immigration? They were suspicious right away,” said Dr. Narendra Sharma, chairman of Neighborhood Outreach Connection, a community development organization that recently transformed apartment #29 at the complex into a multipurpose program space for the residents.
Though Neighborhood Outreach Connection was formerly known as the Latin American Council of South Carolina, Sharma said the nonprofit organization now has a new business model that focuses on low-income families, low-wage workers and needy women from all ethnic groups. The nonprofit’s approach is to bring support directly into distressed neighborhoods and to empower individuals, families and communities who are economically insecure in Beaufort County by making them part of the process.
“Unless you go into the neighborhoods and listen, you will not really appreciate or understand what their priorities are, what their needs are,” said Sharma, who, with a team of volunteers, conducted door-to-door surveys in neighborhoods like The Oaks, Hilton Head Gardens and Sandalwood Apartments to determine what kind of services to offer residents.
“You have to develop that trust and respect to be more effective in these communities. We’re not like other organizations where folks have to come and knock on your door to get help.”
Despite having modest office space on Palmetto Parkway to handle the administrative tasks associated with operating a nonprofit, Sharma said the real work of Neighborhood Outreach Connection is taking place at the sites the organization is wanting to transform, places where unemployment and crime is high and access to affordable health care, vocational training and education is low. The economist, who worked for The World Bank for 32 years, said decades of experience and exposure to poverty across the globe has taught him that development doesn’t have to be about costly measures so much as it does connection.
“When I visited countries, I saw extremes. Extreme wealth and people who had been completely left behind,” he said. “We can put millions and billions of dollars into it, but that’s not the answer.”
Instead of replacing faith-based operations and private and public agencies involved in local development, Neighborhood Outreach Connection is forming partnerships with organizations like the Volunteers in Medicine Clinic, Beaufort County Library and Technical College of the Lowcountry to bring volunteers and services already being offered in Bluffton and Hilton Head directly to the folks in need who don’t have access to transportation or the funds to take advantage of many of these programs and classes. Apartment #29 at The Oaks has been the hub for this approach and a model that Neighborhood Outreach Connection hopes to bring to other communities in the area.
“A person who comes to #29 at The Oaks is there because they haven’t found a way to get to anything else,” said Claudia Kennedy, a retired threestar Army general who serves as vice chair of Neighborhood Outreach Connection. “They come there and two things happen: They get what the program provides, but they also get to know each other. There’s enormous strength, I think, in knowing the person on your left and the person on your right.”
Among the diverse chorus of voices that has helped shape Neighborhood Outreach Connection’s efforts is Martha Cordoba, a single mother of six who lives in The Oaks and works as a nurse at the Volunteers in Medicine Clinic on Hilton Head. After her son was killed in Iraq, Cordoba said she had a hard time coping with her grief. Getting involved with the work of Neighborhood Outreach Connection helped her find a purpose and stronger role in her community.
From 5 to 6 p.m. each Saturday, Cordoba helps lead “Little Saturday School” at #29 with retired speech therapist and Hilton Head resident Kay Lechner. About 10-15 children ages 4 to 14 come to read books, work on puzzles, make art and develop their language skills in a living room that has been outfitted with plastic tables, chairs and marker boards.
The same space that the children of the neighborhood occupy to learn their ABCs and improve their English every Thursday and Saturday is filled with mothers, fathers and grandparents on other days for basic health care, business, computer, counseling, English and Spanish classes. Aerobics and yoga classes are offered at the complex’s community center as well. Residents pay $1 to participate in each of the programs.
“It’s a commitment, because that dollar is worth a lot of money to them,” Sharma said. “They’re investing in themselves. We’re not going there to create dependency. We’re finding a way to empower these people.”
How you can help
Call 843-681-4100 or visit www.noc-sc.org.
