Organizing for Strong Communities
Organizing our communities is the core work that ties everything we do together. It’s right there in our name: Arkansas Community Organizations.
This is the core work that ties everything that we do together. We build grassroots power to fight for change in the places we live, work, and raise our families.
To achieve our goals, we must stand together with our neighbors and recognize that our struggles are connected.
We also connect our groups and members together across the state to achieve our common interests on healthcare, housing, and incomes.
We believe:
Every Arkansan should be able to live in a safe and healthy community.
Leadership to create stronger communities comes from within our communities themselves.
When people join together around a common purpose, they can accomplish great things through planning and action.
Together, we can fight for the services and build the opportunities our communities deserve.
Southeast Little Rock Community Members at a March meeting at the Thrasher Boys & Girls Club.
In the News: South End community members organized a clean-up day for Thrasher Boys & Girls Club, supporting its re-opening in March. ACO members and community leaders Donna Massey, Kobi Knight and others talk about Thrasher’s importance to them when they were coming up, and how youth today need its basketball court, pool, and meals when school is out.
What can we accomplish together?
Currently, our Southeast Little Rock Neighborhood chapter is working on a 10-year action plan to fight for sidewalk repairs, more street lighting, reliable debris pick-up and street sweeping, Swaggerty Creek basin maintenance, and Sunset Park improvements. We helped re-open the Thrasher Boys & Girls Club to provide services again for our neighborhood youth.
THIS, our friends, is what community organizing is all about.
This is why it’s important to become a dues-paying member of ACO, and join a larger community working together toward common purpose and better living standards. Join and talk to us about how we can support organizing in to fight for your neighborhood too.
Don’t wait for change —
Make the change you want.
Neighborhood Chapters
Southeast Little Rock Community
Our Southeast Little Rock Community is thrilled by the recent success of supporting the re-opening of the Thrasher Boys & Girls Club. To help keep Thrasher open and serving South End youth and families, we’ve created a Thrasher Community Advisory Board to ensure that the club is consistently working to serve the community and makes input with the decisions of the residents of this neighborhood.
Our community members are also working with our city director to renovate the historic Sunset Park and provide a clean, safe, and fun environment for one of Little Rock’s oldest children’s football teams. The Sunset Park Team has been around for 50 years, with parents who played with the longtime coach sending their own children to learn from and be part of this neighborhood team. That’s intergenerational history for our neighborhood, a history we can’t let be broken by allowing Sunset Park to continue to deteriorate. In a city with a legacy of Black neighborhoods being paved over for the sake of “development,” racial justice now demands that we learn from past injustices and invest in historic community infrastructure.
We are also asking the city to improve infrastructure in the South End, for example, fixing streets and curbs, cleaning up trash and debris. South End can be a beautiful, thriving community, but in order to see any kind of economic development or change here, we need a clean and safe neighborhood. In what way will that happen? We’re here to make sure we move forward with a holistic plan to make the South End a great neighborhood for the people who already live here — and not be the next in a long line of gentrified Black communities that see change only after the neighborhood is too expensive for the folks who have historically lived there.
If these are your thoughts and concerns too, please come to our next community meeting!
Email Malik at malikjmarshall@gmail.com for more information.
Pine Bluff Community
Our Pine Bluff chapter is busy throughout most of the year, providing free tax preparation services for low and moderate income Jefferson County residents. This is how help boost local incomes, by ensuring folks get their full tax refunds, as soon as they can. We’ve also helped low-income community members who have struggled with debt and low-credit scores, providing guidance on how to boost credit scores and buy a home.
If you’d like help with either of these services, please call Demetrius Melvin at our Pine Bluff Office at (870) 536-6300.
Our ongoing work includes:
Candidate forums to provide Jefferson County voters opportunities to meet with and learn about local area candidates, such as the April 28 Pine Bluff City Council Candidates’ Forum.
Community events to acknowledge local leaders and boost community solidarity, such as at our recent Truthteller Event, honoring Representative Ken Ferguson.
Recent wrap of extensive COVID education community canvassing, as well as vaccination and wellness clinics, such as at Neighbor to Neighbor.
Southwest Little Rock Community
description, current priorities, pictures
Come to our next community meeting! Email aco@arkansascomm.org for more information.
Issue-Based Communities
Healthcare for ALL Community
Healthcare is a human right, and every Arkansan should have easy access to affordable healthcare. Do you agree? Then go HERE to learn more about our Healthcare for ALL campaigns, and how you can be involved.
Secure & Healthy Housing for ALL
Secure and healthy housing is a human right, and every Arkansan should have a home to thrive. Do you agree? Then go HERE to learn more about our Housing campaigns, and how you can be involved.
Families for Economic Security
Every Arkansan should be able to count on an income that covers basic living expenses. Do you agree? Then go HERE to learn more about our Families for Economic Security campaigns, and how you can be involved.
Our Kids Need Neighborhood Schools
The last decade ushered in waves of school closures in many urban public school districts in Little Rock. Closures have disproportionately occurred in Black, Latino, and low-income communities. Little Rock has been no different.
Arkansas Community Institute, in partnership with the UAMS Boozman College of Public Health, conducted interviews of Little Rock residents on their opinions about whether school closures were needed.
Our interviews revealed that 75% of our sample believed that resources are not distributed fairly and according to need across all schools in the district. We need genuine community engagement intentional planning to worsening disparities.