How do you bridge cultural, language and historical barriers in a small North Georgia city where the population is almost evenly split between white res idents and people of color (mostly Hispanic or Black)?
In Habersham County’s Cornelia, diversity and inclusiveness efforts range from the artistic – like a mural championed by the city’s Black community and festivals celebrating His panic culture – to pure business, such as translation services for city communications. Business classes in Spanish for budding Hispanic entrepreneurs kicked the project up a notch beginning this past fall.
“The Hispanic community and the Black community are such a big part of our city that it was just a natural conclusion to reach out and include as many people as possible from those communities. We want to give everybody equal footing and an equal chance to succeed,” says Mayor John Borrow.
Community Development Director Jessie Owensby says the classes, taught by one of the area’s Hispanic entrepreneurs, address the “disparity” that only 42 of Cornelia’s 500 businesses are Hispanic owned.
Recent municipal outreach to the Black community included holding a professional design charrette for public works projects in Cornelia’s historically Black neighborhood. To such strategies, add a public art project – a mural incorporating a bit of local folklore.
As the story goes, many decades ago, “Tim Loves Tink” appeared as a graffiti message. City efforts to paint over the message only led to its reappearance, so now the new mural incorporates the love declaration.
Owensby figured he has a knack for communicating – after all, his videos about restaurant Raspas El Tigre had over a million TikTok followers.
And in October, the city assisted in hosting the inaugural Marigold Festival to celebrate the Spanish holiday, Dia de los Muertos.
You’ll find the complete list of GMA’s Visionary Cities here along with a brief description of the reason each was chosen: Nine Cities Honored with Visionary City Awards