Community Empowerment Changing Lives
In the spring of 1990, neighborhood residents, community leaders, and church members began meeting at Bethel A.M.E. Church in the Ensley section of Birmingham, Alabama to reflect on the dramatic decline of their neighborhood evidenced through its overgrown lots, dilapidated, substandard housing units, absentee landlords, and declining social services. They each sensed an almost universal fatal prognosis for the neighborhood.
Flash forward fifteen years and a forgotten neighborhood has been brought back from the brink. Gone are the dilapidated buildings, the disparate living conditions, and the social illnesses of drug and alcohol abuse that so often shadow communities lacking hope. In their place what you find is truly miraculous.
The BEAT story is one of community empowerment changing lives and the direction of a neighborhood forever.
Special Thanks
A special thanks to Greater Birmingham Ministries (GBM), BEAT’s sister-agency. Without her continued support and friendship, the BEAT miracle would not exist. GBM is an ecumenical and interfaith organization in Birmingham, Alabama, with a thirty-five year history of direct services and community organizing. Begun in 1969, GBM has sought to carry out a faith-based response to poverty by meeting people’s emergency needs while also pursuing social and economic justice for all people.
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In Memoriam
Rev. Ronald E. Nored
August 30,1960 - October 11, 2003
“I decided early to give my life to something eternal and absolute. Not to these little gods that are here today and gone tomorrow, but to God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”