Brianna Goodwin knows her community from the inside out. She is the executive director of Robeson County Church & Community Center (the Center), Robeson County’s oldest and largest faith-based nonprofit. The Center brings the community together to address diverse challenges within the county.
A Robeson County native, Goodwin started with the organization in 2018 and became an expert in the nonprofit’s work before being chosen to lead the Center in 2020.
That year, the Center received a grant from the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust (the Trust), dispersed over three years, to increase access to healthy food throughout the county. The funding also gave the Center the resources and capacity to focus on other issues important to residents such as workforce development and research on social factors impacting health.
Goodwin’s research then led her team to identify other challenges that were concerning to community members, focusing on the destructive effects of flooding in their county.
“You can’t live here and not have been deeply affected by flooding,” said Goodwin. “We started with healthy eating, but the partnership with the Trust increased our ability to address other issues related to the barriers we face.”
They learned that Robeson lacked infrastructure to address flooding such as dams, vegetation, and burs that other cities impacted by natural disasters had in place. Despite having drainage districts with residents representing flood prone areas, there wasn’t enough tax revenue in the county to support mitigation efforts.
“It was a multi-million-dollar problem that the county was throwing $100,000 at, and community members had to do the work themselves,” said Goodwin. “When something’s not on fire, it often doesn’t get addressed.”
Hurricanes negatively affect the region, and just five to seven inches of rain is all it takes for water levels to rise and flooding to occur. Thousands of residents have lost generational homes to flooding, and the subsequent population loss significantly affects the county’s ability to rebuild.
“Amplifying the power of people on the ground to make changes in their communities is why the Trust invests in the capacity of groups like the Center.” said Jason Baisden, senior program officer at the Trust. “We want to make sure that they have the resources and time they need to shift local systems and help their communities thrive.”
Directly hit by Hurricane Matthew in 2016, the Center identified mitigation and environmental interventions as top community priorities. The Center worked with the Southern Environmental Law Center to provide flood disclosures to new home buyers and notify them about previous flood damage to their homes and the likelihood of reoccurrence.
The Center also matched funding with the Robeson County Drainage Districts to clean canals and streams and relocate beaver dams and other drain blockages. Through this process, they discovered that surrounding towns and their municipal partners qualified for grant funding from the state but did not have the capacity to apply. Goodwin and her team worked directly with them to apply for grants on their behalf, winning more than $600,000 in funding for flood mitigation and relief.
The process wasn’t easy, and Goodwin was initially turned away by funders that labeled flood prevention as an issue for state or local governments. She also had to overcome minimal visibility and knowledge in the community about the Lumber River Basin Group, which Goodwin partnered with to create the North Carolina Flood Resiliency Blueprint. The blueprint is the state’s first and largest flood resilience investment and supports efforts for each major river basin in North Carolina.
Goodwin attributes much of the flood initiative’s success to building meaningful relationships with community farmers and diverse stakeholders. They worked together to decrease flooding and water supply pollutants as agricultural areas were the most affected.
“The farmers were the ones that turned the tide, and those relationships were invaluable to the flooding work,” said Goodwin. “The people you’ve taken the time to get to know, the people that you’ve listened to, and the people who your work has impacted, they are going to be your voice and your advocates.” The Center and their community partners are hard at work cleaning the many streams and canals throughout the county that have fallen into disrepair, clogged with fallen trees, overgrown vegetation, and trash.
Goodwin hopes to inspire counties, nonprofits, and other organizations to take action in their communities. She encourages thinking outside the box, believing in a community’s ability to structurally change, and listening to advocates on the ground to improve counties and surrounding areas in profound ways.
“The Trust helped us build our capacity,” Goodwin said. “In turn, we are building the capacity of the county itself.”