Page 4 • Wednesday , February 8 , 2023 • The Hammonton Gazette
Volunteers give their views of the town at Heart & Soul
SOUL , from Page 1 encourage are to involve everyone , focus on what matters and play the long game . They also discussed the four phases for community engagement , which was to lay the groundwork , explore your community , make decisions and take action .
Rich Rehmann then took the stage and spoke on the importance of Hammonton . In the slideshow presentation , Rehmann discussed the 10 things that the community loves about Hammonton based on what they have heard from interviews . Those 10 things include : sense of community , the downtown Hammonton area , arts and culture , agriculture and farming , geographical location , municipal and social services , festivals and events , places to gather for recreation , schools and education and businesses and restaurants .
“ Part of our charge for this program was to engage everyone that we could , but make sure we are accountable in engaging the diversity of our community . We started with that charge for pushing ourselves forward in the face of COVID-19 to try to identify people , identify conduits for information , whether it ’ s thin data such as a coaster and a form of ‘ what do you love about Hammonton ?’ and drop it in a box , or thin data such as sitting down for 25 , 30 minutes or an hour talking to people , getting recorded ,” Rehmann said to those in attendance .
The leadership team relayed three questions that the residents were asked and can ask themselves that can help Hammonton a better community . Those three questions were : what do you love about Hammonton , what do you hope for Hammonton and what actions can be taken that could better Hammonton ? A video was then presented that captured different residents talking about what they love about Hammonton .
The Heart and Soul Leadership team then talked about different initiatives they ’ ve taken since the beginning of 2020 to help engage the community . They showed photos from the community volunteering , with the goal of wanting to make everyone feel like they are a part of Hammonton . To further support their mission , a pie chart was shown that broke down different answers from people that they interviewed , which was collected by Tracy Carr and Deborah White , who were credited and praised by Iacovelli for the work they ’ ve done . The people who provided their answers were also broken down by age , gender and household income .
The people in attendance were then broken up into groups and were assigned to the 11 tables set up for the summit to discuss and give feedback to the leadership
team to help and revise their message in order to strengthen their statement , according to Iacovelli .
“ We want you to understand that this is an investment to the future of our community , to maintain what we love and cherish and ensure that what matters most for future generations will be here . We have to first understand what it is that we love most about our town and for these little ones that are in the back working and we want to make sure that the things we all love today are going to be here in the future because we as a community are going to come up and endow the foundation that allows to fund the things that we make sure we won ’ t lose them ,” Iacovelli said .
After everyone was providing feedback to the leadership team , the event then concluded with Transform South Jersey , in collaboration with the Community Foundation of South Jersey , community manager Erik Estrada to talk about trying to work together to gain ideas in hopes of
See HEART , Page 8