Perspectives

What does 15-years of partnership look like?

This year, Every Neighborhood Partnership (ENP) is celebrating our 15-year anniversary. 

As we reflect on the incredible people who have helped us grow, clarified our vision, and partnered with us since the beginning, there aren’t adequate words to express our gratitude. So we’re going to let these thoughts from the ENP team and our partners say it all.


Ashley GoldsmithWhat does 15-years of partnership look like?
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See you in 9 weeks.

“Most of us are more tired than we know at the soul level. We are teetering on the brink of dangerous exhaustion, and we cannot do anything else until we have gotten some rest…we can’t really engage [any spiritual disciplines] until solitude becomes a place of rest for us rather than another place for human striving and hard work.”
― Ruth Haley Barton, Sacred Rhythms: Arranging Our Lives for Spiritual Transformation

If you email me from Thursday, June 15th till Monday, August 21st, you will get an away message.

I am on a sabbatical.

What the heck is a sabbatical?

andrewfeilSee you in 9 weeks.
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How to Serve Your Community (No Matter Your Life Stage)

Developing a Heart of Service at a Young Age

Mary Avigliano knew when she grew up, she wanted to help others. As a child, Mary developed relationships with volunteers of local urban ministry organizations who left a life-long impact on her and her family.

“If it weren’t for a group of people who were passionate about urban ministry knocking on my family’s door when I was a kid, I wouldn’t be sitting here.”

~Mary Avigliano

In 2008, when Mary was a recent college graduate with a little extra free time, she became one of Every Neighborhood Partnership’s first volunteers.

Ashley GoldsmithHow to Serve Your Community (No Matter Your Life Stage)
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Entering 2023 with Applications from Isaiah 65

One way that Every Neighborhood Partnership lives out our value of being a Jesus-centered organization is by having devotionals during our staff meetings and retreats.  These devotionals include Scripture readings or other types of character or leadership development topics.

Isaiah 65:17-25 is a Bible passage that has long been a driving motivation for ENP’s work.  We commissioned the “In Fresno as it is in Heaven” artwork based in part on this passage (you can read more about it here) and at our Fall 2022 staff retreat, we examined those verses together. 

Gabrielle PicenoEntering 2023 with Applications from Isaiah 65
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In Fresno As It Is In Heaven

Not everyone ENP partners with comes from a faith background, but we all have a moral vision. We wanted to design something that represents the theological and moral vision of ENP.

The Biblical Story is really a story about two spaces: God’s space and humanity’s space. It is the Biblical Story of God’s mission and vision to reunite all humanity with Himself. In the Garden of Eden, God’s space and humanity’s space were one. But when sin and brokenness entered the world, those spaces separated. Injustice, pain, poverty, and disunity entered the picture.

Jesus is on a mission to bring them together once and for all. As an organization, we long for a city that reflects Jesus’ prayer: “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” 

Revelation 21 tells us that one day God’s space and humanity’s space will completely overlap.

As the Lord prayed, until the final vision becomes a reality, we get to work to see glimpses of heaven here in Fresno.


Thank you to Shelby King for bringing our vision of this design to life!  She can be reached at shelbyking.art@gmail.com

If you would like to purchase a full resolution print of “in Fresno as it is in Heaven,” for pick-up from our office, you can order it below.

andrewfeilIn Fresno As It Is In Heaven
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Register for One Small Step

If you are like me, you sense a growing divide in our country, state, and cities. We are at each other’s throats!

ENP has always been about the work of creating spaces for people from various backgrounds to cross paths, build relationships, and co-create the community that we want to live in.

ENP and StoryCorps welcomes residents in the Fresno/Central Valley area to apply to be matched with fellow residents from across the political divide for conversations about their lives – not about politics – through One Small Step. The conversation invites two people who don’t know each other—and may not think they have anything in common—to take a moment to discover their shared humanity. Let’s heal our community one courageous conversation at a time. 

andrewfeilRegister for One Small Step
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Asset Based Community Development and How Organizations Implement It for Neighborhood Transformation

Every Neighborhood Partnership is rooted in a framework called Asset Based Community Development or ABCD for short. Any Community Based Organization that believes in Asset Based Community Development starts with a basic premise that local communities can do more together by choosing to focus on what they have — their gifts, talents, and community assets — instead of what they are missing.* Imagine how you view a glass of water that is half-way filled up. Is it empty or full?

ABCD is a way of both strengthening community social capital and organizing community change. While this serves as an initial baseline for how asset-based inspired organizations approach the work of community engagement, not all organizations that adopt the ABCD methodology end with the same goals. 

Germán QuiñonezAsset Based Community Development and How Organizations Implement It for Neighborhood Transformation
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Refunctioning Community Development

This article was written by former ENP intern Alexis Kalugin.

Over the last few decades, institutional community development has taken over the structure of most community functions.   Instead of finding ways to engage neighbors to be a voice of change in their community, most cities have put the burden of change on institutions. The problem with this narrative is that workers in schools, law enforcement, and healthcare are responsible for more community problems than they can handle.  There is no relationship between the institution and the community to understand each problem. This approach becomes one size fits all and leaves a gap between the institution and the citizens. 

Gabrielle PicenoRefunctioning Community Development
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Lions, Paper Tigers, and Bears Oh My!

Well, maybe it was just Paper Tigers! Paper Tigers is a documentary that follows a year in the life of an alternative high school in Walla Walla, Washington. The high school radically changed its approach to disciplining its students. It even became a promising model for how to break the cycles of poverty, violence, and disease that affected its families. Watch the trailer below or check out the movie here.

Paper Tigers Trailer – KPJR Films from KPJR FILMS LLC on Vimeo.

The approach this school used is called a Trauma-Informed Care approach. Trauma-Informed Care is a paradigm shift that moves from judgment to compassion. From asking, “what’s wrong with that kid?” to asking, “I wonder what’s going on with this kid?”

Brian SemsemLions, Paper Tigers, and Bears Oh My!
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