ELON UNIVERSITY INVESTS IN KEEPING THE MOMENTUM DOWNTOWN BURLINGTON
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Written by Braelinn Frank
crowd of almost 100 gathered on the corner of Davis and Spring on the first of March to celebrate the grand opening of Elon’s new Downtown Center for Community Engagement. The new buildingwill serve as an office space to facilitate a growing partnership between Elon and the Burlington community. The renovated space is Elon’s first bricks and mortar investment in Downtown Burlington. Associate Professor of Education Jean Rattigan-Rohr, who founded the Village Project -a program facilitating tutoring between Elon’s School of Education students and Burlington’s school children, spoke first on the support the new building would represent for the program. The space will provide Rohr an area to meet with the children’s parents as they are being tutored across the street at the May Memorial Library. The new space will also serve to support
Elon’s Kernodle Center for Service Learning and Community Engagement. Tammy Cobb, the Assistant Director for Community Partnership at the Kernodle Center will have regular office hours in the new building to facilitate opportunities between over 80 of the county’s nonprofit and human service agencies and Elon students. The ribbon-cutting program included words from both Elon President Leo Lambert and Vice President Smith Jackson. Not only is the new building meant to support the aforementioned programs, but the space is open to the entire Elon community – which, according to President is “all of us”, both the Downtown community as well as Elon’s students and faculty. The office spaces and 16-person meeting room is available for reservation upon request. The ribbon-cutting ended with a round of applause as Burlington Mayor Ronnie Wall welcomed Elon University to Downtown Burlington.
GOING!
"K
eep the Momentum Going!” was the rallying cry weaving its way through the crowd of participants following Roger Brooks’ presentation last Wednesday. Mr. Brooks was invited by the Burlington Downtown Corporation to speak to a group of approximately 100 downtown stakeholders. The title of the presentation, “Taking Downtown to the Next Level,” reflects his deep experience working with communities to help them become dynamic destinations and engines of economic growth. By Thursday morning, it was clear that Mr. Brooks’ presentation made a big impression with those in attendance. To summarize, Mr. Brooks left the following bits of wisdom sizzling in our brains: Build a Specific Brand: Burlington, and specifically Downtown, needs to be known for something unique and specific (Continued on Page 18) burlingtonmagnc.com
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