GREENSBORO, N.C. — Getting the help you might need starts with knowing where to turn.
Several non-profits in Forsyth County are working to make it easier to get assistance by creating a new centralized map tool.
Map Forsyth, Partnership for Prosperity, The United Way and FROST came up with the idea to create a community assets and resource map.
Asia Pepper is the community engagement associate with Partnership for Prosperity. She said through her research, she found there were 6,000 non-profits and charities in the county, but at the same time, the county has the highest number for poverty in the Triad.
Statistics show if a person grows up in poverty in Forsyth County, they’ll likely stay in poverty.
Through partnering with agencies and this new resource map, its creators see this as a way to begin moving when it comes to helping people who live in poverty.
The map puts resources from more than 1,000 agencies from Winston-Salem and Forsyth County in one place.
That includes houses of worship, government agencies, and other foundations that work to offer relief to people experiencing poverty.
“We realize we have an abundance of different types of resources available in Forsyth County, but people were struggling to find them or know that they exist and didn’t know how to access them,” said Amanda Clark, health educator at the Forsyth County health department. Clark added that the health department saw a need for organizing resources.
The site is simple to navigate with a near me tool.
It allows those in need of resources to generate a list of assets closest to them.
A user could search for things like healthy food options or clothing and mental health resources.
Through their search agencies phone numbers, websites, and other information will instantly become available to them.
“We’re working to alleviate poverty and food insecurity and health care disparities, employment gaps, things like that,” Clark said. "This, in turn, also addresses a lot of our substance abuse issues in the community.”
A private website launch on Tuesday allowed more than 90 county agencies to work together and get added to the map.
Pepper said the creation of the map has many layers, with internal and external features that could help the city and county better address the poverty fight.
“The internal map is good for non-profits and agencies to get a good scope. For example, there's a food desert layer and it's a good tool to know physically on a map where the issues lie,” Pepper said.” It’s alarming to know spots that have toxic waste when we’re talking about addressing housing and city planning things like that are important to know.”
Will Moore with Map Forsyth created the map and said this project is about two years in the making.
"This is going to be a fluid web application,” Moore said. “We're going to add more data as we become aware of other resources, were trying to pull In as many resources as we can.”
The Forsyth County Resource Map launches to the public Tuesday afternoon at 1’oclock.
The community is welcome to join the zoom where people will get an in-depth look at the resources folks can take advantage of.