Goodman Community Center | From the Desk of Letesha Nelson

From the Desk of Letesha Nelson

Diving into diversity, equity and inclusion at Goodman, and you're invited to share your point of view!

September 13, 2022 |
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Dear friends & neighbors,

Back in 2020, Goodman introduced The Goodman Six, a list of our values and what they mean to our organization. As you know, this was before I started at Goodman, and these six values are part of the reason I ended up as GCC’s CEO. They align with my personal values so well.

Letesha Nelson Community Chat about Diversity Equity and Inclusion

One of the six on the list is equity. Of course, equity is an obvious thing to value at an organization like ours, but as I started to delve into diversity, equity and inclusion work here, I found myself wondering something: What does equity really mean to Goodman?

So I started to ask. I had made up my mind to develop a DEI vision statement for our organization – to complement our mission, vision and values – and I knew I couldn't (and shouldn't) develop that statement alone. In order to get everyone behind this important work, I needed to demonstrate another one of our values, respect, and get feedback from our community.

I started by speaking with staff and board members. Then, I spoke to some of our youth participants and our older adults.

I had a set of questions I wanted answers to, and the most remarkable thing happened as I spoke to these groups. In so many areas, they said the same thing. That's right, middle schoolers and high schoolers were talking about DEI in the same way our 50+ population was.

Isn't that amazing?

Now, I'm not going to share what they said – yet – because there's an important next step in this process: Hearing from you. I want to get your unfiltered, un-influenced take on my questions at our first-ever, in-person Community Chat on Wednesday, Oct. 5. I hope you can make it and share your important insights. Everyone from the community is welcome – and encouraged – to attend.

Learn more and register* here.

Warmly,

Letesha Nelson, CEO & Executive Director

*Registration is greatly appreciated, but you're also welcome to just drop in!

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