The fund comes as Georgia faces significant development pressure. The Georgia Department of Agriculture estimates the state could lose about 800,000 acres of farmland by 2040—roughly 10% of its farmland. Farmers are increasingly receiving lucrative offers for land as housing, industrial development, warehouses, and data centers expand.
Read MoreThe inventory spans educational digital downloads, physical wellness products, professional consultancy services, and specialized kits for students and farmers.
Read MoreThat is where service learning becomes more than volunteering. Students are learning, solving problems, working in teams, communicating with adults, practicing leadership, and seeing how their skills connect to the life of their community.
Read MoreWe already welcome thousands of visitors for the Masters, Peach Jam, Ironman, and other major events. But how intentionally are we connecting those visitors to our artists, musicians, farmers, makers, neighborhoods, and small businesses?
Read MoreAs communities search for practical ways to strengthen public health, education, and local economies, community gardens are quietly proving that civic engagement doesn't always begin in a meeting room or at City Hall. Sometimes it begins with a shovel, a shared purpose, and a willingness to grow something together.
Read MoreAfter a very difficult 2023 — losing my mother, receiving my own cancer diagnosis, and moving through treatment — I found myself slowly rebuilding my sense of rhythm, purpose, and connection. Music helped me breathe again. Art helped me notice beauty again. Community helped me remember that healing is not something we do alone.
Read More"We're seeing communities think more like systems," said Karen Gordon, founder of Growing Augusta and publisher of Urban Pro Weekly. "A farmers market isn't just about food anymore. It's also about entrepreneurship, public health, neighborhood development and community gathering. The same project is serving multiple purposes."
Read MoreAudacity of Humility is a community conversation for people who are ready to stop confusing humility with shrinking.
The question is simple but powerful: What if building boldly is not a betrayal of community, but one of the ways we come back better equipped to serve it with clarity, purpose, and rooted power together?
Read MoreData centers generate significant heat. Growing Augusta could explore a pilot greenhouse, seedling nursery, or propagation space that uses recovered or redirected heat from the facility. Even if full heat reuse is too complex at first, the partnership could begin with an on-site or adjacent controlled-environment agriculture demo supported by the data center’s sustainability team.
Read MoreThe communities that thrive over the next decade may not be the ones with the biggest budgets, the newest buildings, or the most elaborate strategic plans. They may be the ones that learn how to connect what they already have. And that is a different way to think about growth.
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