I've been hearing quite a bit about a worthwhile initiative in town called Project254. My friend Tye Barrett, who works for the AmeriCorps VISTA program, first mentioned it to me on a recent Saturday Mexican food excursion. Then, while the WacoFork team was talking with the good folks at The Olive Branch, they explained it to us a little further.
Essentially, Project254 is a way for Waco businesses to go to bat for those less fortunate in our community.
"We envision Project 254 to be a community wide effort, involving many of Waco’s locally owned businesses, restaurants, and service providers – who are dedicated to the improvement of our city, growing our local economy, and solving one of our community’s most difficult problems, poverty," the Project254 website explains under the heading HOW IT WORKS. "Local businesses partnering with Project254 will identify a service or product, from which a portion of the proceeds would be donated directly to the 254 Foundation. The 254 Foundation will then grant money to local area charities who are working to eliminate poverty and its contributing factors in this area (lack of education, proper health services, job training etc.). Local citizens - supporting local economy - solving local problems."
For anyone interested in learning more about this project there will be an informational meeting at 7 p.m. Saturday at The Olive Branch. It's free and open to the public. More information is also available at Project254.com.
It should be noted that several local businesses are already hip to Project254, including Common Grounds, The Olive Branch, Congress Clothing, W Promotions and the Waco Arts Initiative.
