Mayor Karl Dean launches Nashville Impact for education, flood recovery

Michael Cass • THE TENNESSEAN • September 30, 2010 Mayor Karl Dean launched Nashville’s first comprehensive plan to get citizen volunteers involved in addressing the city’s pressing needs with an event at an elementary school today. The plan, titled Impact Nashville, outlines service initiatives related to education and environmental recovery from the May flood. The city received a two-year, $200,000 grant in January to develop the program, and Dean is one of 17 founding mayors of Cities of Service, an umbrella organization spearheaded by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.“What I did not realize (when Cities of Service started) was that volunteerism would become Nashville’s biggest asset and biggest source of community pride as we faced a historic natural disaster,” Dean said in a news release. We need to harness that spirit of volunteerism to tackle some of our city’s other great challenges, and that’s what this plan sets out to do.” Students and parents at Glendale Elementary helped construct a rain garden on the school property today to help absorb and divert water during future rainfalls. Impact Nashville also calls for recruiting reading tutors to work with students in Nashville’s most high-need schools in kindergarten through second grade. For more information, see www.nashville.gov/volunteer or www.impactnashville.net.