civic matchmaking

There is hope, that’s what The County of Summit ADM Board is here to remind us. They are doing vital work in our community, organizing agencies and support for those struggling with mental health and substance use disorders, along with their families. The ADM Board is a partner in the recently launched Summit County Outreach Team, or SCOUT, staffed by members of the Akron Fire Department, Portage Path Behavioral Health, and a group of Akron police officers trained in crisis intervention. SCOUT aims to bring a collaborative response to situations involving mental health concerns when the subject isn’t a danger to themselves or others.

The County of Summit ADM Board provides a person-centered approach to prevention, treatment, and recovery. In Summit County, no one walks the recovery journey alone. If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988.

The Akron Black Artist Guild is a dynamic community of talented and passionate Black artists on a singular mission: to create a thriving ecosystem that empowers and elevates the Black artistic voice. With a focus on education and professional development, ABAG is dedicated to connecting members to the resources and opportunities they need to grow and succeed in their craft. More than just a network of artists, ABAG is a bold community on a canvas and a vessel for diversity and inclusion in Akron’s art sector.

The Akron Black Artist Guild (ABAG) warmly welcomes Black artists of all disciplines to join the community. Membership is designed to connect artists with influential leaders and a supportive network, ensuring your work reaches a wider audience for greater impact. Join ABAG and be part of an inclusive, diverse community committed to your growth and success.

Akron Cooperative Farms is transforming underutilized land in North Hill into urban farms for community gardens and entrepreneurial enterprises designed to strengthen the social and economic fabric of Akron through agriculture. The farm consists of over four acres of land, divided into plots that are rented by 140 gardeners. Two new hoop houses have been built to make the farm more self-sufficient and to provide employment for gardeners.

Akron Cooperative Farms provides plots for gardeners of all skill levels and backgrounds. If you love to garden, want to learn how to grow something, are a school or non-profit looking for a few plots for programming, or an entrepreneur who wants to sell produce at farmer’s markets, or maybe you just want to grow some fresh all-natural produce for your family, connect with Akron Cooperative Farms.

Agriculture, conservation, green building construction, and sustainability are at the center of Akron Urban Agriculture’s mission to create more sustainable bee farms, gardens, greenhouses, tiny houses and urban farms in Ohio.

Big Love is Akron’s local environmental health equity organization. Big Love offers an evolving network that facilitates neighbor-led creative placemaking, sustainability, and health equity efforts throughout Akron as a means of social change.

Citizen University believes we all have the power to make change happen in our communities — and the responsibility to try. Citizen University equips civic catalysts (including the Civic Saturday Akron Fellows) with the ideas, strategies, and spirit to build a culture of powerful, responsible citizenship in cities across the country.

Akron is a major center for refugee resettlement in the Midwest and Great Lakes Region, with people from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Syria, Myanmar, Afghanistan, and Sudan. Our North Hill and Middlebury neighborhoods are among the most diverse in the country, and Akron is home to the second-largest population of Nepalis-Bhutanese in the US!

Since 1916, The International Institute of Akron has been offering refugee resettlement case management, social services, employment services, education, language access, and immigration legal services to refugees and immigrants. Learn how you can join in their mission to enrich the vitality of our community by helping immigrants achieve an empowered life with dignity, connection, and belonging.

The League of Women Voters is a nonpartisan political organization that encourages informed and active participation in government, works to increase understanding of major public policy issues, and influences public policy through education and advocacy.

Need to update your address? Not sure if you’re registered to vote, or even eligible? These ladies are pros — the League has been around since 1920(!) — they can help with all your voting questions.

Connect with League of Women Voters and cast your vote to make a difference.

More than 47 million people in the United States face hunger, including 1 in 5 children, and over 50% of Akronites cannot afford groceries. Whether that includes you, someone you know, or you’re in a position to help change that, People Feeding People might be the most direct way to do something about it here in Akron. They are boots on the ground working to leverage the resources in our community to build power and promote wellness through access to healthy fresh food for everyone.

People Feeding People is a free mobile grocery store distribution program operating in Summit County. Their mission is to organize resources within the community and build power to promote wellness and combat food apartheid. Join them every other Wednesday at their free pop up grocery store.

A recent study ranked Cuyahoga Valley National Park as the second-best national park in America, based on factors like visitor numbers, proximity to cities, and natural beauty!

This is Akron’s backyard and citizen-led Preserve the Valley wants to ensure we protect and improve our natural resource with smart planning, sustained cleanup, and ongoing preservation of Theiss Woods and surrounding areas. In a testament to the power of citizen-led action, in June 2023, City of Akron officials agreed to the 100% preservation of Theiss Woods. If you care about environmental justice, conservation, and just getting outside to appreciate the natural world, connect with Preserve the Valley.

Project Learn began in 1981 as a small group of Akronites aiming to strengthen their community. They started by helping adults read, write, and access their innate giftings, tutoring students in a church basement. Over time they grew to become one of the largest community-based adult basic education programs in Northeast Ohio, helping thousands of students in need of literacy, GED®, ESOL, post-secondary, and career prep services achieve their goals as family members, workers, community members and lifelong learners, to work toward broader participation in the social, cultural, economic and political fabric of life.

Find out how you can benefit from their services or volunteer, donate, and support Project Learn!

Every year, Americans waste 80 million tons of food, equivalent to 149 billion meals. That’s 38% of all the food in America! And that food waste sits in our landfills, releasing climate-warming methane, a greenhouse gas even more potent than carbon dioxide… What on earth do we do about it?!

Akron’s Rubber City Reuse has a plan! Through its residential curbside, drop-off, and commercial composting services, Rubber City Reuse helps Northeast Ohio compost food and paper products at home and in our businesses. Composting not only eliminates waste, it helps enrich the soil to grow more nutrient-rich food. It’s a beautiful cycle, so connect with Rubber City Reuse and find out how you can be a part of it!

Shanti Farms is dedicated to preserving and promoting the agricultural heritage of local immigrants and refugees in Akron and developing a major urban agricultural project for economic development and education.

See their work at Hewa Bora Farm where, in partnership with Akron Zoo, they turned an abandoned lot into a powerful urban farming initiative that will serve multiple purposes including hosting a Farmers Market to combat food insecurity, providing land for immigrant families/farmers to grow their native seeds, and educational opportunities for both grades K-12 and local neighborhood residents and families.

Shelter Care is on a mission to provide healing, restore hope and recognize the value of young people and families in need. Youth may be referred for treatment as a self-referral or by the family, child welfare, juvenile justice or mental health systems. Services include housing, clothing, food, mental health assessments, individual, family and group counseling, community psychiatric supportive treatment, education and employment opportunities, recreation, transportation, medical and psychological care, and full-time supervision.

Today, Shelter serves 100+ youth receiving counseling services from Child Guidance and Family Solutions annually.

Launched in 2023, Signal Akron is part of the Signal Ohio network of independent, community-led, nonprofit newsrooms, backed by a coalition of Ohio organizations, community members and the American Journalism Project. Signal Akron fuses community building with local news reporting, producing trustworthy daily journalism across a range of topics, including government, education, public health, community safety, and the arts.

Signal is home to hundreds of Akron Documenters, a group of residents who represent Greater Akron and are trained and paid to cover public meetings. Sign up for their newsletter, donate, and train to be a Documenter.

South Street's mission is to equip and inspire the restoration of community, economy, and faith, to empower authentic community voice, leadership, and transformation within the South Akron, Summit Lake, and Reentry communities. South Street Ministries reaches across racial, economic, cultural, and religious barriers for the enrichment of the community.

One of the many ways they do this is through their Bike Shop shareable fleet. Donate a bicycle and join South Street Ministries in empowering authentic community voice, leadership, and transformation within the South Akron, Summit Lake, and reentry communities.

Summit Artspace connects artists and artist-serving organizations to the community and to the resources they need to thrive professionally, creatively, and financially. Home to artist studios, creative businesses, and five galleries with new exhibitions four times a year, Summit Artspace provides public programs to engage the community with local artists and promote a strong, diverse, and vibrant arts and culture community.

Are you passionate about the local arts and giving back to the community? Volunteer with Summit Artspace and support their mission of connecting local artists to the resources they need to thrive.

Every year more than 390,000 children in the United States are in the dependency court and foster care systems because of abuse or neglect. A child in foster care, on average, will move into multiple homes and attend multiple schools.

Here in Akron, these children have a powerful champion in the Summit County CASA, with a mission to serve the best interests of abused and neglected children in the Juvenile Court System.
Learn how YOU can train to become a Court Appointed Special Advocate/Guardian appointed by the Summit County Juvenile Court Judge so that every child can be safe, have a permanent home and the opportunity to thrive.

In Summit County, the number of unsheltered individuals living in encampments, abandoned buildings or in their cars increased by nearly 300% from the 2022 to 2024 Point in Time Count, now higher than at any other time this past decade.

Summit County Continuum of Care is engaging 70 agencies and 33 programs in a networked community-based process to end homelessness, addressing its underlying causes, while lessening the negative impacts of homelessness on residents of our community. They are working to make sure everyone has access to resources and support needed to obtain and maintain decent, safe, and affordable housing. If you are experiencing a housing crisis, call 2-1-1.

The Black Led Organizing Collaborative (BLOC) was created to build Black political power and to equip the Black community with capacity building tools through civic education, civic engagement, campaign management and leadership development to ignite and foster greater electoral turnout in Cleveland, Columbus, Akron, and Youngstown.

Freedom BLOC is the vehicle for collective political expression, educating the Black electorate and the broader Black community on issues impacting their lives and mobilizing them to turnout to vote on issues and candidates that support and enforce equitable policies for Black Ohioans. Register for BLOC University, and attend their monthly housing meeting every first Thursday.

The Sisterly Collective is a sanctuary of nourishment, a haven for women seeking to enrich their mind, body, and soul. Established in 2021, this vibrant community is dedicated to fostering women’s holistic well-being through an array of experiences that celebrate the essence of womanhood.

Co-founders Chinna Parker and Lydia Joy “share a love and a passion for working with and supporting women in their pursuit to heal and live the life that they’ve always dreamed of,” so they came together to create a space for “like-minded women looking for an uplifting community that feels like home.”

Join them for an upcoming wellness event.

“Musically Adventurous & Community-Focused” independent radio station WAPS The Summit serves Akron-Canton at 91.3FM. The Summit actively partners with nonprofit organizations, local artists, regional businesses, and its listeners to inspire a love of music to strengthen community and support whole health wellness.

The Summit’s Marilyn Stroud Music Alive Program helps keep the music alive in our public schools by collecting, repairing, and donating musical instruments to students in Akron. Since 2008, The Summit FM has donated over 600 instruments to underfunded music programs, giving under-represented kids access to the many benefits of music education. Do you have a “gently used” musical instrument in your attic, closet, or basement? There are dozens of kids who’d love the chance to learn to play it. Donate and volunteer at TheSummit.FM

Unify America is on a mission to replace political fighting with collaborative problem-solving. They’re bringing thousands of Americans together with interactive experiences that help people build civic muscles and work together to tackle our country’s biggest challenges. Want to try it out? Sign up for a Unify Challenge today, and if you’re a University of Akron student, check out their College Bowl where the Zips are proudly represented.

Using models of deliberation, including the Citizens' Assembly, Unify America helps communities implement public problem-solving frameworks and civic engagement opportunities that give residents the time and information to really understand the problem and the trade-offs involved in solving it. Sound like a plan? Connect with Unify America and build your civic muscles.

Do you represent an organization or community group making a difference in Akron? Are you looking to raise awareness about the resources you offer and connect with potential volunteers and support? Email us to request a spot for Civic Matchmaking at an upcoming Civic Saturday.

"People say, ‘What is the sense of our small effort?' They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time. A pebble cast into a pond causes ripples that spread in all directions. Each one of our thoughts, words and deeds is like that. No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There's too much work to do."
- Dorothy Day

"When I use my strength in the service of my vision it makes no difference whether or not I am afraid."
- Audre Lorde