|
The Rotary Club of Akron had the privilege of listening to Kemp Boyd, Executive Director discuss the mission of Love Akron during our Tuesday, July 28th Club meeting. It was a very engaging presentation with multiple follow-up questions about the organization, its challenges, successes, etc. The mission of The Love Akron Network is to call Christian leaders of the greater Akron area to pray, unite and collaborate in ministry for the advancement of spiritual and social transformation in our communities.  Love Akron challenges Christian leaders of the local church, para-church ministries, marketplace, and nonprofit sectors of Summit County to... ...unite as a prayer network for the purpose of leading communities and congregations in prayer strategies as one church. ...tear down the walls that divide the colors, cultures, and congregations and to build bridges of understanding for the purpose of creating strategies that promote unity and harmony. ...invest their collective resources for the purpose of the whole church taking the whole Gospel to the whole county. Love Akron was established in 1995 by Pastor Mark Ford, Pastor Knute Larson & Rev. Dr. Ron Fowler. The first event was a prayer meeting, hoping it would grow into a city-wide prayer movement, and has since been successful. With the retirement of its founding leader in April 2019, Love Akron hired Executive Director Kemp Boyd. Mr. Boyd is committed to empowering others to make Greater Akron thrive. What this means is Love Akron wants to listen together and learn together, so that we can lead together as a city and not as separate organizations. As Mr. Boyd stated, “Better together collaborating with community change agents resulting in collaborative impacts.” Love Akron, through the guidance of Kemp Boyd and his staff, attempts to help the community celebrate our differences not just acting when there is a tragedy. What unites us, not divides us. Love Akron attempts to bring awareness to what resources are available in Akron already, and then bringing together a team of players to address a concern. Love Akron has 3 Initiatives for 2021. One of those will be to address the challenge of 850 children being served by Children Services Board and only 170 foster home beds available. Mr. Boyd commented that “race” is just one component that makes up “diversity.” Race doesn’t need to get lost in “diversity.” When we try to lump all types of diversity into one category, we often dilute each one of them and accomplish very little. |
.jpg){kind=logo}
