Building Community Together
Our Roots
The roots of community organizing in Cordesville stretch back to the 1970s, when passionate residents gathered at Greater Emmanuel AME Church to advocate for a local fire station along Highway 402. Led by local clergy and dedicated individuals like Leola Berry Johnson, this effort sparked a legacy of collective action. In 2009, we formally became the Cordesville Community Citizens, and after a brief hiatus from 2015 to 2016, we revitalized our efforts in 2018 under the leadership of President Jerald “JB” Borden Jr. Today, we’re more committed than ever to making a positive impact.
Our Impact
We’re proud of the work we’ve done to strengthen our community, including:
- Community Garden: Mr. Melvin shares his love of gardening, and the vegetables that we can distribute are from the garden he tends.
- Cordesville Cares: Cleaning overgrown yards, building and repairing wheelchair ramps (5 completed!), fixing porches, performing minor roof repairs, and pressure washing homes.
- Online GED Program: Offering adults 18+ the chance to earn their GED, supported by a $1,000 Google grant and 9 donated laptops.
- Partnerships for Progress: Collaborating with Elaine Morgan from the Berkeley County Chamber of Commerce to bring telehealth access with large screens, allowing us to provide and receive training from other locations. We are also partnering with Trident Literacy to host GED testing right here in Cordesville—no need to travel to Hanahan, North Charleston, or Summerville!
- Community Food Truck: We have recently purchased a food truck to educate our citizens on topics such as inventory management, small business ownership, customer service, budgeting, and more. This exciting initiative will also raise funds for our community and serve as a resource for disaster recovery efforts. Looking for access to a commercial kitchen.
