Resilient Together

Please help us identify ways to build community resilience. Your voice and perspective are crucial in this important work. As we develop climate-resilience plans, we want to ensure that everyone's voice is heard and that our plans represent our whole community.

The Community Conversation Kit is designed to help you host a successful discussion. This could be with friends, neighbors, or family in your living room, kitchen, or front porch! It provides everything you need to lead a meaningful chat, bring people together, and build local resilience in your community.

By following these easy steps, you can create a space where everyone feels included and heard:

Step 1: Prepare

Start by downloading the Kit and looking through the materials. The How-To Host guide includes a script, helpful hints, a step-by-step guide, and an email template you can use. Please try to print everything before your meeting. If you need assistance, contact the Project Team*.

Choose a time and place for your event, invite your guests, and inform them about the event's purpose and its significance to the Resilient Together project.

Step 2: Host

Welcome your guests, introduce yourself, and share why you’re hosting the conversation. Then, watch a short video together to learn about the project and the challenges we face from climate change.

Then, choose a Design Challenge to focus on. Work together to complete the activity worksheets as a group to generate ideas, discuss potential problems, and explore ways to make your ideas work.

End by sharing what you came up with and asking participants to complete a brief survey.

Step 3: Submit

To return your Community Chat Kit, complete these forms:

• Submit Your Community Conversation
• Host Feedback

If that doesn’t work for you, email we-are@resilient-together.info, and our team will help you find an alternative way to return it.

*Printed Kits are available for pickup at the County Office Building at 401 McIntire Road, just inside the Visitor's Entrance at the front desk.

Training Sessions for Hosts

Organizations and community members interested in hosting their own events to support the project are invited to learn about Community Conversation Kits.

We'll have printed kits available on-site for pickup!

If you are interested, join us:

• April 23 from 5:30-7 pm at the JMRL Central Library in the Madison Room
• April 30 from 12-1 pm via Zoom (register here)

We’re excited to invite you to take part in shaping our community's future. This April and May, the Resilient Together project team is hosting a series of Community Design Nights—interactive workshops where your voice can help create strategies to make our community stronger, safer, and healthier in the face of climate change.

What Are Community Design Nights?

These workshops are a chance for you to share your ideas and collaborate with neighbors on how we can adapt to increasingly hazardous weather events like extreme heat, flooding, and storms. Together, we’ll brainstorm solutions that will help protect our homes, neighborhoods, and natural spaces while building a more resilient future for everyone.

When and Where?

Join us from 6–8 pm at one of these convenient locations:

• April 28: Carver Recreation Center
• May 12: Stony Point Elementary School
• May 20: Yancey Community Center
• May 29: Greenwood Community Center

We’ll provide snacks to keep your energy up while you share your creative ideas, so bring your appetite and enthusiasm!

Why Your Voice Matters

Resilient Together is a collaborative effort led by Albemarle County, the City of Charlottesville, and the University of Virginia. By participating, you’ll help ensure that our community resilience plans reflect the diverse needs and priorities of everyone who calls this area home. Whether protecting vulnerable populations or enhancing public spaces, your input is key to designing a future where we can all thrive.

Let’s work together to create a community that’s prepared for whatever challenges come our way. We can’t wait to see you there!

Warm regards,

The Resilient Together Team

We completed the Discover phase at the end of May, having held workshops with staff from the County, City, UVA, partner agencies, and community organizations. Additionally, we reviewed extensive notes from community engagement conducted during other recent planning processes like AC44 and Cville Plans Together.

In June, we received a competitive Environmental Justice Government-to-Government (EJG2G) grant of just over $460,000 from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This grant enabled us to create the Climate Resilience Cohort, which will provide subgrants to 10 community-based organizations (CBOs) that serve disadvantaged community members. CBO grantees will help center the needs of our most vulnerable community members in the Resilient Together strategies. We look forward to our first workshop with the participant organizations this month.

Over the summer, we completed the Define phase, which included three steps: First, we identified themes from the information we gathered during the Discover phase. Second, we used these themes to draft guiding principles and long-term goals for Resilient Together, which will continue to be refined during the next steps. Third, we researched over a thousand strategy options from around the country and curated a list of the most locally relevant for consideration in the Design phase. In the coming months, we will look to you and the community to help us identify and refine the best resilience strategies to pursue in the years ahead.

Read our One-Year Progress Report to learn more about our process, what we heard so far, the project vision, guiding principles, goals, and next steps.

The Resilient Together project utilizes human-centered design principles in several key ways throughout our climate adaptation and resilience planning process:

1. Emphasis on community engagement: The project places a strong focus on involving community members at every stage, from discovery to implementation. This aligns with the human-centered design principle of putting people at the center of the process.
2. Inclusive participation: The project aims to create welcoming and inclusive participation opportunities for all community members, ensuring diverse perspectives are considered. This reflects the human-centered design approach of understanding and addressing the needs of various stakeholders.
3. Storytelling and experience sharing: During the discovery phase, the project encourages community members to share their personal stories and experiences related to climate change impacts. This aligns with the human-centered design principle of developing empathy and understanding user experiences.
4. Iterative process: The project follows a phased approach (Discover, Define, Design, Decide, Do) that allows for continuous refinement based on community input and feedback. This iterative nature is a key aspect of human-centered design.
5. Collaborative problem-solving: The project involves multiple stakeholders, including community members, partner organizations, and government staff, in developing resilience strategies and actions. This collaborative approach is central to human-centered design.
6. Focus on local context: By considering the specific vulnerabilities and challenges of the Charlottesville and Albemarle County area, the project demonstrates a commitment to understanding and addressing local needs.
7. Addressing equity: The project recognizes that some community members may face greater vulnerability to climate impacts and seeks to engage with these groups to ensure equitable solutions. This aligns with the human-centered design principle of designing for inclusivity.
8. Prototyping and testing: The "Do" phase involves implementing strategies, monitoring progress, and evaluating success, which reflects the human-centered design approach of testing and refining solutions.

By incorporating these human-centered design elements, the Resilient Together project aims to create climate adaptation and resilience plans that are truly responsive to the needs and experiences of the local community.