Urban League opens 'community empowerment center' in Fort Lauderdale
theGRIO REPORT - Black residents of Fort Lauderdale's historic Sistrunk district will have new opportunities, while seeing their neighborhood get a facelift...
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Black residents of Fort Lauderdale’s historic Sistrunk district will have new opportunities, while seeing their neighborhood get a facelift.
The Urban League of Broward County celebrated the grand opening of a state-of-the-art Community Empowerment Center on April 27th, adding to the city’s commercial landscape, which has been targeted for broad redevelopment.
The $7 million, 28,000 square foot facility, part of a “campus” that includes the already existing African-American Research Library and Cultural Center, will boast job training, health screenings, foreclosure prevention programs and other services. The center was built in cooperation with local businesses, and with JM Family Enterprises, a local charitable organization.
Dr. Germaine Smith-Baugh, president and CEO of the Broward Urban League, told theGrio the center is part of a long term plan to demonstrate to the local community, which has been hit hard by economic stagnation over the last decades, that “people want to invest in this area.”
WATCH: Broward Urban League’s new center brings hope, programs to black Fort Lauderdale:
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