North Grenville, this center will continue to serve and stand as a reflection of their legacy.

It will be a place for learning, gathering, and progress, just like they would have wanted.

Thank you to everyone who made this possible.

I know the community will enjoy it.

I know I will.

And I am so proud to be staying here today to be able to say that this has been a true collaboration with the community.

We listen to the community.

And now we have a treasure that will live on forever in the history of this city.

And let's cut this ribbon.

How about that?

Let's get it open.

Let's do it.

Today we're at the Match and Market Carnival, a carnival hosted by Neighborhood and Business Services, specifically the Business Development Department.

This carnival is the culmination of a program where students were paired with businesses to increase their social media.

By doing this, this will increase traffic to those businesses and have them be a more efficient business by the use of social media and the internet.

Some of the platforms used were Instagram, Facebook, and next door.

Most businesses saw a at minimum 10% increase on all of these platforms.

Some of the partnerships created here have resulted in full-time opportunities for the students with the businesses.

Some in particular, Straightway Consulting hire their student, and another business is looking to hire theirs.

So the match to market program was really, we thought a good idea for us so we could increase our brand awareness with social media and make sure that people knew about the great services that we provided.

We've learned that social media is pretty powerful.

And you have to be intentional about utilizing that source in business development, and we had an amazing person to help us uh get our social media to a good brand standard.

I met with the owners.

We sat there and figured out what they wanted to accomplish with the social media, what they were looking for, and we kind of figured out what kind of brand thing we were looking for.

And in doing so, we were able to create content itself.

We were able to make a marketing campaign where we have with Straightway Consulting Motivational Mondays, we have polls that we ask and grant uh spotlights.

Malaysia was amazing and she was able to really capture our ideas and put them you know visually, and so we thought that she would be very um valuable to our organization to kind of keep that momentum going around social media and its consistency that we needed to be out there in the social media community.

It was very exciting.

Um, towards the end to be able to speak with the business owner, Miss Bridget and be offered an opportunity to continue doing what we were doing.

Um it gave me a sense of accomplishment to show that what we're doing were working, we were seeing real-time results, and and a lead it was showing that she was getting more leads.

So it was pretty much just like I said, a pat on the bag and like a little exciting to know that what I was doing was able to help and the things that I learned throughout the program and that school was able to help us as well.

On behalf of everyone behind uh the 50 and 10 Affordable Housing Initiative, and there are a lot of us, uh I want to warmly welcome you to this groundbreaking celebration.

Uh, this isn't just the start of a project, it is the continued realization of a promise to uplift, to build together, and to believe in what's possible when vision meets action.

Today marks a very special moment for the city of Greenville.

As we break ground on the 50 and 10 Affordable Housing Initiative, we're not just moving soil, we're moving forward with a commitment to construct 50 new houses in the next 10 years.

This initiative is about more than building homes.

It's about building hope, opportunity, and a stronger future for our families here in West Grenville.

Each home represents stability, a place to dream, and the foundation for generations to come.

It's a promise to families and a reminder of what we can purposely do when we make a difference together.

Projects like this open the door for families like that to have somewhere to stay.

And I want to remind everyone here that if we put our foot to the plow and meet that with heart and love, we can continue to meet that need.

You don't mind turning around and looking at over 50 students from Pitt Community College building.

These students are the ones that are building with a purpose now.

Not just building a home to be auctioned off to the highest bidder, but to actually building a home with a purpose, knowing that they can drive by one day, look at that house and say, I helped build that for somebody that truly needed a home.

Let's break ground with purpose with hope and with gratitude for what this means for our community.

Streets Cop.

This is an afternoon that we uh have set aside.

We have been doing this for the last several years to come together as a city within our police department, our COVID enforcement department, come together with ECU and the students, student uh government association, as well as uh leadership of the ECU and as well as residents of the Truna neighborhood to come together to welcome our students back to ECU.

We take the time to walk around the neighborhood.

We provide some information that may be helpful to them, uh, information about uh landlord and tenants' rights, as well about how to be a good neighbor.

That's really what it's all about.

We want to make sure that uh we are welcome our students, make sure they feel comfortable and safe within their community, know that there's individuals out there to help them in times of need, whether it be from private citizens or city staff, and just make sure that they get started off to a new uh a great school year.

During times of extreme cold temperatures, electric usage is high.

To help conserve energy during really cold times, these three things can make the biggest impact.

One, lower your thermostat three to five degrees.

It may be a little bit chillier in your home or business, but heat is one of the biggest energy consumers.

It will also help your electric bill.

Two, limit or avoid charging your electric vehicle during extreme temperatures.

Three, limit the use of large appliances like the oven or clothes dryer during the coldest parts of the day if you can help it.

Plan accordingly, and you can help lower electric usage during the coldest days of winter.