Member Spotlights | Welcoming America

Stories of Impact

Welcoming communities are being built right now all across the U.S. We know communities are stronger when everyone can reach their fullest potential and contribute to our economy and culture. We see this reflected in simple developments that greatly improve our communities, like an increase of PTA membership, more volunteers at a community center, or new businesses opening on Main Street. No matter where a community is on its journey, Welcoming America helps it actualize a future of shared prosperity for all.

Here are some stories of what we're helping fuel around the country.

Member Spotlight: Dayton, OH

Welcoming efforts in Dayton have included a focus on receiving communities engagement. In one example, Dayton Public Schools established a Welcoming Center to help immigrant children with academic performance and socialization. Programming includes individualized mentoring and tutoring with community volunteers. It is a reciprocal relationship, for the students enrich the lives of the mentors as much as the mentors help the students.

Since the creation of the Welcome Dayton Plan, Dayton has seen revitalized neighborhoods and business corridors, along with a significant increase in the number of immigrants settling in the city, which has helped to offset over 20 years of rapid population decline; now, local population and tax revenue decline has all but halted. 

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Member Spotlight: Nebraska is Home

For over seven years, Welcoming America’s model and local partners have helped Nebraska’s rural communities value and engage new residents and their local contributions. The state’s foreign-born population has grown by nearly 60 percent from 2000-2013 – double the national average – and Latino purchasing power there was more than $3.3 billion in 2010.

Because of the dedication of these communities and Welcoming America member Nebraska Appleseed's Nebraska Is Home program, welcoming efforts are thriving in places like Crete, Schuyler, and other places around the state.

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Member Spotlight: Nashville, TN & Welcoming Tennessee

Nashville is a city that made a decision to embrace New Americans and invest in their community as a vibrant, international hub. The results are music to many people’s ears. Between 2006 and 2009, Nashville’s climate for immigrants was transformed from a particularly toxic one to one that embraces immigrants, and the city and its residents have reaped the economic benefits. A leading force in this transformation was Welcoming Tennessee, a project of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) and the inspiration for all subsequent welcoming initiatives and Welcoming America.

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Member Spotlight: Philadelphia, PA

Philadelphia is a leader in attracting, retaining, and including immigrants, and has shown the positive economic and social impacts of being a welcoming city. Immigrants have significantly contributed to the reversal of a 60-year population decline, and since 2000 are responsible for 96 percent of small business growth and 75 percent of workforce growth.

Philadelphia is just one of the cities in our growing Welcoming Economies Global Network that has recognized the value of immigrants and launched efforts to welcome and support them.

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Member Spotlight: Columbus, OH

After enduring years of instability and eventually fleeing to Thailand, Bounthanh Phommasathit and her family, including two toddler sons, were finally resettled in Columbus, Ohio, in 1979.

The City of Columbus is a Welcoming America member, part of a growing network of municipalities and nonprofits across the United States that recognize the important ways that new Americans make communities stronger economically, socially, and culturally.

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Welcome to Shelbyville

Watch a trailer for a PBS documentary about Welcoming Tennessee, a campaign working to unite a community dealing with rapid demographic change - and which became the model for all subsequent Welcoming America campaigns.

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