By Chase Miller, EACA President
On Saturday, February 1 the Executive Committee of the East Atlanta Community Association (EACA) gathered for a half-day session to align on priorities for 2025. The team reviewed membership survey data from 2024 and feedback from the community to shape the areas for focus. Based on the day, EACA identified three key focus areas for 2025.
A Vibrant Village – The number one piece of feedback area from the community was the “core” Village. Our community loves that it’s walkable, that it offers great restaurants and bars, and that it serves as a central “heart” where we can come together as a community. The negative points included wish for greater diversity in types of businesses, addressing the empty storefronts, increasing safety at all times of day, and doing more to bring the community to this space. EACA will be focused this year on activating a small taskforce of neighbors dedicated to helping the Village address some of these challenges, in close partnership with EABA.
A Unified Patchwork – We also heard from a lot of people that the “outer neighborhoods” of East Atlanta feel left out. It’s important that all parts of East Atlanta feel a part one unified family, bringing their unique attributes, characteristics, and preferences, but growing together toward the future. To that end, we’ll be undertaking projects this year to ensure we’re activating improvements and addressing the needs of all parts of East Atlanta. We are specifically looking for people to help “represent” areas within Unincorporated Dekalb, the Fayetteville/Flat Shoals Road corridor, and other neighborhoods on the periphery.
Citizen Stewardship – Lastly, we’ll be focused this year on building our team. We believe that real change happens when our neighbors step up to make it happen. So we will be doing a lot to grow our team, our EACA membership, and engage our neighbors and friends to come together and be the change we want to see.
We hope you’ll be a part of our efforts to keep East Atlanta a thriving and vibrant community. If you’d like to help in one of these areas or be a part of the team, please reach out to president@eaca.net.
Many thanks to the East Atlanta Kids Club for hosting our meeting at the Brownwood Recreation Center.
