Collaboratory reps discuss EPA grant at GPICA meeting
Tessa LeSage, chief impact officer of Collaboratory, and her partner, John Romaine, community resilience strategist for the foundation, were invited to the April 1 meeting of the Greater Pine Island Civic Association to share possible future opportunities there could be for supporting resiliency on Pine Island.
Collaboratory is working with Lee County to use a $19 million grant from the EPA to strengthen the county’s disaster preparedness by creating resiliency hubs at Collaboratory, Franklin Park Elementary, the IMAG History and Science Center and Pine Manor Community Center.
LeSage began by explaining Collaboratory’s role, which is helping the community give back to the community.
“We also do work with non-profit organizations to help build their capacity, to help apply for grants together, to find ways for us to work together, where problems require more than one organization to be able to actually make a difference,” LeSage said.
She went on to explain that, as a neutral, third-party organization, Collaboratory has the opportunity to bring organizations together who have problems they cannot solve on their own. Resilience, she said, is one of those issues which cannot be solved alone or easily.
“I would encourage you to look at Collaboratory, and if you are interested to learn more, we are happy to follow up with you,” LeSage said.
She then explained that the plan she was referencing began in February 2023, just a few months after Hurricane Ian. The county, she said, wanted to work on developing a plan that would go above and beyond the HUD money that was coming in. This, she said, would allow for the seeking of additional funding on a much longer term.
“Because we’re a community foundation, we have that neutral, third-party convening power that a lot of organizations don’t have. We don’t really have a dog in the fight, except that we want our community and region to be a better place and we want to ensure that our communities are thriving,” LeSage said.
The plan can be accessed, she said, on ResilientLee.com. It was adopted by the Board of County Commissioners in March 2024, she said. Various municipal governments adopted parts of the plan that were applicable to them. It was built together with all the elected bodies and represented in Lee County, she said. One of the things that makes this plan different from other plans is that it allows for other entities to take the lead on implementing strategies.
“Government cannot solve all of our problems and most of the time we don’t want government to solve all of our problems… some problems cannot be solved by a single entity,” LeSage said.
One of the most popular initiatives which arose from the plan, she said, is resilience hubs. She said this is not an idea invented by Collaboratory, but exists across the country.
“We’re taking on this idea of, how do we take resilience hubs and imbed them in the community in a more formalized way, but keeping it really grassroots and community based. The formal part comes with making sure they’re ready to be activated in a disaster event, but the informal part is how we get people to be using them on a regular basis,” LeSage said.
Resilience hubs, she said, are community serving facilities that are enhanced to support residents and to coordinate resource distribution and services before during and after a natural hazard event and maybe after a non-natural hazard event, she said.
Coordinators, she said, will be needed to get the right things to the right places at the right times. They will have a direct connect to the community, with public safety staff to be ready to figure out how to report back what is needed and what is not needed and to be more efficient at getting those things out there, she said.
Romaine explained to the GPICA members that recovery belongs to the community and is not the government’s recovery. He talked about how Collaboratory talked about doing a pilot of resilience hubs including, Franklin Park Elementary School, IMAG and Pine Manor.
“The ultimate goal is-looking at Lee County-is that we build this network across the entire county,” Romaine said.
To watch this meeting in its entirety, visit the Greater Pine Island Civic Association Facebook page.
To reach PAULETTE LeBLANC / pleblanc@breezenewspapers.com, please email