09-07-2025
Local residents reimagine their communities
ASHTABULA — The Northeast Ohio Black Health Coalition hosted a Reimagining Communities event Tuesday at the YMCA of Ashtabula County.
The event brought various community members together to discuss how to work within their communities to deal with issues related to climate change and crisis.
'This is a way for us to talk with the community about climate change and about resilience,' NEOBHC Executive Director Yvonka Hall said. 'Basically, we want to know what kind of pieces have been put in place for the community in times of crisis. So, what are some of the things that are going on in their communities that they can tell us about?'
Hall said the NEOBHC is looking for what kinds of issues communities are dealing with more often because of climate change, like flooding, and where people go in times of crisis, like their local church or community center.
'For us, the bigger part of this work is marking sure we have this whole thing around community involvement and engagement,' she said.
NEOBHC was also interested in hearing about other environmental issues, like complications from air pollution, that are affecting communities of concern.
'It can be Black communities. It can be white communities. It can be Hispanic and Latino communities,' she said. 'It is community members that are living in areas that have been destabilized because of the industries that are there.'
Attendees heard presentations from the Ohio State University's Center for Health Outcomes and Police Evaluation Studies.
'We do this whole educational piece, because that's part of these conversations is the education,' Hall said. 'The other part is for them to educate us.'
Many local community leaders were at the event, including from local churches and the local chapter of the NAACP. NEOBHC gave out air purifiers to attendees toward the end of the event.
The Reimagining Communities event is the third of several the organization is hosting in Northeast Ohio, with events recently happening in Lake and Cuyahoga counties.
NEOBHC Finance Director Zina Hempstead said the project is is being funded through a $1.3 million Climate Resilience Regional Challenge Grant from the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, which runs from October 2024 to September 2027.
Hall said information from the events will be compiled into a report the organization hopes to have out in early 2026.
The NEOBHC is no stranger to county events, hosting one about asthma last year.
'In Northeast Ohio over these last few years, we've had a higher incidence of asthma, particularly in young children,' Hall said. 'We have had a number of young children who have died from asthma attacks.'
Many of those children come from poorer and nonwhite communities, Hall said.
'African American children are about 14 times more likely to die from an asthma-related incident than their white counterparts,' she said.
Hall has dedicated much of her life to community outreach, she said.
'I started off doing HIV work 31 years ago,' she said. 'I've also done harm reduction around syringe exchange and harm reduction programs.'
