A group of Blytheville community leaders traveled Thursday to Helena-West Helena to meet with representatives of Southern Bancorp’s Delta Bridge Project and tour the project’s progress in Phillips County. Also present were members of the board of the Carl B. and Florence E. King Foundation, which plans to contribute to the funding of the project’s efforts in Mississippi County.
The King Foundation funds community betterment programs in Texas, Arkansas and the Delta region, and will be lending financial support to the strategic planning phase of Delta Bridge in Mississippi County, which is slated to kick off in July. Board members met with Southern Bancorp’s Joe Black and MissCo leaders to discuss the demographics and particular merits of the county, and to get an idea of its particular problems and ways that the Delta Bridge Project may be able to address them.
The group also saw a presentation on the success of the project in Phillips County, and toured some of the sites in Helena-West Helena where improvement projects are ongoing or have been completed.