Residents of Gurdon were encouraged to “dream big” by those coordinating the Clark County strategic planning process during a town hall meeting at Gurdon City Hall on Tuesday, Dec. 12.

Delta Southern Bank, a member bank of Southern Bancorp, has received an increasing amount of ink around here because of its generous investments in the resuscitation of Drew, but neither journalists nor members of the general public seem to ‘get’ how big a story this is.

ARHealthNet, a new program designed to help small businesses offer health insurance to their employees, will be available effective Jan. 1. It will be administered by NovaSys Health and sold by local insurance agents.

The E. C. Morris Foundation announced that the National Parks Service awarded them $300,000 to help restore Centennial Baptist Church in downtown Helena-West Helena. The award is one of 42 national awards through the Save America’s Treasures program, a public-private partnership established in 1996 to preserve and protect buildings and collections that have significance to American history.

“Southern Bancorp, or ‘Southern’, is a bank holding company and development organization in Arkansas. We use capital and credit in distressed rural areas to create new investment patterns not just in business, but in training, housing, and health.

How can a non-profit organization durably improve the lives of low-income, low-skilled citizens? This question took on new urgency in the 1990s, when the national outlook on public welfare shifted. Penny Penrose, then the executive director of Southern Good Faith Fund serving Southeastern Arkansas, recognized that systemic changes in the Clinton administration’s ‘welfare reforms’ demanded a systemic response.

Southern Financial Partners presented the Delta Bridge Project at the Northwest Area Foundation’s Grassroots and Groundwork 2006 Conference in St. Paul, Minnesota, this past September. It was one of nineteen projects presented at the national conference that highlighted what communities are doing to get out and stay out of poverty.

FAMILIES COUNT celebrates Southern Good Faith Fund, one of four organizations recognized in 2007 for helping America’s most vulnerable children have what they need most: strong, capable and economically successful families.

In the rural communities of the Arkansas-Mississippi Delta, low income parents have a tough time creating the life they want for their families.

Our kindest thanks go out to you from this community for your efforts in helping us revitalize our city. A lot has happened in the town of Drew because of these efforts.

A recent study by the Carsey Institute found that among U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, those who are from rural America are dying at a higher rate than those soldiers who are from cities and suburbs. According to U.S. Department of Defense records, rural youth enlist in the military at a higher rate than urban and suburban youth and in all but eight states, soldiers from rural areas…