This afternoon, Jeannie Wilson and her friends and neighbors in Akron’s Cascade Village will gather to celebrate their new neighborhood.

New is a relative term. For generations, the neighborhood was a dilapidated housing project considered one of the most troubled areas in the city. Its rebirth began in 2006, when 250 new homes, complete with front porches and tree-lined streets, were built on the site.

The neighborhood was physically transformed. But what about the residents?

The Community Builders, which has 50 years of experience in affordable housing, knew that the key to the neighborhood’s success was the people who lived there, not just the bricks and mortar.

The staff at Cascade Village started to invite residents to coffee hours, knitting circles and salsa classes – as a way to build the personal relationships and networks that strengthen communities. Today, Knight Foundation is enhancing this resident-led effort, with $1.7 million in support to help residents come together to build a community as welcoming and engaging as its new homes.

The  program will provide career and financial coaching, improve school and youth programming and bring people together so that neighbors can help each other solve problems. The key here: it’s resident-led. Neighbors will rely on each other come up with their own solutions to problems. They aren’t turning to outside experts.

As Knight Foundation Vice President Paula Ellis told the Akron Beacon Journal:

”We are committed to helping unlock all of the power that people have and involve people in creating their own solutions. The idea is that you have a more resilient community if there are more people creating solutions.”

The support is part of Knight Foundation’s efforts to strengthen communities by engaging them in issues critical to their future.

Jeannie Wilson, a community organizer who lives in Cascade Village with her son, is excited by what’s to come.

“When I heard about this program, I got really excited,” Wilson said. I couldn’t help but think that my neighborhood would be like the one I grew up in – where everybody knew each other, and looked out for each other. You didn’t have to go outside for help.”