What are the assets in my community?

As a resident of this neighborhood you have been concerned about your community’s access to needed assets (positive places and programs that make your community a safe, healthy, and good place to live). You want to better understand and document the resources that are available in the community and whether or not you would actually consider these places assets. You will use this information to discusswith other community members in your organization what you can do to help make these places assets. For this activity, identify what resources are available in the neighborhood (such as stores, restaurants, health care centers, etc.) and whether or not you would consider these places assets to the community.

For each place on your worksheet, write the number on the map below.

Knowledge for Equity Asset Mapping Workshop

Mapping Instructions

Everyone

Go on a community walk with one or two other people. Use your Asset Mapping worksheet to mark down assets that you find on your walk. Be sure to name the asset, provide a location and then provide a grade of the asset you marked down. When you return, we will join groups to either do online or flat mapping.

Google Map

We have created a Google Map of Silver Spring. You have a small hard copy of this map for your walk.

  1. Provide us with your email address and we will invite you to the Google map.
  2. Once you receive your Google map invitation and open the map, click the edit button.
  3. To Add a Point:
  4. On the map itself you will see a set of icons near the top left corner. Click and drag the box with the balloon to the location where you would like to indicate a point. A Menu box will pop up and you can add a Title and a Description of your location. Also in this box, there are options to provide a link to a website or picture that illustrates that site. You can copy and paste or link to the site. Use the Rich Text Tab to add these links.
  5. In the Title Section, put the letter grade of the asset followed by the name of the asset. For example, for the Whole Food store which you give a B rating, the title of the point would read: “B-Whole Foods”
  6. When you edit the point, you have the option of changing the Icon used for the point. You change the icon only within the edit mode of each point by double clicking the bubble (or current icon). A menu of icons will pop up. Please choose the bubble icon of the color that coincides with the asset Category.
  7. Once you have added all of your points, press Done!

Flat Map

  1. Each person/small group gets a set of stickers that correspond with the assets category.
  2. Each person/small group will place a sticker on the map where they found each Asset. Please use the sticker color that corresponds to the asset category on your worksheet.
  3. In each sticker, please write the grade that you gave to that asset.

Dialogue Questions for Post Mapping Activity

  1. What locations did you map in the community?
  2. Which places are considered assets?
  3. What did you list, but gave a poor grade? How could this become an asset to the community?
  4. What is missing in the community?
  5. Given what we have learned, what might be some next steps?