Mission and Objectives of AVI Our Three Legged Stool Information Updates Planned Housing Project Planned Town Center -- New! Valley Trails Parks and Greenways Valleytown Cultural Arts Center Smart Growth Home Town of Andrews Andrews Chamber of Commerce One Dozen Who Care, Inc.		Mission and Objectives Our mission is to create a public-private collaborative process that builds on trusting relationships and friendships between business interests and the entire community. AVI grows personal networks that explore economic opportunities that anticipate and meet the needs of the community. Our goals are to help the people of the community to clearly understand the situation and determine what to do about it; to guide our local rural community into the emerging global marketplace, exploring its opportunities, but retaining its character and heritage. How did we start? We asked our friends to: Commit to the process by putting their personal credibility on the line. Risk beyond their comfort zone to bring others into the process. Ask skeptics to withhold their judgment and give the collaborative process a chance to work. Help to build a team to design and launch the process. The initial investment that AVI was looking for from its friends was not money but their time, their expertise, and especially, their contacts. We then asked our friends to work with us to: Brainstorm ideas without creating agendas. Put facts on the table about our local situation. Examine our assumptions and beginning ideas. Determine what we can learn from the success and failures of other places similar to ours – benchmarking not copying. With our mission and goals in place and with a process to follow, the AVI team proceeded with community input to formulate the following objectives. Reporting the progress in the pursuit of implementing these objectives is the reason for this publication. Objectives for Immediate Action: To promote and implement trails, parks and greenways programs. To promote and implement Smart Growth principles for community development through design criteria leading to a town master plan. To promote the future growth of the town by identifying and justifying areas for annexation. To create a re-vitalization program for the commercial downtown district in cooperation with the Chamber of Commerce and the Downtown Business Association. To promote and help facilitate the development of the Andrews Airport. To promote civic, cultural and historic facilities especially the Valleytown Cultural Arts and Historic Center and the Visitors Welcome and Heritage Trails Interpretive Center. To promote and help facilitate a Safe Haven Initiative that will involve the participation and cooperation of town government, the civic and educational communities and private business. To work with all Valley River Valley communities and Cherokee County to address affordable and work force housing issues. To research and address any and all possible solutions to maintaining our rural environment and open space by preserving farming, creating equestrian stables or ranches, nature and/or wildlife preserves. To assist the Town Council in procuring and revitalizing the former hospital complex into a municipal resource center. To assist in creating awareness of local workforce educational and work opportunities in county-wide industries.