About
Teresa Myers Ervin
Mayor Teresa Myers Ervin, championing a holistic approach to address the social needs of the community, acknowledges the City of Florence has so many organizations that do so many good things for the citizens of Florence, S.C., when the government is lacking resources or the manpower to help. She set out to register success that would come about if their interconnectedness were truly representative of the whole. Her answer was the Mayor’s Coalition for Humanity, a four-pronged drive that would display compassion for the state of being human in the struggle and willingness to help.
Prong #1
Description:
The first prong of the drive promotes a clearinghouse for all organizations to be able to work together to address specific social needs in the City of Florence through the following initiatives: the Mayor’s Youth Initiative; Mayor’s Citizens Roundtable; Community Esthetic Ad Hoc Committee; Resilience and Sustainability Advisory Committee, and Cultural Arts Committee, all of which are operational.
Specifically, Mayor Myers Ervin’s Mayor’s Youth Initiative (MYI) will be a strategic partnership aimed at promoting the health, well-being, and success of the youth of Florence, S.C., through utilizing local service providers, community leaders, and education experts to coordinate and provide services for city of Florence’s youth and their families.
Working with the mayor is an 18-member committee, co-chaired by Dr. Ronald Murphy of Francis Marion University and Beverly Woods of Florence School District 1, and is comprised of the 16 partnering organizations, covering services from education to finances.
Prong #2
Description:
The second prong of the Mayor’s Coalition for Humanity is community and downtown development. The mayor believes establishing uniform investment in communities and the downtown, based on fostering and advancing public and private partnerships, is most important to making sure all sides of the city are being uniformly developed.
Prong #3
Description:
The drive’s third prong is green initiatives. Mayor Myers Ervin is dedicated to expanding current green initiatives, which will ultimately improve the health and wellness of Florence, S.C. citizens, giving citizens a clean and safe environment and a strong workforce. The Resilience and Sustainability Advisory Committee works closely with this initiative.
Prong #4
Description:
Jobs, careers, and opportunity is the fourth prong. Her focus is on developing new job sources which will produce business and employment opportunity that will allow citizens of the city of Florence to make a living wage to have a good quality of life. Building strong relationships to develop private public partnerships to retool the workforce, expand opportunities, and facilitate industry development is most important, especially due to limited land space and the economic recovery from COVID-19. Achievement is possible by working closely with the Florence County Economic Development Partnership.
Mayor Myers Ervin truly believes if all City of Florence residents are committed to being very deliberate about communication and oneness to move the needle of progress through collaboration of institutions, organizations, and citizens working jointly, together we can continue MOVING FLORENCE FORWARD.
