For more than 30 years, Denita Strickland has lived and worked in Orchard Knob. This week, the small business owner and passionate community advocate was one of several neighborhood residents who unveiled the new virtual community resource hub. 

“This has truly been a labor of love and now it’s time to see what other neighbors will do to help it grow and remain the tool we built it to be,” she said, speaking to the community on the evening of the launch. 

Orchard Knob is a small community of about 1,000 residents within its footprint. But with an aging population and many residents living in historic homes, the community faces challenges with housing, as well as access to healthcare and other necessities. The online hub offers XYZ 

The resource hub is part of a larger, ongoing project: The TVA Connected Communities Pilot Program awarded funding to the Orchard Knob Collaborative in 2022. Members of the Collaborative, which was formed in 2019 by now-Councilwoman Marvene Noel, include the Orchard Knob Neighborhood Watch Association, Parkridge Medical Systems, Habitat for Humanity, and The Enterprise Center. 

Partners have worked together to improve health outcomes and quality of life for residents through home repairs, digital literacy courses providing no-cost devices to participants, exercise classes, and telehealth resources. These efforts have all been driven by the priorities of the residents who call the community home — and the new virtual resource hub is no exception.

(You can learn more about the new hub’s open source components and lessons learned through the project here.) 

“The Orchard Knob Community Resource Hub is a great repository of all of the offerings available to the Historic Orchard Knob and the larger community,” said Parkridge Chief Operating Officer Whitney Snardon, a founding member of the Collaborative. “The launch of this site is a key event in the history of the Orchard Knob Collaborative.”

Many residents will tell you, if asked, that Orchard Knob, like many other communities across Chattanooga, is facing challenging changes and rapid growth that often doesn’t consider the needs of existing legacy residents. But connectivity — both to each other and the broader resources available across the community — is key to navigating the changes.

For Dylan Rivera, an Orchard Knob resident and representative for the City of Chattanooga, said Orchard Knob is a community where residents support each other access is key to ensuring the neighborhood continues to be a welcoming space to all. 

“I am unbelievably grateful, as a public servant and resident of Historic Orchard Knob, to everyone who played a part in getting the new website launched,” he said. “Historic Orchard Knob is the light on the hill; this new platform helps us continue to set the standard for what it means to be a neighborhood built on connection and support for one another.”

Have questions? You can reach out to Connected Communities Project Manager Katherlyn Geter at katherlyn@theenterprisectr.org.