SB 30 Episode 41: Empowering Communities with Mojo of Midtown 2020 Recipient Emily Trenholm

StoryBoard 30

“I was 40 years old. I wasn’t the world’s oldest intern, I was the intern that never left.”

That’s Emily Trenholm, one of 2020's Mojo of Midtown Award recipients, talking about her start with the Community Development Council back in 2000, when the organization was just forming.

“Community development corporations (CDCs) are nonprofits that are engines of neighborhood revitalization,” said Emily. “They work on affordable housing development, job programs and workforce development and commercial revitalization, all focused on the physical and economic improvement of a particular geography, or neighborhood. Here in Memphis you’ll seen them in Orange Mound, Klondike-Smokey City, Frayser, Whitehaven. In the ’90s a lot of them got together informally to talk about shared concerns, and then in 1999 they decided to form a local association to more formally and more intentionally advocate on behalf of their shared interests organizationally and from a policy perspective.”

Join host Mark Fleischer as he talks to Emily Trenholm about receiving her Mojo award, about the evolution of Memphis CDCs over the last 20 years, and about her role in bringing neighborhood and community news to readers through High Ground News.