Community Health And Empowerment Through Education And Research (CHEER)

CHEER's mission is to provide people with the knowledge and ability to create healthy, thriving communities. CHEER is a community-driven process for identifying community vision and goals, and for gathering the information and resources needed to measure and fulfill them. CHEER's vision is to create safe and inclusive communities that produce equal opportunities for individual growth and fulfillment. These communities will value diversity, encourage personal social interactions, and offer a sense of common identity.

CHEER facilitates a process of identifying community visions, goals, and resources in Takoma Park and the Long Branch neighborhoods of Silver Spring, MD, and highlights traditionally underrepresented and undeserved voices in the process. CHEER's work focuses on the areas of health, housing, civic engagement, and youth development. Some of our programs and activities include creating the Takoma Park Youth Collaborative which provides work readiness and entrepreneurship training for disadvantaged teens, providing community civic engagement and advocacy activities (such as partnering with local tenant and neighborhood associations to hold candidate forums in communities of limited means), creating a civic engagement curriculum, creating CHEER Community Association to support local renters and condo owners, providing leadership development and empowerment opportunities for local parents and community members, and providing various health programs for immigrants and residents in communities of limited means (including Affordable Care Act enrollment, healthy eating programs, breast health support, and diabetes wellness programs).