SERA’s ground break­ing twelve week health and fit­ness cel­e­bra­tion to reduce obe­sity and car­dio vas­cu­lar dis­ease. Click here to see WRAL’s video.

SERA, Inc. has devel­oped an endur­ing part­ner­ship with AARP her in North Car­olina.  AARP NC is com­mit­ted to address­ing the multi-cultrual issues that are emerg­ing in our com­mu­ni­ties as we age.

Your are Invited for Lunch

A new AARP sur­vey of North Carolina’s African Amer­i­cans age 50 or older reflects an older pop­u­la­tion with bright dreams of trav­el­ing and spend­ing time on leisure pur­suits in retire­ment, but con­cerns over stay­ing healthy, receiv­ing Social Secu­rity when they need it, and hav­ing enough health insur­ance cov­er­age cast a shadow over those dreams.  Only around one quar­ter of fewer of those sur­veyed feel they have the resources they need to address a wide range of concerns.

In addi­tion to AARP’s statewide sur­vey of African Amer­i­cans, our North Car­olina Direc­tor of Mul­ti­cul­tural Out­reach, Debra Tyler-Horton, has met with over 200 African Amer­i­cans 50+ in Wake County alone to ask, “when you tell the story about your com­mu­nity what are you most proud of?”  “What has been your con­tri­bu­tion?”  When dream­ing the future, there are many ser­vices and pro­grams avail­able to us as we age, “what is miss­ing for you in your community?”

You are cor­dially invited to join AARP for lunch to learn more about the sur­vey results and how AARP can help.  You will have an oppor­tu­nity to talk with experts in the field of AARP’s Advo­cacy, Care­giv­ing, Edu­ca­tion, Con­sumer Fraud Edu­ca­tion, Cre­ate the Good, Dri­vers Safety Pro­gram, Grand­par­ent Infor­ma­tion, Tax Aide and our Mul­ti­cul­tural Out­reach Ini­tia­tive.  You may also want to take this oppor­tu­nity to sign-up as an AARP Vol­un­teer!  Take this time to do some­thing good for yourself!

Sat­ur­day, March 26, 2011
711 Hills­bor­ough Street, Raleigh
11:00 am – 1:00 pm

The Com­mu­nity Has Asked for Help

When SERA, Inc. began hold­ing its Com­mu­nity Devel­op­ment Sum­mits in Jan­u­ary through April of 2010, much of what we heard were pleas from local south­east Raleigh res­i­dents  (pri­mar­ily women) inform­ing us that they wanted to learn how to save and spend their income respon­si­bly.  As a result, our “Women and Money” Series was born.

Facil­i­ta­tors

Dur­ing the ses­sions, women are asked to share their finan­cial inter­ests or money con­cerns.  The struc­ture of the ses­sions is one where women share their thoughts and trep­i­da­tions, and the highly skilled facil­i­ta­tors pro­vide direc­tion and guid­ance on money man­age­ment, sav­ings, insur­ance, tax prepa­ra­tion, invest­ments, mort­gage and credit man­age­ment, and wealth build­ing from the ground up.  SERA, Inc. is using Finan­cial Exec­u­tives from a vari­ety of firms and banks who are trained and licensed in finan­cial man­age­ment. They are experts in the field of build­ing wealth and cre­ative strate­gies around finan­cial management.

Monthly Ses­sions Teach Goal Setting

Approx­i­mately 20 women attend each month and through these ses­sions  are able to learn how to max­i­mize the income they cur­rently have and learn how to build wealth within the scope of their cur­rent finan­cial sit­u­a­tion.  We believe part of enhanc­ing the qual­ity of life for SER res­i­dents is help­ing those res­i­dents to under­stand the power of the “purse” and how each cent earned and each cent spent can impact an indi­vid­ual and fam­ily for years to come.  We now have a wait­ing list for SER women who are eager and wait­ing to par­tic­i­pate in these ses­sions on an ongo­ing basis.

Because SERA, Inc. believes that an enhanced qual­ity of life is in large part depen­dent upon a qual­ity edu­ca­tion for all chil­dren, SERA, Inc. is com­mit­ted to doing what we can to part­ner with South­east Raleigh com­mu­ni­ties who are inter­ested in ensur­ing their chil­dren have equi­table and qual­ity access to the best edu­ca­tional expe­ri­ence pos­si­ble in Wake County.  With that in mind, SERA, Inc. has joined the strong coali­tion of “Great Schools of Wake” an orga­ni­za­tion that believes “…all chil­dren in Wake County, regard­less of income, race, eth­nic­ity, or res­i­dence, should receive the high­est qual­ity edu­ca­tion pos­si­ble.”  Their mis­sion is to pro­vide accu­rate infor­ma­tion to edu­cate the pub­lic about pol­icy ini­tia­tives that would impact the qual­ity of edu­ca­tion, to fos­ter well-informed dis­cus­sions about crit­i­cal edu­ca­tion issues, and to advo­cate for poli­cies that improve pub­lic edu­ca­tion in Wake County.  Their work in Wake County on both a grass roots pol­icy level and out­reach level is note­wor­thy and SERA, Inc. is proud to be work­ing closely with them in an effort to find solu­tions and best prac­tices around qual­ity choices in edu­ca­tion for Wake County children.

SERA, Inc. has become actively involved with the Greater Raleigh Cham­ber of Com­merce who believes that address­ing Wake County’s growth with a pre­dictable and com­pre­hen­sive school assign­ment plan is crit­i­cal to the aca­d­e­mic suc­cess of our chil­dren and the sus­tain­abil­ity of our local econ­omy.  SERA, Inc. par­tic­i­pates in reg­u­lar dis­cus­sions with the Cham­ber and Wake Edu­ca­tion Part­ner­ship to de-mystify, clar­ify and trans­late the pro­posed plans cur­rently being con­sid­ered as options for Wake County school-aged chil­dren, so that par­ents will be able to make choices in the best inter­est of their children.

SERA, Inc. is work­ing with these enti­ties to review pro­posed edu­ca­tion choice plans cur­rently being pro­posed, as well as serv­ing as advo­cates for both chil­dren and par­ents’ edu­ca­tional inter­ests within South­east Raleigh.  SERA, Inc. has begun inter­fac­ing with school board offi­cials, school admin­is­tra­tors, teach­ers and par­ents work­ing to make sure that chil­dren and their par­ents have the resources and can make the informed choices nec­es­sary for our youth to become high achiev­ers and ulti­mately have access through edu­ca­tion to the Amer­i­can Dream they are enti­tled to.

SERA, Inc. youth are not just ambas­sadors of the­ory or ideas — they are advo­cates for Action and Move­ment.  They are entre­pre­neurs, with expec­ta­tions for their future, they are stu­dents who have devel­oped a strong desire to excel aca­d­e­m­i­cally and per­son­ally, they are com­mu­nity mem­bers who believe that every action they make on behalf of their com­mu­nity will increase the capac­ity of their envi­ron­ment, and the peo­ple who live around and inter­act with them reg­u­larly. THEY ARELEADERS BY DEFINITION… AND THEY ACTIVELY LEAD EVERY DAY.

It is in that vein that SERA, Inc. is proud to present, our first annual SERA, Inc. Youth Ambas­sador Civic Engage­ment Din­ner.  Our youth lead­er­ship team will be explor­ing some of the chal­lenges that the youth in South­east Raleigh and Wake County face as it relates to edu­ca­tion, get­ting out to vote, employ­ment, pub­lic pol­icy and self-esteem. We will also view the film “With All Delib­er­ate Speed” and our youth will share their strate­gic solu­tions to com­mu­nity issues and teach atten­dees (youth and adults) how to become activists for change within their com­mu­ni­ties.   SERA, Inc. Youth Ambas­sadors believe “We CAN change the qual­ity of our lives by sim­ply mak­ing the changes that need to be made.  Mak­ing those changes require delib­er­ate action plans which envi­sion bold solu­tions, and col­lab­o­ra­tive engage­ment with other com­mu­nity and busi­ness resources”.  Come join us for a hearty din­ner and learn how these youth facil­i­tate social jus­tice and com­mu­nity change!  You will be amazed at what they have to say. Par­ents, adults, com­mu­nity allies as well as youth are welcome.

DATE:  Thurs­day May 5, 2011
LOCATION:   Mar­bles Museum, (Zan­z­abar Room A), 201 East Har­gett Street, Raleigh, NC
TIME:  6:00pm — 8:30pm
COST:  $10.00 (includes full meal and movie)