New Group Helping To Cultivate Cookeville

A new group trying to get more Cookeville residents involved in the community, and build connection.

Cultivating Cookeville designed to expose Cookeville residents to local leadership, businesses, and events. Brittany Bowers is Assistant Executive Director of IMPACT Leadership.

“People are desperately seeking community and friendship with their neighbors right now and we wanted a way to facilitate that for them,” Bowers said. “And we also want them to benefit local businesses by introducing people who might not be in the loop about things going on in the downtown west or even around Cookeville.”

Bowers said Cultivating Cookeville was designed to be more flexible and reach demographics that IMPACT Leadership’s training usually cannot.

“Last summer, I was going around to bars and restaurants talking to servers and people who don’t have traditional nine-to-five schedules to see what was impeding them from getting involved in Cookeville,” Bowers said. “And we realize that the biggest thing was time and lack of childcare and the schedules of our events.”

Cultivating Cookeville is a joint program between IMPACT Leadership and Hip Cookeville. A recent social provided karaoke, networking, and the opportunity to announce upcoming community projects and services.

“It all started as a way to make our leadership program more accessible,” Bowers said. “We noticed the lack of accessibility to some of our leadership programs and wanted to make some of that content available to people who might not have the time or, you know, space in their schedule for a full-time leadership program. So, we started Cultivating Cookeville as a way to just get connected to neighbors in the community.”

Quarterly reception events are held at the downtown Plenty Downtown Bookshop.