We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Rain Eatmon. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Rain below.

Rain, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

Hello! My name is Ebony Rain Eatmon, but I usually refer to myself as Rain. (No harm if you call me Ebony, though.) My story begins when I graduated from TSU in 2017. I finally finished my undergraduate degree in music, and I felt this extreme desire to give back to my community. From the time I was 8 years old, my mother and my family provided every opportunity for me to expand my musical background; which paved the way for me to perform all across the city of Houston and with Theater Under The Stars. However, I realized that not everyone in my community was blessed with such a supportive network to go outside of the neighborhood. So, I made it my mission to provide piano and fine arts lessons in the neighborhood, so everyone can have access to the arts. Unfortunately, the demand for piano lessons was not high, but I continued to insert myself into community initiatives. I took the time to learn who the leaders were in the acres homes community, and I tried to support initiatives that aligned with mine. In 2018, I officially signed up to be a part of the Acres Homes Complete Communities Initiative and I launched the first Garden City Music Festival. Once I signed up for the Complete Communities Initiative, From there, I connected with even more partners in and out of Acres Homes, and I soon developed a better understanding of the community needed and desired. After the second Garden City Music Festival in 2019, my musical advocacy took a back seat, and I was offered the opportunity to work directly with State Representative Jarvis Johnson. While in his office, I learned a great deal about how elected officials rely on active participation from the constituents they serve. I also began to notice that there was a severe disconnect between residents in my community, and the services or resources they needed to have a higher quality of life. From there, I transition from his office, and began to work more closely with other organizations that worked in the Acres Homes Community, and saw that – once again – the communication and outreach barrier was creating a severe disconnect within the community. Eventually, I received the opportunity to work for Council Member Tarsha Jackson’s office.

This is where my observations were confirmed. As her Director of Constituent Services, I was responsible for ensuring that resident concerns were addressed and that residents could connect with our office in a meaningful way. Council Member Jackson was very intentional about making sure our office was accessible, transparent, and accountable. This environment opened the door to several community leaders connecting with and engaging our office regularly. However, I noticed that there was a lack of engagement in the northern part of her district ( Acres Homes, Greenspoint, Bush IAH, etc.) I also noticed that several of our communities within Acres Homes were not receiving the same level of engagement that we saw in other communities. This prompted me to suggest to Council Member and the team, that more intentional grassroots work needed to be done in Acres Homes so that she can have full engagement across her district. I understood that this work would not be fully realized during her term, but I wanted to work in partnership with her and other elected officials to help build stronger coalitions, civic associations, and the Super Neighborhood so the community could advocate for itself more effectively.

My purpose has always been to support and uplift my community, so I created the Acres Homes Community Advocacy Group to address the gap in communication between residents and organizations providing services, strengthen and establish stronger civic associations and the Super Neighborhood, and provide leadership training to residents that want to advocate for their community.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I got into community service through the Acres Homes Complete Communities Initiative. From there, I’ve had the privilege of working with city and state offices to serve my community, and now I have created my nonprofit to focus more on the Acres Homes Community. The Acres Homes Community Advocacy Group aims to preserve and empower the community through educational training, organizing, leadership, and economic revitalization. Our focus is to establish stabilization within our community groups, preserve the history of the Acres Homes Community, and empower the next generation of residents.

At this time, the AHCAG provides technical assistance to civic associations, the Acres Homes Super Neighborhood, and other organizations through social media promotion/community outreach and volunteer efforts for individual initiatives in the community. Our organization is also in the middle of our Artist Development Incubator Course, which is working with 15 independent artists and musicians to teach them how to promote, protect, and profit from their art. Lastly, the AHCAG is working to revitalize the Acres Homes Health Action Team by conducting a 6 month long health needs assessment to establish whether or not the needs of the community have shifted and how we need to leverage our connections/relationships to address them.

I will say that I am more excited about our potential because we have had such a welcomed response from neighbors, organizations, and government agencies. The trust that we’ve garnered from the community and the government validates our place as a liaison for both sides. I am eager to enhance the level of access our community has to our government, and I look forward to establishing more leaders in our community.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I believe my presence at the table helped build my reputation within the Acres Homes Community. Initially, I broke into the scene without understanding the needs of my community or how I could help initiatives that were already in place. However, I received great advice from some leaders in the community, like Edna Griggs and Diane Shephard, who helped introduce me to those who were already doing the work. From there, I made it a point to sit and listen at every community gathering I could attend and connect with residents so I could learn how I could help.

How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?

One way we have connected with residents in our community is through social media and our newsletter. We have created a type of hub where residents can learn about helpful resources/community gatherings/government updates in a centralized location. We’ve also worked to make communication the center of our operations, so we work closely with organizations to help get the word out about community-related events and meetings. We’ve also adapted the “omnipresence” model, where we try to be accessible on as many platforms as possible while creating a unified message across all platforms.

More recently, we’ve tried to passively monitor which of our platforms actually attract residents to participate. We have a pretty good handle on which platforms provide us with online engagement and which platforms will actually get people to come out. However, we’re still in the early stages of engagement, so we will do our best to be as adaptive as possible.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.acreshomescag.org
• Instagram: @acreshomescag
• Facebook: @acreshomescag
• Linkedin: @acreshomescag
• Twitter: @acreshomescag