Our Mission
Our mission is to work for justice and equity with our neighbors through building relationships, community action, service, and empowerment.
Who We Are
ENP’s motto is “Neighbors doing what neighbors do” – helping each other and strengthening our community.
Listening, as a neighbor would, to people who live, work, worship, or play in the neighborhood, ENP has developed three programs addressing pressing neighborhood needs. The Spot, is an after-school program for 5th-12th grade students that focuses on becoming their best selves through social-emotional engagement, vocational exploration, leadership development, and post-grad preparation. ENP serves as the Affordable Housing subzone captain of the Nashville Promise Zone, regularly advocates for affordable housing, and helps represent the neighbors in negotiating community benefits agreements. Finally, ENP offers the FreeStore, a weekly welcoming place for all in the neighborhood to share a meal and “shop” for needed household and personal items.
Three principles guide ENP:
ENP is a neighbor and therefore seeks to address the concerns identified by our neighbors. All those with a stake – those living in publicly provided housing, those living in other neighborhood areas, and the business community.
ENP will always seek to partner where someone else is already doing work.
ENP is volunteer-driven. Neighbors with time and/or special skills help neighbors. This is how we build relationships, understand needs, and grow a better community for Edgehill and the larger Nashville neighborhood.
Maybe you have driven around and seen the iconic images of the polar bears on neighborhood signs, or visited the statues themselves on the corner of 12th & Edgehill. There is a lot of lore to these polar bears and their story is a fun one on how they came to be in Nashville, and more specifically to our neighborhood. At one point, the polar bears would even show up in your yard if you were celebrating a life event - marking life moments from a birth or a graduation. One of the better full histories of the bear’s travels through Nashville to finding a home in Edgehill can be found by clicking here!