Brooklyn Park, MN – The African Career, Education & Resource, Inc. (ACER) announces the launch of its "Making Transit Meaningful" project with a Community Leader Forum on Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012. This free event will take place at Zanewood Recreation Center, 7100 Zane Ave. N., Brooklyn Park, MN 55429 from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.

ACER was among 10 community-based organizations that received funding from the Corridors of Opportunity Policy Board of the Metropolitan Council to ensure that underrepresented communities along transitway corridors, in the metropolitan area, are involved in the planning and decision-making process. To date, African immigrants, African Americans and other minorities, residing within the northwestern suburbs of the Twin Cities, have not participated when mainstream methods have been used to inform stakeholders along the Bottineau Corridor (formerly Highway 81).

With its "Making Transit Meaningful" project, ACER plans to connect with these communities of color through a series of community forums, open houses, ethnic and mainstream media, and other methods. ACER will partner with the City of Brooklyn Park to identify and engage this population to become actively involved. The goal is to move underrepresented communities from a lack of basic awareness to a state of informed and engaged community action as it relates to community input along the Bottineau Corridor. ACER’s efforts will focus on segments of the corridor affecting Maple Grove, Osseo, Brooklyn Park, New Hope, Crystal, Brooklyn Center, and Robbinsdale.

The Community Leader Forum, on Jan. 21, brings together opinion and faith leaders of various ethnic communities to provide information on the Bottineau Corridor project and how it relates to affordable housing, business development, job creation, and environment justice. Experts from the Metropolitan Council, Hennepin County, and the City of Brooklyn Park will explain technical details of the project, the roles of policy bodies, and how communities of color can be effective in influencing planning and decisions around the transit project. Details about future forums will be discussed. The schedule is as follows: Breakfast and Check in – 9:30 a.m. to 10 a.m.; Forum and Lunch – 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Please contact Denise Butler at DButler@acerinc.org or 763-493-8106 to RSVP.

ACER is a volunteer-driven, community-based organization founded in 2008 to close the resource, health, and information disparities within Minnesota’s communities of African descent and help those communities achieve societal and economic independence. It is a subsidiary of Strengthening African Resilience for Excellence, SARX, a registered 501 (c) (3) tax-exempt organization. ACER will host its third annual job and college fair on April 28, 2012.