ABOUT US

OUR VISION
A community united through understanding, trust, kindness, and respect.

OUR MISSION
We create opportunities for all current and future community members to enhance their awareness, open-mindedness, and respect.

HISTORY
In early 2017, a small group of Bedford residents began to gather weekly to share concerns about the polarized climate in our country. In a short time, and as the group grew, we came to the realization that there is so much more that unites the Bedford community than divides it -- the idea for Bedford Get Together was born.

In October 2017, the Bedford community gathered at Edmund Street Park for the first ever Bedford Get Together—a grassroots event organized to bring neighbors throughout the Town of Bedford and Bedford County together to celebrate our community’s shared values. Not only did the several hundred people who participated in this event have a great day, but we also began to make connections to continue working together to create unity and care for one another.

In early 2018, Bedford Get Together sponsored and supported community activities including the NAACP Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. March, Bridges Out of Poverty Training, and Celebration of Earth Day. A second Bedford Get Together event was held in October of 2018 at Edmund Street Park.

Bedford Get Together held its major 2019 event in August as a part of Jonathan Hayden's annual Back to School Fun Day. Also that year, Bedford Get Together sponsored its first annual Community Service Awards, offered unity flag making and a sheriff's candidate forum at Centerfest, volunteered for LACIL's Santa program, and supported the Raintree Community Day.

In 2020, turned its attention to the community’s needs in light of the pandemic - assisting Bedford Christian Ministries and Lynchburg Daily Bread with food deliveries, volunteering at the blood drive, and partnering with the Adult and Career Education Center for a Digital Literacy Grant from the County under the CARES Act. Additionally, Bedford Get Together responded by editorial to the racial issues surrounding George Floyd’s death and began partnering with the Sedalia Center to preserve the history of the African-American school–Counter Ridge–which the Center now occupies.

In 2021 and 2022 Bedford Get Together continued its Community Service Awards program, raised awareness for the need for a dog park in Bedford, and submitted several editorials to the Bedford Bulletin aimed at educating people about historic racial divides in the Bedford County school system. Bedford Get Together spent several months in 2022 in a rigorous strategic planning process focused on how it could be of better service to the community.

In 2023, we started Our Bedford Story - a project to build community around the sharing of stories in groups and individually. With this ongoing project we hope to create awareness among Town and County citizens of some of the people and neighborhoods outside of their normal day-to-day experience. We also began a project to develop a mural in Centertown Park in the Town of Bedford.

In 2024, our focus is on fundraising for the mural which we hope to have completed in September. We are also pursuing our story project with a story featured each month in the Bedford Bulletin. We will be at the Bedford Farmer's Market two days a month from May through October collecting stories from anyone who would like to participate. We are especially focused on obtaining stories from children who have their own unique point of view of life in a small town.