We will strive to create a new culture of health and prosperity where we recognize and affirm the following:

1. That each person should realize that they are a valued part of our community and that each life matters to us all.
2. The overwhelmingly destructive power of poverty
3. That it is, in the words of Frederick Douglass, far easier to build strong children than it is to repair broken men.
4. That each life that does not reach its potential impacts everyone else’s well-being and prosperity, whether it is due to poor health, lack of opportunity, violence, substance abuse, injustice, educational failure, poverty, social bias or other barriers.

Given that we recognize these truths and choose to foster and develop a community where we will build upon our strengths and no longer tolerate those factors that are preventing us, individually and collectively, from reaching our potential happiness, healthiness and prosperity, we will create a community where:

1. Every person will have access to health care, regardless of insurance status, ability to pay, location, health status or other logistical or financial hurdle. Health care includes physical health, mental and behavioral health, dental health and eye health.
2. We shall seek to end poverty in Hopkins County and our surrounding region within a generation
3. We will seek to make healthy food available, accessible and affordable to all, regardless of where they live. No person in Hopkins County will go to bed hungry
4. No one will be without safe shelter. There will always be a place to go.
5. Every person and family who suffers from substance abuse issues will have access to treatment, support and transitional care. We will treat those in need with respect, not as criminals or as lost causes.  We will help them rebuild their lives, restore their futures and rejoin the mainstream of our communities
6. We will, through public and private action and policy, think and plan in collaborative fashion for the long-term, re-imagining our physical, cultural, social and economic environment in order to create a community in which our children will want to stay and raise families of their own, where all people of goodwill are welcomed, where business can thrive, where new talent can be recruited, where innovation is the norm and where the lives of all are rich and fulfilling.
7. Every child shall be educated in the public schools to the extent of their capacity. Every child in Hopkins County will enter Kindergarten ready to learn and will be reading at grade level by third grade.  We will provide every support and assistance possible to allow each person to become trained or educated in the craft or career of their choice so they can join the ranks of an educated, informed, productive, and prosperous citizenry.
8. We will ensure our children receive support from pre-natal care, through the birth process and through early childhood development. We recognize that there is no time more important for the future course of their lives than this and that investments made here will pay off many-fold over time.
9. We will care for and treasure our old folk. If they are still at home, we will look in on them and make sure they have enough to eat, that their homes are safe and comfortable, that their medical needs are met and that they are still living lives that they value.  When they can no longer live at home, we will make sure that we have proper places for them to go to get the care they need and to maintain a quality of life, by their own standards. We will all age, and we all deserve to age as well as possible.  We will endeavor to make Hopkins County a place where every person can grow old as well as they can and meet their end with dignity.

Places that offer attractive physical and cultural environments, that offer economic and social opportunity to young people, that provide excellent care and education for the young, provide excellent health care and opportunities to live healthy lives and that take care of their elders are, quite simply, good places to live.  This is what we seek to do and we will work together in everything we do to bring such a future to reality.

(signed)