About TCCI
Turkey Creek Community Initiatives
14439 Rippy Road
Gulfport, MS 39503
228 863 0099 phone
228 863 0847 fax
Who We Are
Derrick Christopher Evans, Executive Director, [email protected]
Alex Mercedes, Administrator, [email protected]
Russell Freeman, Environmental Project Coordinator, [email protected]
Mary Dedaux, Administrative Assistant, [email protected]
Mission Statement
Turkey Creek Community Initiatives is a recognized 501c3 corporation, as defined by the IRS chapter code, xyz. We are an innovative community development corporation engaged in the comprehensive revitalization of coastal Mississippi's low-income, historic, and environmentally challenged Turkey Creek community and watershed.
Purpose
Recognized in 2001 as one of Mississippi's Ten Most Endangered Historical Places, the Turkey Creek estuary was settled following the Civil War by African-American freedmen whose twenty-first century descendants now find themselves besieged near the geographic and commercial epicenter of Mississippi's second largest and fastest growing city (Gulfport).
Facing urban sprawl, environmental racism, and political-economic isolation since the arrival of casinos, airport expansion, and municipal annexation in the 1990s - community members organized TCCI in 2003 to conserve, restore and utilize for education and other socially beneficial purposes the unique cultural, historical and ecological assets of their irreplaceable community, creek and coastal stream basin.
Goals
- to preserve Turkey Creek's architectural heritage by promoting historic restoration and compatible housing development
- to advance the restoration, conservation, and public enjoyment of Turkey Creek's unique land and water resources
- to utilize the community, stream and watershed as focal points for cultural, historical, and ecological research
- to design and implement quality educational materials and programs for learners of all ages and backgrounds
- to model sustainable coastal and urban redevelopment by integrating the above with environmental justice for all
Approach
To fulfill this broad mission of research, education, advocacy, and sustainable community development, TCCI relies heavily on partnerships with teachers, churches, neighborhood groups, scholars, lawyers, conservationists, historic preservationists, government agencies, and smart growth advocates from across Mississippi and the United States.
The Sierra Club, Audubon Mississippi, Mississippi Heritage Trust, The Mississippi United Methodist Conference, The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights under Law, Land Trust for the MS Coastal Plain, and scholars from several academic disciplines are but some who have assisted TCCI's effort to protect Turkey Creek's residential, historical and ecological integrity from further erosion.
Who We Are
Derrick Christopher Evans
Founder and Executive Director of Turkey Creek Community Initiatives (TCCI), is a sixth-generation native (6-G) of Turkey Creek, a Mississippi Gulf Coast community settled by his freed African-American ancestors in 1866. Mr.Evans received his bachelor's and master's degrees in History, Black Studies and Secondary Curriculum and Instruction at Boston College and has taught civil rights history at the school since 1991. To combat a litany of threats to environmental quality, cultural continuity, and community survival, Mr. Evans founded TCCI in 2003 to "conserve, restore and utilize" the diminishing cultural and ecological resources of the Turkey Creek community and watershed. Since Hurricane Katrina struck on August 29, 2005, Mr. Evans and TCCI have provided relief for survivors, facilitated community-based recovery planning, and broadly advocated for a more just and sustainable future for coastal Mississippi's most vulnerable communities.
