H’COLA collaborates with City

Elinor Mount-Simmons, President of the Hillside Coalition of Laborers for Apalachicola, Inc., (H’COLA) appeared before the city commission at their Oct 5 meeting and requested a partnership between the City of Apalachicola and the H’COLA group.

“February 2011 marks H’COLA’s eighth annual outdoor celebration of African-American History within the City of Apalachicola. Because of the vast history of Apalachicola, including that of many African-Americans, H’COLA would like to partner with the city to extend its weekend celebration to a month-long recognition and celebration of African-American history”, said Mount-Simmons.

First recognized in 1926 as “Negro History Week”, the celebration of African-American History has been recognized in the United States and Canada since 1976 during the month of February.

Mount-Simmons told the commission that H’COLA had several ideas for events and ways to accomplish the collaboration and that the group would be more than happy to share the ideas with city officials to bring a citywide celebration to fruition.

“It is our hope that you are receptive to our idea to incorporate this nationally recognized celebration within the city. We hope that this is the beginning of a dialog between the City of Apalachicola and H’COLA as we continue to work toward the betterment of or community and our city”, Mount-Simmons concluded.

The commission unanimously moved to support the partnership and instructed City Administrator Betty Taylor-Webb to appoint a point person on behalf of the city.