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North America Regional Hub: Second Annual City of Stamford Unity Breakfast

Publication Date:

10/06/2025

Content Type:

Event Reports

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North America Regional HubPreventing Hate and Targeted ViolencePublic Health ApproachSocial CohesionStamfordtargeted violenceUnity Breakfast

— 7 minutes reading time

This report provides a summary of discussions during the event and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Strong Cities Network Management Unit, Strong Cities members, event sponsors or participants.

Summary

Since October 2023, Strong Cities has been working with the City of Stamford as part of a five-city pilot project to develop local multi-actor prevention frameworks. As part of this effort, the City of Stamford (Connecticut, USA) and Strong Cities formed a multi-stakeholder, local leadership group to provide strategic direction for the production of a local framework for the prevention of hate and targeted violence. This group includes a wide range of local stakeholders, including local government, education, law enforcement, non-profit organisations, social service providers, faith leaders and community-based organisations.

On 10 June 2025, the City of Stamford hosted its Second Annual Unity Breakfast, which focused on enhancing social cohesion across all communities. Co-hosted by the Strong Cities Network, the event brought together 80+ community leaders and residents, including Mayor Caroline Simmons and other elected officials, to reaffirm their commitment to a more cohesive and inclusive Stamford.

In her opening remarks, Mayor Simmons lamented how the “rise in hate, division and discrimination can feel overwhelming” and emphasised how, in the face of these challenges, “the City of Stamford will continue to lead … as a model of inclusivity, civility and unity for communities across the nation”.  The City is able to do this, she said, “in part because of the vibrant partnerships we have — across the public and private sectors, among faith leaders, our school community and the many non-profit organisations that work every day to uplift and unite and take care of the most vulnerable among us”.

Reverend Winton Hill, leader of the Concerned Clergy Coalition of Stamford, led the group in an invocation, declaring that “We assemble today to cast a vision of justice and equity for all people. Our hope is founded in the highest ideals of the American experiment. We lift up all people, but particularly those most vulnerable”.  

The breakfast continued with a multilingual reading of the city’s new Unity Pledge, led in part by high school students from the Stamford Public School, reciting the pledge in English, Spanish, Ukrainian and Haitian Creole. The pledge, which Strong Cities helped to develop, calls for “fostering a culture where individuals support one another, where our common goals outweigh our differences and where we strive to understand and care for our neighbours”. The pledge also emphasises communal unity and building relationships across differences, with a “spirit of neighbourliness, shared responsibility and collective well-being”.

Jordan Reimer, Senior Manager, Strong Cities Network North America Regional Hub, provided an overview of the Network and its focus on public health-informed approaches to prevention, which emphasise social cohesion and resilience to prevent hate and targeted violence. He outlined the ongoing partnership with the City of Stamford and highlighted the objectives prioritised by the Stamford working group in its local prevention framework:

1. Create a management team to coordinate and help implement prevention efforts​;
2. Provide mechanisms for safe and accurate reporting of bias incidents and hate crimes​;
3. Increase city communications and support to communities in advance of potential threats to social cohesion​;
4. Raise community awareness of the threat of hate and targeted violence, how to respond and available resources to mitigate their impacts;
5. Promote social cohesion through community-building efforts, including those across racial, ethnic and faith groups​;
6. Align state and local community and school-based threat assessment and violence intervention programmes​;
7. Ensure an integrated, robust provision of social services for those at risk of mobilising to violence; and​
8. Sustain efforts through sufficient financial resourcing.

The event’s keynote speaker was Richard Harwood, president and founder of the Harwood Institute for Public Innovation, with over 35 years’ experience developing a model of how communities can tackle shared problems, create a culture of shared responsibility, and deepen their civic faith. He spoke in support of his latest initiative, A Campaign for the New Civic Path, anchored by his latest book, The New Civic Path: Restoring Our Belief in One Another and Our Nation, which calls for supporting communities to prove they can create real, substantive change in our cities and the country. Harwood pointed to what he believes are the four key elements to success: 1) Choose to turn outwards towards one another and treat everyone with dignity; 2) Focus on shared aspirations, not our differences – those aspirations should be achievable and speak to people’s daily lives; 3) Build together. Do things. Civic discussion is not enough, and 4) Cities must see visible change to gain wider buy-in from residents. 

The facilitated table discussions that followed provided opportunities for residents and civic leaders to weigh in on the challenges to social cohesion in Stamford, how to overcome them and what to prioritise in promoting a culture of unity and belonging. Specifically, residents shared their thoughts on the following questions:

• In this divided time, how can we come together as a community?
• What are your aspirations for creating unity for this community?
• What challenges are standing in the way of those aspirations? What ideas do you have to address these challenges?
• Are there any examples of excellence that the City can model?

For main takeaways from the discussion sessions, see the section below.

The event concluded with a call to action from Myra Clark-Siegel, Regional Director of the American Jewish Committee of Westchester/Fairfield. Emphasising the urgent need for unity, civic strength and moral clarity in the face of rising hate and extremism, she urged attendees to turn this moment into a movement through education, dialogue and collective action, reinforcing Stamford’s role as a model of inclusive leadership and community resilience.

Key Findings

• Centralise and Expand Communication Channels
  • Develop a city-wide platform to share events, resources and opportunities, while recognising the challenge of maintaining such a hub.
  • Explore ways to amplify current outreach efforts and better publicise existing initiatives like those led by the Mayor’s Multicultural Council.
• Foster Inclusive Community Engagement
  • Hold regular public forums and listening sessions, actively promoted to underrepresented communities.
  • Make better use of public spaces and promote events that celebrate Stamford’s cultural diversity.
• Support and Elevate Youth Participation
  • Involve youth more directly in civic life through roles on boards, committees and event planning teams — starting with existing structures like the Mayor’s Youth Leadership Council.
• Simplify Access to Civic Opportunities
  • Reduce barriers to community involvement by streamlining processes for joining city boards, committees and volunteer programmes.
• Enhance Visibility and Reach of Ongoing Efforts
  • Acknowledge that many initiatives already exist and focus on improving public awareness and engagement with those programmes, rather than duplicating efforts.

Next Steps

Following the breakfast, the Stamford prevention working group convened for its monthly meeting in person to discuss how to build on the momentum to advance local prevention efforts. Over the coming weeks, Strong Cities, the City of Stamford and the local leadership group will incorporate the priorities outlined by Stamford residents into its prevention work, as it continues to implement the objectives of the local prevention framework.

Additional Resources

• Piloting Multi-Actor Frameworks in Small and Mid-Sized Cities in the United States, Strong Cities website
• Innovations in Prevention: Piloting Multi-Actor Frameworks in Small and Mid-Sized Cities in the United States, Strong Cities Network Policy Brief, July 2024
• City-Led Prevention of Hate, Extremism and Polarisation: Leveraging Local Youth Councils, Strong Cities Network, updated April 2025
• A Guide for Cities: Preventing Hate, Extremism & Polarisation, Strong Cities Network, updated April 2025
• A Guide for Mayors: Preventing and Responding to Hate, Extremism and Polarisation, Strong Cities Network, updated March 2025
• A Ten-Step Roadmap for Enhancing City-Led Support for Community-Based Programmes to Address Hate and Extremism, Strong Cities Network, updated February 2025
• City-Led Youth Engagement in Addressing Hate, Extremism and Polarisation: Ten Recommendations for Cities, Strong Cities Network, updated February 2025
• Countering Hate Speech in Times of Crisis: Considerations for Mayors and Local Governments, Strong Cities Network, updated January 2025
• Making the Invisible Visible Tool, Harwood Institute, 2023

Donors and Partners

This project is funded by the DHS Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships, opportunity number DHS-23-TTP-132-00-01.

Contact Information

For more information on this event and the Strong Cities North America Regional hub, please contact [email protected].

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