Higher Purpose Co.

I enjoyed listening to this conversation between Whitney Kimball Coe, Vice President of National Programs at Rural Assembly and host of Everywhere Radio, and Tim Lampkin, co-founder and CEO of Higher Purpose Co.

Higher Purpose Co is a 501(c)(3) economic justice nonprofit that works with Black residents to build wealth across Mississippi, specifically by supporting Black ownership and financial, cultural, and political power.

Whitney and Tim discuss his return to Mississippi more than a decade ago, closing the racial wealth gap, and the power of ownership. Lampkin has over a decade of community development and entrepreneurship experience. He previously managed the racial equity program for the Mississippi Humanities Council, which won the National 2018 Schwartz prize. He also worked for Southern Bancorp Community Partners to implement multimillion dollar community initiatives and has advised rural entrepreneurs in several counties.

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The Need for Art

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is an idea in psychology proposed by American Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper “A Theory of Human Motivation” in the journal Psychological Review.[1] The theory is illustrated as a pyramid, with the most fundamental needs at the bottom. The theory says that a person’s most basic needs must be met before they become motivated to achieve higher-level needs. Here are the basic steps of the pyramid:

  • Physiological needs: The basics like food, water, and rest. The things you need to keep your body running.
  • Safety needs: The things that keep your body in one piece. Shelter, lack of violence.
  • Love/belonging needs: Friends, family, intimate relationships, and community.
  • Esteem needs: A feeling of accomplishment and being respected for those accomplishments.
  • Self-Actualization needs: Achieving your full potential.

Art is usually placed in the higher segments of the pyramid, near self-actualization and often related to self esteem and accomplishment, as well. But it has been argued that art mustn’t be relegated to just the tip of the pyramid. Art can be used to help alleviate physiological and safety needs. Both the making of a meal and the making of a home can involve complicated personal aesthetic decisions. A strong artist community can help with feelings of love and belonging. One sees that art weaves its way through multiple levels of need.

Thinking about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs raises questions for us at McComb Made: How do we value the need for art, both on a personal level and in the community at large? Can an underserved and under resourced community meet its needs with the help of art? What would that look like? At which age do needs change from those of independence to those of self-sufficiency? When can art transform from just being thought of as a learning tool for children to an engrained way of living and functioning as an entrepreneurial adult? Living life as an ARTIST?

We certainly don’t have all the answers – yet! But at McComb Made we aren’t afraid to look for answers. Help us on our path to what we think of as a form of McComb made community actualization.

Arts & the Workforce

Pike School of Art – Mississippi is excited to launch McComb Made.

McComb Made will be a workforce development program for under-resourced members of our community. It pairs local, professional artists and artisans — woodworkers, potters, painters, musicians, tailors — with a newly created workforce, a strong workforce that we invite the community to be a part of.

This initiative has a dual mission: to create beautiful utilitarian objects and to train our workers to pursue careers in the creative economy. McComb Made objects, produced through a collaborative process, are sold under the McComb Made brand, with proceeds supporting the mission to promote an artist-led community renaissance.

Here at McComb Made, we understand that we need a strong local workforce to help improve the conditions of this rural community. The Merriam-Webster definition of a workforce is “the workers engaged in a specific activity or enterprise.” Our local community has various strong workforces, among them, the healthcare industry (Southwest Mississippi Medical Center, multiple home healthcare providers, retirement communities, etc.), our educational systems (local school districts, Southwest Mississippi Community College, etc.), and classic manufacturing and processing industries (Georgia-Pacific and Weyerhaeuser, Sanderson Farms, etc.).

We at McComb Made also know, through our connection with local arts & civic organizations, that we have a vast pool of creative people in McComb. Artisans who make functional objects, artists who make expressive art. Essentially, workers who make fine and exquisite products. McComb Made, on a philosophical level, aims to be a collective of members of the local creative economy with one overarching goal — to keep resources as local as possible for the benefit of, what we consider, a largely untapped workforce.

We look forward our launch with a variety of beautifully designed and produced objects. We hope you find it important to support our efforts.

People’s Pottery Project’s mission is to employ and empower formerly incarcerated women, trans and non-binary individuals through paid job training, access to a healing community, and meaningful employment in a collective non-profit ceramic business. For Susan Bustamente, working with her hands helped her transition to life beyond bars. Eli Rosales