To effectively pursue community-driven resilience planning, it is essential to engage diverse voices, actively incorporate community partnerships at all levels, and support resilience actions that address locally relevant challenges. With these best practices in mind, the Resilient East Biloxi (REB) Program was developed in 2022 as a community-driven initiative dedicated to fostering sustainable and transformative redevelopment in the East Biloxi community in coastal Mississippi. Through building a collaborative cohort of 11 organizations over 3 years, this program embraces the community's diversity, culture, and heritage, while aiming to address key climate and socioeconomic challenges. The REB program hosts a series of Community Leadership Cohort Trainings and Community Action Events to provide locally relevant science information, capacity building opportunities for local leaders, and catalyze community resilience actions through open dialogue and input from the greater community.

In this presentation, we will share the program’s cohort learning and collaboration framework that was developed with community partners, the integration of local socioeconomic factors into climate resilience conversations and planning, and the ongoing efforts in expanding this framework to other frontline communities. In addition to highlighting the successes of the program, we will share perspectives on the common barriers and challenges encountered when pursuing nontraditional or holistic community resilience work.