About Us
Our staff & volunteers
The Alabama Center for Rural Organizing and Systemic Solutions (ACROSS) was founded by Executive Director Warren Tidwell and a group of locals in the small town of Camp Hill, Alabama. Warren has a history of organizing all over the south, including several years in rural places working around disaster recovery. He has been recognized by many organizations for his innovative work and philanthropy in rural Alabama. Reckon South named him to its list of exceptional southerners, a list that in the past has recognized people such as Stacey Abrams. Regardless, Warren spent many years as a mechanic and service advisor in auto repair shops, and that work is what centers who he is as an organizer; a blue-collar worker just trying to help his friends and neighbors build a better corner of our world. He believes that it is only through collaborative efforts across race and class that a better south is possible. That possibility exists due to the help of locals who have invested their time and energy into the communities where we work, and many other volunteers from throughout the South who bring their expertise, passions and perspectives to inform the work that is centered around community resilience and mutual aid. Solidarity work with the people allows us to build deep, meaningful relationships that help reignite what community truly means.
Our history
A.C.R.O.S.S. was born in the aftermath of a climate disaster and an unimaginable tragedy that occurred only days after the storm in the little town of Camp Hill, Alabama in 2023. After one of the worst hailstorms in US history decimated the town, destroying hundreds of roofs and totaling ninety percent of the cars. The issue was compounded when many in the town were victims of a mass shooting that killed four and injured nearly forty people, including some who had been displaced by the storm. Volunteers on the ground resolved to see the long term recovery through even though they knew it was going to be a multi-year affair. They formed the Alabama Center for Rural Organizing and Systemic Solutions to take on a myriad of issues in Alabama, with the primary mission being organizing around the climate disaster they had just experienced. The roots of the organization, however, run all the way back to the years staff and volunteers spent working in other areas of the global south in places such as Ghana and Haiti. The people who would come together years later in East Alabama realized then that their home state and region had many of the same issues they were facing in both countries. Before ever meeting many of the people who now make up ACROSS resolved to one day find a way to work within Alabama to address the systemic issues that were failing their homes and communities in the rural south. In facing a climate disaster together, and an unimaginable tragedy days later, all of these people found each other in a town of fewer than a thousand people. ACROSS is now headquartered in Camp Hill with future efforts also planned for the town of Parrish, Alabama.
Our mission
Many small towns in the rural south are being failed by the systems at large. The Alabama Center for Rural Organizing and Systemic Solutions (ACROSS) exists to solve those issues through novel solutions in rural Alabama, from new ways to think about disaster preparedness and recovery through community resilience programs, to community building projects through mutual aid. This happens by working across rural regions in the state and across the divides of race and class in order to build power. It happens by breaking down the divides the powerful seek to build between working class folks. We work diligently to reignite the meaning of community in the minds of the people, which results in actionable plans on the ground. With our work we challenge conventions with belief in what is possible. Put simply, while we believe in a better south, we know it is going to take hard work and creative planning in order to see those beliefs become reality. We are here to do that.