The Multicultural Community Alliance served the Hispanic population in Carroll County and surrounding areas from 2000 to 2004. Initially known as the Brookwood Center for Outreach and Learning, the organization offered English language instruction, healthcare information, citizenship classes and a variety of events and activities.

During the 1990s, Carroll County’s Hispanic community experienced a sudden population boom. According to census data from 2000, the county’s Hispanic population grew more than 278 percent within the ten year period—accounting for nearly 3 percent of the county’s total populace. This rapidly increase in the Hispanic population presented Carroll County with a number of unique challenges. Faced with linguistic and cultural barriers, local government divisions, like the public school system and the health department, struggled to provide essential services for this continually growing immigrant community. In an effort to address these challenges, the Brookwood Project began.

Dr. Marjorie Snipes, professor of anthropology at the State University of West Georgia, and Suzy Montalto, who was then working for the Carroll County Education Foundation LIFT program which was affiliated with the Carroll County Chamber of Commerce, founded the Brookwood Project initially to provide English language instruction and legal referral services to the Hispanic community.

As the organization evolved it began to offer citizenship classes, job skills training, as well as instructional Spanish reading programs for the non-literate. Soon after the project’s inception, the Carrollton Housing Authority donated an apartment unit at the Brookwood Apartments, a city-owned apartment complex housing the highest concentration of Hispanics in the county, to serve as the projects center for outreach and learning.

In 2000, Brookwood Apartment residents were the focus of a survey conducted through the State University of West Georgia course, Anthropology 3188 (Ethnographic Field Methods).

In July 2001, the Brookwood Center relocated to the Tracy Stallings Recreation Center in downtown Carrollton. Along with its new location, the center now became known as the Multicultural Community Alliance. Under the umbrella of Carrollton’s Parks, Recreation and Cultural Arts division, the new name and location allowed the center to provide services to a much larger and diverse group of Hispanic immigrants from all over the county.

During the formation and implementation of Multicultural Community Alliance program, Dr. Elena Mustakova-Possardt, associate professor of psychology at the university, simultaneously began to develop Latinos United of Carroll County, a grassroots organization that grew out of the work done by both the Brookwood Center and the Multicultural Community Alliance. However, the Latinos United of Carroll County (LUCC) focused on community development and empowerment that stemmed from within the immigrant community itself and encouraged Latinos to develop a singular identity and voice within the larger community. By 2004, the LUCC became a self-sustained, Latino-run organization and the services once provided by the Multicultural Community Alliance were integrated into those offered by the LUCC.

2004 also saw the Carrollton Housing Authority’s closure of the Brookwood Apartments. The lot was eventually sold to the University of West Georgia, who tore down the buildings and in its place erected a community of fraternity and sorority houses known as the Greek Village.