Growing up in Auburn, Maine, Zoey Murphy struggled to find spaces where she felt like she belonged.

“I was the only Black person in my graduating class, and it was really hard to see different signals that really spoke to me,” she said.

Now, she’s a member of Concord’s first Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Justice and Belonging Committee. Noting her education in social work and volunteering with Project STORY, Murphy said she hopes the committee can help create more places in the city where all feel welcomed and valued.

The committee met for the first time on Monday evening to begin its work providing advice and recommendations to City Council. Monday’s meeting was wholly introductory, with the committee’s members introducing themselves, their backgrounds and their goals for the group’s work. They are holding off from setting a regular meeting schedule and beginning the substance of their work until the city hires a facilitator, according to Mayor Byron Champlin.

The three city officials who form the core of the committee, Champlin, and city councilors Jennifer Kretovic and Ali Sekou, finalized a request for a facilitator that was sent out to firms in May. While three responses were turned in, none were based in the state, Champlin said, and the request was reopened.

A fourth firm, New Hampshire-based Organizational Ignition, responded in the second round. City staff and the three councilors have narrowed the search and are expected to make their selection next week. Organizational Ignition is the consulting company of James McKim who, among other roles, is also the president of the Manchester chapter of the NAACP. He attended Monday’s meeting as a member of the audience.

Committee appointees were joined by Cara Meeker, a member of the Concord School Board, and Becky Kennedy, the system of care coordinator and director of school counseling at Merrimack Valley. The group voiced an eagerness to be at the table but had a range of visions for what they’d like to collectively accomplish.

In addition to the sense of belonging noted by Murphy, feelings of safety were also noted as a hope for the group’s work.

“Why is it that the police have to park outside our synagogue three times a day to make sure that we feel safe?” Rabbi Robin Nafshi noted. “People need to feel safe, and that’s one of the things I hope we can address.”

That aim resonated with Alison Murphy, who with her wife, Alyssa, owns Penumbra, a plant shop downtown. Together, they worked to make their store a place where people could be themselves. She wants Concord as a whole to have that same atmosphere.

“When we started the shop, we decided not to hide who we are,” she said. “That has had its pros and cons.”

The voices of people with disabilities are often underrepresented in conversations around equity and diversity, said Sheila Zakre, a lawyer who is blind. She was optimistic about bringing that perspective to the group’s work and noted that she felt the city could make changes at the local level to make a difference for people with all types of disabilities.

For Noemi Wierwille, an educational nonprofit leader whose work has focused on educational equity and diversifying the educational workforce, simply exemplifying an open dialogue on differences in the city is a step forward.

“One of my hopes is that we collectively grow our capacity really just to engage in meaningful dialogue about issues of controversy and equity in our community,” she said, “and that we can be a model for others to do that.”

With a small audience, Champlin also invited members of the public to share their aspirations for the committee.

Zandra Rice Hawkins was a member of the council’s core committee as a city councilor last year. She noted that, through listening sessions, the community had identified short-term, easily achievable changes that the city could take on as “low-hanging fruit.”

“If you start to tick through those, there may be some opportunities to demonstrate a willingness to act while you work to tackle some of the bigger issues,” she said. “We’ve had two years of this conversation back and forth in Concord and I’m really glad to hear from those who feel it is time to put some rubber to the road.”

Catherine McLaughlin can be reached at cmclaughlin@cmonitor.com.