Five Southern West Virginia Communities Ready to Imagine Their New Future

Lots of big news with the IAS program here at The Hub, where we are working to diversify the local economy of five communities in the West Virginia’s coalfield region.

The communities have been chosen and meeting dates are being set to get these citizens of southern West Virginia engaged and involved in the economic diversification planning process.

Throughout the month of July and early August, we will be holding large community meetings in Alderson and Madison, and Lincoln and Wyoming counties.

At those meetings we’ll be finding out what sectors local people want to see grow and what strengths in their community there are for them to build upon.

Once the communities have formed teams around the sectors of their choice, we can start helping them to write a plan for projects that they come up with to grow the local economy.  

But, let’s not forget about McDowell County, where folks have already been working in their sector teams.

Right now, teams are meeting to plan around Tourism, Local Food and Agriculture, Arts and Culture, Technology and Transportation.

These teams will all come back together to talk about what they have been working on at a large community meeting on Thursday, June 23 at 5:30 p.m. This meeting will take place at the National Guard Armory, 600 Stewart St, Welch. Locals, we will see you there!

If you live in any of these communities and want to get involved, please get in touch with me for more details.