For the first time, the West Virginia Community Development Hub (The Hub) will be piloting its tried and true coaching work in communities outside of West Virginia as part of the National Association of Counties’ (NACo’s) Building Resilient Economies in Coal Communities (BRECC) Action Challenge program. The Hub is working with four communities: Perry County, Ohio; Floyd County, Kentucky; Cumberland Plateau Planning District Commission, Virginia; and Richwood, West Virginia. This series of BRECC blog posts will formally introduce our community teams and explore what they are hoping to gain from working with The Hub through the Action Challenge.
Cumberland Plateau Planning District Commission (CPPDC) covers four counties in Virginia with a combined population of more than 100,600 residents. The four counties, Buchanan, Dickenson, Russell, and Tazwell, are working collaboratively to help localities in addressing local problems on a regional basis as well as promoting economic development in the District in cooperation with Federal, State, and local governments and organizations.
As a place that welcomes tourists and visitors, the CPPDC wants to work through BRECC program to push its revitalization forward in transformative and collaborative ways.
“The BRECC program has allowed our local partners and team members to start thinking creatively and outside the box on behalf of our communities,” says Jordan Dillon, Director of Economic Development for the CPPDC. “This will hopefully continue to bleed into other initiatives and projects.”
The organization, which has been working in the region since being established in 1968, is going to be taking the work they have already been doing as an organization to keep pushing forward. More than bolstering revitalization work, the CPPDC wants the program to empower the residents who call the area home to come forward and work together to uplift goals.
“We truly believe in our people, our communities, and our region,” says Dillon. “The work through this program is intended to increase the quality of life in southwestern Virginia.”
As The Hub works alongside the CPPDC, the commission has a specific goal they want to see achieved. During its work with BRECC, the commission wants to create a support system that can help grow the entrepreneurship of the region.
“If our greatest asset is our people, we want to invest in their growth,” says Dillon about the commission’s reason for applying to be part of BRECC.