Cowen
community case study

In Cowen, West Virginia, community members are rebuilding their future with intention.

Cowen is a small town located in Central West Virginia along the gateway of the Monongahela National Forest. With a population of only 564, to say that Cowen is a close-knit community is an understatement. Situated between two popular tourist locations, Snowshoe Mountain and Summersville Lake, and near up-and-coming destinations like Richwood and Marlinton, Cowen has ample opportunity to transform into a recreational tourism hub.

Rural Community Building Best Practices

West Virginia communities of all sizes are engaging in innovative work. Many of these communities exemplify our Rural Community Building Best Practices, guideposts identified through evidence-based research processes. By looking to these communities as models, we can work together to replicate small wins and major successes.

The community of Cowen exemplifies:

  • Leveraging financial opportunities
  • Developing diverse local leadership
  • Centering Inclusivity, Collaboration, and Communication

Leveraging Financial Opportunities

Cowen is a prime example of a community that takes every positive opportunity that comes their way. After participating in the Cultivate WV program in 2019, where community teams successfully completed 24 small-scale community projects, residents were eager to maintain the momentum built and take their plans even further.  

In 2020, Cowen entered The Hub’s Communities of Achievement Program (HubCAP) alongside five other communities in the Monongahela Forest region. HubCAP supports community teams over a multi-year period to move forward a mid- to large-scale community development projects from initial idea to long-term implementation and financing. As part of their participation in HubCAP, Cowen will increase their online reach with a new website and marketing push, and they will increase the capacity of the community overall by bringing in an AmeriCorps Volunteer in Service to America (VISTA) to support with the long-term strategic growth of their town. 

Cowen residents recently signed on for the brand new initiative Downtown Appalachia: Revitalizing Recreational Economies (DARRE) a partnership between the WV Northern Brownfields Assistance Center, Woodlands Development & Lending, Partner Community Capital (formerly Natural Capital Investment), and the WV Community Development Hub. The partners working on the DARRE program support participating towns with the kinds of technical assistance that primes historic downtown areas for new investment and growth.  

The team in Cowen is looking to fellow communities like Marlinton and Richwood for inspiration. “We want to make Cowen a more interesting place to visit,” said Mayor Gerald Dornburg, “We need to become a destination.”

One of the biggest community and economy building projects ongoing in Cowen is the B&O Pond. The town is working to increase its recreational assets with a fishing pond, trail development, and maps of the walking trails throughout town. With the help of Webster County Economic Development Authority, the Town of Cowen received a $25,000 grant from the National Park Service and $20,000 from the Center for Rural Health Development. The town matched this with $5,000 for a total of $50,000 for Phase I of the B&O Pond Project. This includes adding picnic tables, grading and graveling a road, and clearing out around the pond. Future phases of the project will include the development of rail trails to help connect Cowen to other communities in the Monongahela Forest region.

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We want to make Cowen a more interesting place to visit. We need to become a destination.

Mayor Gerald Dornburg

Cowen is also leveraging its partner connections through a new initiative led by West Virginia University’s Fulcrum Project, a program that connects students and faculty who provide technical assistance to assets and opportunities that communities have identified for project implementation. In Cowen, the community agreed to move forward with building a gazebo at the library. The Cowen Public Library Director, Naomi Hagerman, pitched this idea to the HubCAP team because a gazebo will allow community members a place to use wifi on days that the library is not open and will provide a resting spot for the walking trails the community is implementing. 

Developing diverse local leadership

Naomi is a core member of the HubCAP community volunteer team and has been the Library Director for a year and a half. She took the role because she wanted to be more involved in community building work. Because she doesn’t live within city limits, she cannot run for any kind of elected leadership, but that doesn’t prevent her from playing a major role in her community. In addition to working at the library, Naomi is on the board of the local Family Resource Network (FRN) and works to build partnerships between the library, the FRN, and the City through fundraisers and other community events. 

The educators working alongside Naomi play a major role in Cowen’s community building journey. “Some teachers dedicate their entire lives to it,” said Naomi. And once people start volunteering in their community, they tend to commit, keeping volunteer retention high. When a town has a small population like Cowen, it’s crucial that those who get involved stay involved.

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Resident in Cowen, WV refills the local blessing box
Resident in Cowen, WV refills the local blessing box
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Centering Inclusivity, Collaboration, and Communication

Working at the library, Naomi feels it is her duty to provide the residents of Cowen with the information they need to have every opportunity for success. “People come here for answers,” said Naomi. She recently received a national grant for the library to implement a personal passion project of her own–teaching financial literacy workshops. She has long been known as someone in the community who is financially literate and provides advice to people of all ages, and now, she’s been granted the capacity to provide this service on a more official level. Naomi’s workshops covers topics like opening a bank account, saving for retirement, learning about investing, and more. Through these workshops, Naomi hopes to teach residents of Cowen how to acquire more wealth and to de-stigmatize talking about finances–especially for the younger population to start off on the right foot.

The library is a community pillar.

Naomi Hagerman, Cowen Public Library Director

In addition to the workshops, Naomi is working towards her goal of educating the community by increasing the library’s online presence. She made an entirely new website for the library and started promoting its services on social media to increase community participation for events, and she’s working to add as much value to the community as possible through the library’s programs and resources. “The library is a community pillar,” said Naomi.

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Partner Feature:

Our work is made possible thanks to incredible partnerships with other community development organizations across the state. From local economic development authorities (EDAs) to state level nonprofits working to uplift communities, all of our partners are crucial in making West Virginia the best it can possibly be by working together.One partner that made our work truly profound this year is Coalfield Development. For years, Coalfield Development has worked to rebuild Appalachian communities by inspiring the courage to grow, activating the creativity to innovate, and cultivating communities of opportunity in central Appalachia.We are proud to be part of Coalfield Development’s ACT Now Coalition, a broad network of organizations working hand-in-hand to uplift communities throughout Southern West Virginia. The ACT Now Coalition is infusing more than $63 million into programs to help communities using business development, building revitalization, and so much more.The Hub is leading the Community and Business Resilience Initiative as part of the larger ACT Now Coalition to bring other partners with us to build up community and business resilience in the Coalition’s footprint.“For decades, we’ve known the economy of southern West Virginia needs diversification. Some progress has been made on this goal, but not nearly enough,” Brandon Dennison, CEO of Coalfield Development, said about the ACT Now Coalition. “ACT Now constitutes a tangible opportunity to take a major leap forward in this generational challenge to become a vibrant, growing, diversified economy. In the wake of continued coal-job losses, nothing could be more important for our region.”Our partnership with Coalfield Development is giving us a chance to take our work to new communities and to build upon our years of experience. Working alongside Coalfield Development in this large undertaking to bring $63.8 million to communities in Southern West Virginia is validation that the work happening to uplift West Virginia communities continues to grow.

Community Feature:

The Hub works alongside communities across West Virginia coaching community teams as they come together to make transformative changes in their towns. In 2022, one town stands out for its continued work and unwavering commitment to making its community a place where people want to live, work, play, and visit.Petersburg, located in Grant County at the northernmost point of the Mon Forest, is filled with community members who want to make their town a destination. Not only have businesses opened, and stayed open, the town has transformed the way they present to the world through rebranding and outdoor recreational development.As part of the HubCAP IV program, Petersburg utilized its technical assistance to push forward with projects to bring transformative change to its community. Part of the work Petersburg worked towards was creating plans to pave a hike and bike trail that runs along the Petersburg dike. The proposed trail will run approximately three miles along the Petersburg dike and will include multiple entrances for walkers and bikers. The group secured a $25,000 grant from Senator Hamilton, which was matched locally by the City of Petersburg, the County Commission, and the Board of Education, each adding an equal share to bring the total to $50,000.This year, Petersburg witnessed a major upgrade to one of the town’s most iconic and historic structures: The Hermitage Inn. The hotel, which dates back to 1841, has been renovated and once again welcomes guests to stay the night and have a nice dinner in the restaurant.The Hermitage Inn is the first project initiated and completed as part of the Downtown Appalachia: Revitalizing Recreational Economies (DARRE) program. Seeing the old hotel returned to its majesty has been an incredible development for Petersburg adding another jewel to the downtown area.Seeing Hub communities come together to create transformative change thrills us. Community members are the subject matter experts on what their towns need. Our commitment to accompaniment and walking alongside communities as they do the hard work guides us in our work. Celebrating their victories with them gives us a moment to uplift those making the work happen.

DEI Journey:

Since 2018, The Hub has been working diligently to bring Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion into our work. For years, the organization has been working internally to expand on one of our core values: “We believe diversity creates strength.”We believe that now is a time when we must work from the ground up to commit to long-term efforts to build power through leadership development, programmatic strategies, and partnerships that commit to building power and advancing racial equity.Looking back at our organizational history, we acknowledge that our work in rural communities with populations of less than 15,000 has not reached a diverse cross-section of people in West Virginia. Because of this, we began to ask, “Who isn’t here?” when examining our involvement in communities. The social unrest in 2020 led us to examine our role in white supremacy, ableism, classism, and gender discrimination, and the ways we have perpetuated unjust systems in our communities and across West Virginia.Since 2020, our equity journey has included a staff racial equity learning series, making internal commitments to increasing our hiring and retainment of diverse staff including creating full-time Racial Equity Fellowship and VISTA positions, committing to increased coaching for rural communities of color across the state, and tackling the inherent challenges of advancing equity across the community development field within a highly rural, majority white state where Black and brown leadership has been historically marginalized and under-invested.Our belief in the power of local people to see the value and the potential of their place, and of each other, is at the core of our belief in the potential we have to build power in West Virginia to advance racial equity, inclusion, and accessibility while disrupting systems that have historically excluded some communities.We are committed to engaging in conversations to uplift communities and leaders of color to move from talk to action on why race matters in West Virginia as we work to disrupt these systems. We will support investment in Black-led organizations and rural Black leadership. And we are committed to driving public and private investments into these spaces, both organizational and geographic.

Grafton

A core team led by Unleash Tygart, Inc participated in Opportunity Appalachia, receiving technical assistance to support a community development project located in an Opportunity Zone.

Huntington

Core teams led by Thundercloud, Inc. and the City of Huntington participated in Opportunity Appalachia, receiving technical assistance to support community development projects located in Opportunity Zones.

Charleston

A core team led by Crawford Holdings, LLC participated in Opportunity Appalachia, receiving technical assistance to support a community development project located in an Opportunity Zone.

White Sulphur Springs

Residents participated in round 4 of The Hub’s capstone Communities of Achievement program with a focus on building local recreational economies.

Petersburg

Residents participated in round 4 of The Hub’s capstone Communities of Achievement program with a focus on building local recreational economies.

Marlinton

Residents participated in round 4 of The Hub’s capstone Communities of Achievement program with a focus on building local recreational economies.

Franklin

Residents participated in round 4 of The Hub’s capstone Communities of Achievement program with a focus on building local recreational economies.

Elkins

Residents participated in round 4 of The Hub’s capstone Communities of Achievement program with a focus on building local recreational economies. 

A core team led by Woodlands Development Group also participated in Opportunity Appalachia, receiving technical assistance to support a community development project located in an Opportunity Zone.

Cowen

Residents participated in round 4 of The Hub’s capstone Communities of Achievement program with a focus on building local recreational economies. Read their community case study.

Parsons

Residents participated in the Blueprint Communities* program to engage their neighbors and co-create strategic plans for their future.

New Martinsville

Residents participated in the Blueprint Communities* program to engage their neighbors and co-create strategic plans for their future. Read their community case study.

Monticello Neighborhood of Clarksburg

Residents participated in the Blueprint Communities* program to engage their neighbors and co-create strategic plans for their future. Watch their community documentary.

Meadow River Valley Region

Residents participated in the Blueprint Communities* program to engage their neighbors and co-create strategic plans for their future. Read their community case study.

Lewis County

Residents participated in the Blueprint Communities* program to engage their neighbors and co-create strategic plans for their future.

Kingwood

Residents participated in the Blueprint Communities* program to engage their neighbors and co-create strategic plans for their future.

Smithers

Residents participated in the Cultivate WV program to kickstart community and economy building. Read their community case study.

Montgomery

Residents participated in the Cultivate WV program to kickstart community and economy building. Read their community case study.

Message from our Executive Leadership Team

It has been a year of abundant opportunities and partnerships across the state, and a year that has pushed all of us to work harder, faster, and smarter – together.At The Hub, we say that “the work works when you put in the work.” This means that our approach to community-based development, and individual leadership development, really does transform local communities, especially when we all work together for the same goal, and stay committed to working together for the long haul.In 2023, we continued to be amazed at the local leadership, drive and innovation we saw in communities throughout the state that are building locally-driven development from the ground up. Our network of community leaders, partners and opportunities keeps growing and shows no signs of slowing in 2024!

We extend our deepest gratitude to everyone for being part of the larger Hub community as we reflect on this year’s deep impact in West Virginia communities through our work. We are thrilled to have champions who believe in our mission that every community in West Virginia can achieve economic growth when they are supported with the tools and training they need to lead and spark positive change.

We believe strongly in the fact that putting in the work yourself to improve your neighborhood, your town, and our state is where true transformational change happens. With strategic partners and thought leaders like you in the work with us, we continue to be able to walk alongside community teams as they do the work to uplift their communities.Thank you to all of the community teams and leaders who are brave enough to keep showing up every day, and putting in thousands of hours of volunteer time to support your communities and the entire state. Your determination in the face of difficult work and far-off successes is something to applaud yourself for – and to celebrate.Whether you’re volunteering on the ground in your community, sharing our stories of hope with your friends and neighbors, or attending a virtual event with The Hub, your participation in our work is what keeps it going. Thank you for all your work and support this past year, and we are excited to continue in the work with you in 2024!In Continued Accompaniment,

– WV Community Development Hub
Executive Leadership Team

Stephanie Tyree

Executive Director

Amanda Workman Scott

Director of Community Engagement

Katie Loudin

Director of Strategic Development