Renew America Success Stories

Rural Renewal Strategy

 

Rural Action's Rural Renewal Strategy empowers low-income residents of the 29 counties of Appalachian Ohio to design and implement their own solutions to the environmental and economic challenges they face. 

More than 25 grassroots groups, 10 Rural Action issue-based committees, numerous regional agency representatives and scores of individual citizens participated in designing the Rural Renewal Strategy, a process by which residents and volunteers identify local concerns and Rural Action lends technical expertise to help citizens design appropriate, community-based solutions. 

Since 1993, Rural Renewal participants serving on various Rural Renewal Committees have identified more than a dozen community needs throughout southeast Ohio, including a desire for sustainable agricultural and grazing practices; an organized, volunteer environmental work force; a program for stream restoration; the delivery of high quality health care to rural residents and the implementation of a rural, public transportation system. In cooperation with VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) volunteers, more than a dozen projects have been implemented to help meet these needs. 

Two core tenets of the Rural Renewal Strategy are that proposed solutions should take advantage of local human capital, and that they should build upon community strengths. "We're trying to move this organization toward thinking about what is good about a community, and how we can build upon what is good," says Carol Kuhre, Executive Director of Rural Action. "There are three criteria by which we judge any project: it must be sustainable to the environment, it must advance the rights of people, especially those who have been disenfranchised, and it must actually include those people in the process. It's this empowerment of people in the process of revitalizing either their own lives or their communities that is really central to what we're doing. We want to work with people to help themselves." 

Program Highlights 

Rural Action Network 

• A consortium of low-income residents, agency representatives, service agencies, churches, funders and business leaders who have joined together to determine how their collective experience can be used to create sustainable agricultural, commercial and environmental initiatives for the region. 
• The boom and bust economy of southeast Ohio has created a legacy of unemployment, illiteracy and environmental degradation. The goal of the Network is to develop collaborative enterprises that will work to address these issues.

• More than 300 school children from Harmar Elementary are constructing a 900-square-foot mural depicting the history of Marietta. The Mural will complement Marietta's river front and help instill a sense of pride and empowerment among the community members creating it.
• Working with a VISTA volunteer, the students helped develop the concept for the mural, chose the subject matter and are now drawing the images that they will paint.

• Most of the region's farm products are shipped for processing elsewhere while the food that is consumed in the region is imported from outside suppliers. Rural Action is working to reestablish small, diversified family farms and local processing facilities.
• The agricultural marketing team is developing strategies to sell these products to local and regional consumers, many of whom are committed to buying locally produced goods.

• As the first step in creating a strategic plan to develop lower-impact, more productive agriculture, Rural Action will develop a comprehensive agricultural information database containing information about farmers' needs, resources and production levels.
• The database and complete assessment of the process will be made available to other groups interested in a similar enterprise.

• Southeast Ohio has thousands of acres of unused and poorly managed grazing land. This land could provide significant income for area farmers while injecting $5 - $10 million into each of the region's economies. Organizers are developing strategies to increase the use of controlled grazing among area farmers.
• Controlled grazing increases the diversity of the grasses and legumes, thereby creating a soil-building permaculture that requires no tilling, fertilizers or other chemical inputs.

• Conventional agricultural methods deplete topsoil, are capital intensive, cause environmental damage and result in low profits. Rural Action is developing an agriculture education program (for use in adult vocational agriculture programs, high school and elementary school) to help local farmers restore worn out land, increase their income and use fewer off-farm inputs.

• Sulfuric acid drainage from abandoned mines, high iron concentrations, log jams, garbage and debris have killed the 27-mile Monday Creek. The pollution in the creek is so severe that the creek ranges in color from bright orange to sickly green, and its banks are stained with the iron color of the water they contain. Through a collaborative effort of more than 25 organizations and agencies, Rural Action organizers hope to adopt a technique developed in Pennsylvania in which artificial wetlands and limestone drainage sinks remove heavy metals and neutralize the acid.

• RestoreCorps mobilizes local people to undertake community and ecological restoration projects in their own communities, with the guidance of Rural Action's environmental staff. The volunteer recruitment process emphasizes an intergenerational membership.
• Upcoming activities include founding a tree nursery to raise native species for low-cost distribution; working to prevent erosion caused by motorized vehicles in the Wayne National Forest; conducting a stream bank stabilization project; reforesting reclaimed strip-mine land and maintaining trees previously planted by the Arbor Day Committee.

• Through a series of videos, seminars and six workshops, this program offers to rural leaders information about environmental terminology, land use, biological systems and pollution.

• Few rural residents of Appalachian Ohio have the opportunity to receive consistent, quality health care. Many lack the resources to travel to a distant town and pay for a visit to the doctor. Rural Action is creating a health and wellness center where agencies can provide basic health care, prenatal care, blood pressure and cholesterol screening, nutrition education and counseling services.
• The center will serve as the base of operations for Rural Action's HealthCorps fieldwork.

• The emergency prescription fund helps purchase prescription medication for low-income people with chronic or life-threatening conditions. Applicants are first referred to the local branch of the Red Cross and the Athens County Department of Human Services to determine if an alternate means of medical assistance is available.

• A former United Methodist Church, purchased for $1,500, is being converted to a wellness and community center and will serve as the offices for Rural Action's self-help housing project, transportation project, and Cooperative Buying Network. From installing a kitchen and bath, to painting and landscaping, Rural Action volunteers will complete the conversion themselves. Only the framing and drywall installation will be hired out.

• SEORF is a National Public Telecomputing Network affiliate that provides access to the Internet. Rural Action maintains a site on SEORF and is working to promote use of the Internet to the Appalachian Ohio community.
• The Internet can change the definition of what "rural" means. Citizens can connect directly to U.S. government computers to review proposed legislation or current environmental regulations, they can send email to their Congressional leaders, or they can read the latest information from Brazil or from an environmental group in West Virginia.

• Because rural Athens County has no public transportation, many people cannot find a way to and from work, medical appointments or even the grocery store. Through a collaborative effort among several area agencies, the Rural Action County Transportation Link will provide free or low-cost van transportation to Athens County residents.
• Several models are under consideration, including a program that would combine prearranged routes and scheduled stops with a limited "dial-a-ride" system.

Vital Statistics

Program Management/Partnerships: Rural Action manages the Rural Renewal Project through a partnership with VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) to provide fieldworkers from VISTA's volunteer core. Numerous additional partnerships have been formed with organizations, agencies and individuals to help work on projects with participating communities, including numerous local farmers, ranchers, and businesses; the Appalachian People's Action Coalition; The Cooperative Grocer; the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association; Innovative Farmers of Ohio; Community Foods Initiative; Hocking Valley Greens; the Phar Cyde; Hocking College's National Environmental Training Cooperative; Ohio University; Athens, Hocking and Perry Counties National Resource Conservation Services; Hocking Conservancy District; Hocking River Commission; Athens County Arbor Day Committee; Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Reclamation; the Red Cross; Office of Surface Mines; the Wayne National Forest; the U.S. Bureau of Mines; the U.S. Geological Service; the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 

Budget: The 1994 annual budget was $144,000. Significant project funding is provide by AmeriCorps. 

Community Served: The low-income rural residents of the 29 counties of Appalachian Ohio. 

Measures of Success:

The implementation of the Monday Creek Watershed Restoration Project.

The design and dissemination of agricultural surveys to producers and consumers in order to identify opportunities for expansion in agriculture.

The establishment of the Rural Action Network.

The renovation of a historic church building that now serves as a community and wellness center and as office space for Rural Action.

The opening of the Ultimate Recycling Center in Vinton, Ohio, a reuse center that refurbishes appliances and building fixtures.

The implementation of RestoreCorps, a group of local youths and college students restoring the environment, partly through stream bank stabilization and tree plantings.

The completion of the first side of the Harmar Mural Project, a community effort involving more than 300 children from a low-income district in Marietta who participated in all aspects of the design and painting process.

The distribution of $1,000 worth of medication during 1994 through the Emergency Prescription Fund.

Membership in Rural Action has grown by more than 300% to 450 members since January 1994. Rural Action has 450 members.

The Corporation for National Service has recognized the Rural Renewal Strategy as a highly innovative example of a grassroots development approach.