Do you want your community to become more sustainable, but don’t know where to start?
Are you and your neighbors looking for good-paying jobs, but feel like the odds are stacked against you?
Do you support long-lasting, positive change for your community, but don’t have the support to move forward?
If this sounds like you, we’re glad you found us at ReImagine Appalachia! We invite you to join the growing movement of individuals and community-based organizations participating in our ReImagine Your Community Toolkit. The Toolkit is a step-by-step guide designed to help folks like you tap into the power of community collaboration and develop new visions for their communities. It can be very helpful to have a resource that guides you in the process of revitalizing and reimagining the future of your community, and ultimately, creating a more just, sustainable economy in Appalachia.
The ReImagine Your Community Visioning Session Project is an initiative that brings together community leaders from across the region for a series of collaborative monthly meetings with the collective goal of implementing the toolkit in their own communities. The project will support participants to create a bottom-up, collective visioning process for a sustainable, equitable economy in each of the community leader’s communities, neighborhoods, or regions. Each participant receives a modest stipend to support the implementation of the ReImagine Your Community Toolkit and the privilege of being part of a small cohort of Appalachian changemakers from a diverse spectrum of communities.
In order to successfully access the numerous governmental, business, and nonprofit programs and funding opportunities available in Appalachia right now, applicants need an engaged coalition and shared vision from broad and diverse stakeholder groups. Our work in the ReImagine Your Community Visioning Session Project focuses on equipping communities with the necessary tools to help prepare them to identify stakeholders, build these vital coalitions, and begin to engage in the next level of technical assistance programs. This can prepare a group to present their vision for the next stage in sustainable development and give them a leg up to receiving grants and funding.
The collective visioning required of participants in this project can help serve as a guide, a source of ideas, and galvanizing collective force for securing competitive federal climate infrastructure grants.
We are coming together to protect public health, create jobs, reduce poverty, and enhance the overall quality of life for all community members, turning our communities’ vibrant visions into reality.
We are excited to introduce you to our ReImagine Your Community Cohort!
Click below to read their bios:
Caitlin Ware | Community: McDowell County, WV
Caitlin Ware is a third year M.Div. student at Duke Divinity School from Flemington, WV. She is pursuing ordination as an elder in the West Virginia Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. She is working with Rev. Brad Davis to help form a coalition in McDowell County, WV. Her interests are in coalfield justice work. She is a co-director for the Faith & Community in Appalachia Conference with various state Councils of Churches around the Appalachian region. She enjoys visiting state parks, kayaking, and outdoor recreation.
Brad Davis | Community: McDowell County, WV
Rev. Brad Davis is United Methodist clergy serving as pastor of six churches in McDowell County, WV. As a native of Appalachian coal country, Rev. Davis has a passion for the revitalization of its land and people. His ministry focuses on issues related to coalfield justice and community renewal, and the church’s role in bringing that to fruition.
Octavia Cordon, Ed.D | Community: Charleston Westside, WV
Octavia Cordon was born and raised in New York City and later migrated to Charleston, West Virginia approximately 20 years ago. She is a mother of 4, friend to many and a community advocate. She also owns her own business, Phat Daddy’s.
Octavia has spent the last decade of her career working in education, early intervention, and community outreach. Coming from a big city like New York, her goal was to bring her family to a new environment that would offer a safer alternative to what she experienced in NYC. West Virginia offered a slower pace her family was looking for to raise her babies at the time.
Since moving to West Virginia, Octavia has volunteered in many spaces as well as served on many boards including KCS Pre-K. She has obtained her Regents Bachelor of Arts degree from WVSU, Master’s in organizational management from Ashford University and Doctorate in Education, Specialization in Curriculum & Instruction from Capella University.
Annie Warmke | Community: Marietta Ohio Philips Subdivision, OH
Annie Warmke is an award-winning activist who is an award-winning social entrepreneur – working for social change in the early days of programs for prevention of violence against women and children (1980-2001), and now as a pioneer in the sustainability movement (1994-present). Annie currently serves on the boards of the Women’s Initiative Network, Women’s Peacepower Foundation and works as a consultant to various organizations and farms. She is the founder of Women Grow Ohio, and Buffalo Gals Voices. Annie has written widely on violence against women, and also authored several books related to living sustainably. Annie served as the project manager and building of Blue Rock Station, the heart of the premier sustainable living center in Ohio. Along with her husband she is part of a nationally syndicated podcast – When the Biomass Hits the Wind Turbine. Her latest project is designing and building a food forest gardens business.
Khadiza Massey | Community: Wilkinsburg, PA
Khadiza Massey, a longtime Grounded Steward-turned-employee, was born in Homewood and raised in Missouri. She is a graduate of the University of Missouri with a degree in Finance. She moved back to Pittsburgh where she now also works as the Manager for the Homewood Farmers’ Market with Grow Pittsburgh, has been elected as a Board Member at the Pittsburgh Food Council, and is a Community Ambassador to the Homewood Children’s Village. Khadiza currently lives in Wilkinsburg and spends her free time picking up food for senior citizens, watching movies with family, and relaxing.
Sarah Lowry | Community: Mahoning Valley, OH
As the new senior director of Community Impact at the Community Foundation of the Mahoning Valley, Sarah brings to the position over 12 years of experience leading the Healthy Community Partnership and representing U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown in Northeast Ohio. These experiences helped Sarah cultivate strong, diverse relationships and skills related to public policy and decision-making processes. Sarah shares her time overseeing the Partnership, a the cross-sector collaborative and its work to create a healthier Mahoning Valley by addressing the region’s poor health outcomes, and supporting the Community Foundation’s strategic community leadership initiatives by making connections between people and resources needed to make lasting, positive change.
Before coming to the Community Foundation, Sarah served as Northeast Ohio Regional Representative for U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown. She received a master’s degree in American Studies with certificates in TSOL and Professional & Technical writing and bachelor’s in English literature and linguistics, both from Youngstown State University. She recently became a Ohio Certified Volunteer Naturalist and often volunteers at Mill Creek MetroParks. She also proudly serves on the boards of the Raymond John Wean Foundation, Policy Matters Ohio, the League of Women Voters of Greater Youngstown, and Friends of Fellows Riverside Gardens. To balance work and play, Sarah enjoys biking, birding, hiking, and picture-taking—any excuse to be outside.
Weston Lombard | Community: Dover Township, OH
Weston Lombard is the steward of Solid Ground Farm, a 17 acre sustainable education and recreation center in Athens County. He is the co-founder of Rising Appalachian Warrior’s youth education programs and Solid Ground School, a nature-based elementary school run from the farm. For the past 18 years he has experimented with agroforestry, agroecology, and sustainable living, sharing these passions with youth and the community through classes, summer camps, and workshops. His ambition is to grow community, culture, and economy rooted in thoughtful relationship to our ecosystems.
Kara Scott | Community: Carbon County, PA
Kara Scott has been volunteering in nonprofit organizations most of her life, and community is her passion. Currently, she is serving her 4th term as a member of her borough council, is the chair and charter member of the Carbon County Council of Governments, a member of Save Carbon County, and the founder and President of Bowmanstown Area Residents Connected (BARC). BARC was proud to be nominated and receive the Environmental Partnership Award offered through the Pennsylvania Environmental Council and the Northeast Pennsylvania Environmental Partners.
She also founded the Bowmanstown Area Action Committee to fight for local rights against a trash transfer station in her borough, along the Lehigh River.
Kara is certified by iPEC for both Professional Coaching and ELI – MP (Energy Leadership Index Master Practitioner) and has degrees in psychology, communication, and recreation, but it is through decades of service and volunteering that she acquired the skills to organize and fundraise for her community.
Mary Sanders | Community: Preston, Tucker County WV
Mary Sanders is an ordained minister of word and service in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. She considers herself fortunate that she was able to stay in Appalachia, though, like many others, she thought she would have to leave to find success. However, success comes in many ways. After a geology degree and 16 years with WVDEP, she went to seminary for a theology degree and found herself as a director of a non-profit. She lives on her dad’s family farm in western MD (all the way west) with her dog (Zelda) and two cats (Cat-One and Daisy). She also has a ridiculously large extended family and her spousal equivalent, Paul. Mary continues to be enthusiastic about Appalachia, rocks, environment and now adds theology and faith into the mix. She hungers for unexpected solutions to the issues she sees around her. She dreams of an Appalachia freed to be its best and most beautiful Creation.
Wendy Tuck | Community: District 4 in the City of Parkersburg
Wendy Tuck is a life-long learner with a MA in Special Education, and many years in education, social services, and non-profit management. She and her husband have been in the world of foster care since before they had their own children, and have been steady advocates and partners with those whose needs are great and resources are few. This is her first time in public office – she was elected in 2020, hit the streets running and has not stopped since. She has developed a strong and effective type of “informal governance”, informing and engaging constituents in collective action to meet real human needs, and to have good times together as well.
ReImagine Your Community Toolkit
The ReImagine Your Community Toolkit is a tool that shows you how to reimagine and, in time, implement projects that make your neighborhood, town, county, or region more sustainable. This may range from putting solar panels on places of worship to having electric car charging stations on the main street; a regenerative hemp farm that creates jobs, or support for finding new uses for old coal plants.
We know that sustainable development is about more than just renewable energy. That’s why the ReImagine Your Community Toolkit looks at the bigger picture. By looking at the sustainable development sector holistically, the Toolkit can build a new economy designed for everyone.
The ReImagine Your Community Toolkit prioritizes hearing from everyone, making sure that the ideas and actions created through the Toolkit reflect the unique needs of your community. By inviting everyone to the table, we can work together, build trust, and create an inclusive environment where all voices are heard.
Together, we can reimagine your community to not only meet your community’s present needs, but also ensure a brighter future for generations to come.
(A big thank you to the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania and ReImagine Beaver County for leading the way in developing this process.)
(The West Virginia Council of Churches and the Evangelical Environmental Network have adapted a version for our Christian Communities:)
DOWNLOAD THE “REIMAGINE YOUR COMMUNITY” TOOLKIT FOR CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES
ReImagine Your Community Showcase
In the summer of 2024 we held a virtual showcase for our RYC cohort participants to share about the remarkable projects they’ve been leading in their communities. Read more about this inspiring event and their projects here.
ReImagine Your Community Reports
Our cohort members have developed reports on their projects, processes, and impacts – all catalogued here. These bottom-up economic development projects to inspire hope and spur enthusiasm for community economic development projects regionwide! Click here to read the reports from our cohort.
Videos From Previous Cohorts
The ReImagine Your Community Model
Want to see what the “ReImagine Your Community” model of community organizing and visioning is all about? Click on this video and see how residents of Beaver County, Pennsylvania spearheaded this fun and engaging process.
Re-Imagine Turtle Creek Watershed & Airshed Communities
Check out this video for another example of the ReImagine Your Community Toolkit in action!