Tag: Turn This Town Around

This is part of our continuing series on how the towns of Grafton and Matewan are turning themselves around through a special collaborative project between West Virginia Public Broadcasting, West Virginia Focus magazine and the West Virginia Community Development Hub. 

Members of the Matewan community took part yesterday in the latest meeting about ideas to turn things around in the southern West Virginia City.

Citizens of the small town in Mingo County are following the steps carefully outlined by the West Virginia Development Hub to take their ideas from paper to a reality in the community. People like Kathy McCoy say the community means too much not to.

“Well I think most of the people that are hear love our community and live here and we all have a goal to see that things do better and I just feel that’s the type of people we need to jump on board,” McCoy said.

McCoy is the owner of Hatfield McCoy Inn and Wingos Grill in Matewan. She’s had to file bankruptcy twice in her 20 years as a business owner. McCoy said the community has never done a great job at highlighting what’s already there.

“You know I think it’s great that we have ideas to move forward with and bigger things, but I think if we would take it one step at a time and advertise what we do have and clean and open up some of our historical sites that we have in town. I think there is a whole lot that we can do,” McCoy said.

Besides also taking part in the latest Turn This Town Around Workshops yesterday, it was announced that a grant of $3,000 was presented to groups focused on making Matewan a Bike Friendly Community and improving exercise environments in the town. It was one of 46 proposals in the state for the Try This mini-grant program to help different communities improve their area. Kelly Webb is part of the group trying to make the town a Bike Friendly Community.

“One thing I’m trying to implement is the bike friendly Matewan and there is actually a huge market for bicyclists and what people don’t understand here is that the trails are a natural form and are something that they can truly use and we already have the resources and it’s just an extra effort,” Webb said.

The My Mobile Market also presented local families with $30 vouchers for kids to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables. It’s the progression of the ideas that will wake up the area says Russell Smith.

“I’ve seen it do some great things and I’ve seen it start to fall asleep as if the whole city was just falling in on itself and I want to take wake it back up and the Turn This Town Around program seems to be offering the best chance to get people involved and excited about their community again,” Smith said.

Smith said it chance to keep Matewan from drifting away like other small towns.

“We’re at the crux of historic opportunities throughout the early 20^th century, mine wars, the forming of the UMWA has its heart in this area this town needs to be preserved even for that alone,” Smith said.

Smith said they can’t waste their chance. 

This is part of our continuing series on how the towns of Grafton and Matewan are turning themselves around through a special collaborative project between West Virginia Public Broadcasting, West Virginia Focus magazine and the West Virginia Community Development Hub. 

The small town full of history is hoping that a key to turning things around, is finding a way to increase tourism in the area. Known for its connections to the Hatfield-McCoy feud, some residents think the way to change things is to provide attractions for outsiders to come in and visit the area. Among the ideas is to better capitalize on the Hatfield-McCoy trail used by ATV riders throughout the southern part of the state. David Hatfield is a resident of the town whose heritage runs deep.

“Matewan is long overdue for this and this town is near and dear to my heart, Sid Hatfield was my great great uncle, he was involved in the mine wars of the 1920’s, somehow I feel compelled and obligated to be here and try to help out,” David Hatfield said.

But it’s just not just the use of ATV’s, Hatfield and others would like to see shops and artisan centers develop in the town along with the idea that with the creation of an amphitheater the area could turn into a destination for West Virginia residents to come see plays. Hatfield tells a story of a visit to Pigeon Forge in Tennessee as why his small town could turn into an attractive tourism spot.

“The first time in 1987 or ’88 when I went down there to Pigeon Forge to go out to Dollywood it was a road similar to 119 or even 1056 over the on the Kentucky side and it was three hours from downtown Pigeon Forge to Dollywood in bumper to bumper traffic going in and two and half hours coming back out, so that being said now there is a 4-lane highway being expanded to 6-lanes,” David Hatfield said.

It’s those ideas of similar areas that have become attractions that people like Hatfield are looking to as an example of how things could be with the right changes. According to Hatfield the keys to turning things around are three-fold: teamwork, investment and a lot of hard work.

Hatfield and the rest of the group of active Matewan citizens are developing 20 different plans to turn Matewan around. Ideas range from becoming a theatrical hub, to walking and biking areas and renovations of historic sites. They’ll use grants from the Benedum Foundation that could see an influx of $75,000 into the community by the end of the project. Ellen Hatfield said there is unrealized potential in the area.

“Because it see it as having a lot of potential and it’s got a lot of character and history behind it and I can see it really becoming a good tourism place,” Ellen Hatfield said.

Kelly Webb is excited about the continued progress.

“Now it’s time for people to take action, they said they want to do these projects well it’s time to do them,” Webb said. “As long as we can get other people involved and hopefully everyone will group together and break down and work the projects, that’s what needs to be done if we’re going to turn the town around.”

David Hatfield said in the end it’s going to come down to whether people work together like they should to make this effort different than ones in the past.

“I think what we’ve had in the past is everyone is trying to go their own way on projects and without a cohesive effort and a comprehensive plan things seem to fail on their own and I believe if we can pull things together we won’t have that problem this time,” David Hatfield said.  

This morning we take a look at the Turn this Town Around Project in Matewan, where they too found out about possible grant funding for the community. They hope the available funds are the key to revitalizing the town.

This is part of our continuing series on how the towns of Grafton and Matewan are turning themselves around through a special collaborative project between West Virginia Public Broadcasting, West Virginia Focus magazine and the West Virginia Community Development Hub. 

Kelly Webb is a 24-year-old resident of Matewan. But she isn’t your prototypical resident of the small town along the Tug River. The Detroit, Michigan native has only been in the area for 6 months, but in that short time she’s grown fond of her new home and wants it to succeed.

“The younger generation I feel is an important part to community service project, we basically set the precedent for generations to come and learning from the older generations and getting the youth involved, it just sets a pathway for when we have children,” Webb said.

Webb along with a group of approximately 20 others were in attendance in Matewan recently to find out the next step in the process of Turn this Town Around. It’s a project headed up by the West Virginia Community Development Hub to revitalize both Matewan in the southern part of the state and Grafton in the north. At meetings in both areas this week the residents found out about the available funding to their projects. A total of $75,000 could come to the community to support ideas like computer labs, walking and biking areas, tours and renovations of the historic jail.

“Everyone is going to have to band together and really participate to turn the town around,” Webb said.

The meeting this week served several purposes. First, to make the people of Matewan aware of the available funds, but also to make sure they realized there is no time like the present to brainstorm projects that would help the town. Kent Spellman is the executive director of the West Virginia Community Development Hub and wanted the crowd to know the funds from the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation wouldn’t be there forever.

“Let me put it this way, there is a sense of urgency about this, the next meeting is July 1^st and that’s when the attendance taking starts, so there is a sense of urgency for you to quickly identify the projects and build teams around them so you can access this funding in its entirety, there is going to have to be a lot of phone calling, e-mailing and talking to neighbors,” Spellman said.

What Spellman was talking about was the need to create small teams for each project. The hope is with the available funding that 20 different projects could be funded. Spellman and others hope to get more people involved in order to complete all of them in the time frame allowed.

Spellman thinks Matewan is a perfect place to undergo the challenge.

“This is sort of like a little trial by fire to see, what does Matewan really think of itself and what can it really accomplish, this is a challenge and it is a stretch and we understand that, but I think you’re up to it,” Spellman said.

Over the coming weeks the groups will meet with members of the development hub at workshops to work through the application process for each of the projects. Applications are due by August 1.

Webb said the people of Matewan realize that outside help was needed to turn the town into what they hope it could be.

“I realize that the people here are just beautiful people, they’re amazing, they live in the mountains and they’re in a rural community, but they make it work and realizing that sometimes there needs to be someone from the outside to come in and say hey we want to help you,” Webb said.

The groups will meet at workshops starting July 1^st.

The Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation has announced it will give $150,000 to two West Virginia towns participating in the Turn This Town Around Project.

Leaders in Grafton and Matewan will be given the money for projects they develop to revitalize their communities.

This is part of our continuing series on how the towns of Grafton and Matewan are turning themselves around through a special collaborative project between West Virginia Public Broadcasting, West Virginia Focus magazine and the West Virginia Community Development Hub. 

Through the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation, the towns of Grafton and Matewan will  receive up to $75,000 each in grants to help pay for as many as 20 revitalization projects in each community. But there are strings attached. A core team of at least three people have to work on a project, and commit to attending workshops. In Grafton, one of those people, Douglas Flohr, is working to expand the farmer’s market. Flohr says grant money would help.

“Almost immediately, it’s canopies. We were talking with the folks in Bridgeport, we don’t want people just pulling up with a pickup truck and selling stuff out of the back of the truck. If we can provide canopies, once we get folks selling their produce, when they start making money, it will grow,” he said.

“We see local artists coming, anybody with something will be able to sell at this market. The seed money will allow us to buy some infrastructure right up front.”

The revitalization projects included in Turn this Town Around fall into three areas. The first are regarded as low-hanging fruit, which means they can be completed by the end of this year. Each individual project can receive up to $2,500.  The second area is intermediate. That means the project can be completed by next July. The final area is bold, transformational, which may take years to complete. Flohr says he hopes to be involved with several different projects in all these areas.

“I don’t think we are ever going to see a blossoming of Grafton in the downtown area. I think we see it as a place where there are boutique shops, come in and get some coffee, that type of thing. It’s not going to be a strip mall. We aren’t going to see J.C. Penny again,” he said.

“I think the farmer’s market will help us economically to bring folks to the downtown area. It’s a community. It’s giving people a place where they want to live.”

Another member of the farmer’s market team, is Peggy Barney. She’s also on another team working on civic infrastructure. This includes getting an after business hours conversation group together in Grafton, to meet and talk about how to improve the community. Discussion like this used to happen but it fell by the way side.

“We’ve talked to different groups, there are different people who are interested in getting that re-organized. Different businesses, each month, a different business would sponsor it,” said Barney. 

“It would be at their business or a location of their choosing. It’s just a meet and greet, getting to know everybody.”

Barney has lived in Grafton for many years. She says throughout that time, she’s seen her community change a great deal. She’s very excited about the Turn this Town Around process, which she says is different from past revitalization efforts.

“I have been involved in efforts like this for some time over the years. I have seen Grafton go from a very prosperous town to losing all our industries,” she said.

“This is a little bit different than anything that has been done before. Looking around the room, you can feel the energy.”

The teams must submit applications for the funding by August 1.