young people Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Fellowship Program Seeks To Retain, Develop State’s Young Workforce

Nonprofit group Generation West Virginia is organizing a fellowship program to help retain and advance the careers of young people in the state.

The nine-month fellowship program aims to help workers in their 20s and 30s interested in in-state careers grow their leadership and development skills alongside networking opportunities with fellow young professionals and business leaders.

“A lot of small businesses in West Virginia don’t have the capacity to provide really great, robust professional development opportunities for their teams,” Executive Director Alex Weld said. “And so this program is really built in response to that – how can we support young people in their growth and their efforts to stay here while also supporting companies who have young talent that they want to keep, and they want to grow into new roles that they otherwise might not be able to support on their own?”

Some of the skills involved include navigating career changes, how to develop and manage interpersonal relationships with coworkers and managers and using individual communication styles as support. Activities like hiking and whitewater rafting are also scheduled to increase bonds with fellow program-goers and to help gain an appreciation of the state.

Weld said many young workers leave to advance their careers elsewhere in part because of the lack of professional development opportunities in the state.

“We’re really trying to change that narrative, by providing young people with an opportunity to see other young people and to be a part of something with other young people,” Weld said. “It’s so they understand that you can grow and be successful here, you’re not alone in wanting to do that.”

West Virginia has a labor force participation of nearly 55 percent as of last December, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The program is set to have five in-person sessions each organized in the New River Gorge area, Matewan, Williamson, Harpers Ferry, Morgantown and Charleston alongside four virtual sessions over the course of nine months.

Applications are available online until Feb. 28 with information on how to apply available on the nonprofit’s website.

'There Are Jobs Out There' – Generation West Virginia Holds Event in Shepherdstown

Generation West Virginia’s local Eastern Panhandle chapter hosted a panel discussion at Shepherd University Thursday night with four young locals who decided to stay in West Virginia to build their careers.

Those four local business owners shared why they made the decision to remain in West Virginia. The biggest driver for all of them was the sense of community. But also, because they found opportunity here in their chosen career path.

One of the speakers, Aneesh Sompalli, graduated from Martinsburg High School in 2006 and went on to study at both West Virginia University and Shepherd. He now manages an urgent care in Jefferson County.

“You have to have some kind of training or apprenticeship, whether that’s the traditional route of school or a vocational school, but there are jobs out there for people,” he said.

Sompali argues the state needs to put more focus on education to further diversify the economy and to keep young people here.

In the statehouse, a bill to make community and technical colleges free or more affordable after meeting certain qualifications has been moving rapidly through the legislative process.

According to the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission, three in-demand career paths in West Virginia that may only require a degree from a CTC are in healthcare, IT, and manufacturing fields.

Young West Virginians Say There's a Negative Perception of Those Who Stay In the State

Editor’s Note: Today we continue our series on how to keep young people in West Virginia. Yesterday, we looked at the struggle many people go through to find work in the state in their chosen fields. Today we examine the stereotypes young West Virginians who choose to stay in the state face from those on the outside.

With the state expected to lose nearly 20 thousand people over the next 15 years, many are trying to figure out how to entice young people to stay in West Virginia in the hopes of reversing that trend. Some young people want to stay; others don’t for many reasons, like finding work. But many young people agree there’s a perception amongst young West Virginians that people have to leave, not just to find work, but to simply succeed.

Logan Spears, a 25 years old bartender, works at the Dancing Fig on High Street, in Morgantown.

Spears says in his group of friends, there’s a bias against those that stay in West Virginia, primarily because of compensation.

“Most of the people that stay in the state are looked down upon by the others. ‘Oh, I guess he didn’t as good a job as I did’,” Spears said.

“I think one of the big things is the pay that you get from it, it kind of goes on the price of living.”

But it’s not just about money; it’s also about attitude.

Jocelyn and Matt Crawford live in Charleston, and have been married since 2012.

“It seems to be that people who were born and raised in West Virginia, if you choose to stick around, the people who have left to go to other places, they have sort of made it and you have not, even if you’ve been doing great things with your life,” said Jocelyn Crawford.

“It seems like a lot of the people that we know who have gone to school in West Virginia are looking to leave, or feel like they are stuck in a rut, even if they have a good job or are successful in other ways,” Matt Crawford said.

The Crawfords, believe national media coverage of West Virginia, which they say tends to be negative, plays a role.

“Whenever there’s a study out and it has West Virginia at the bottom of something good or the top of something bad, people talk about it a lot. It seems like it’s almost been ingrained in people our age, that we’re the fattest state. Or the dumbest state, and you can’t succeed if you’re here,” said Matt Crawford.

Not Buying It

The Crawfords aren’t buying that assessment. And they’re not alone.

Mike Jones was raised on a tobacco farm in Virginia. He moved to West Virginia for college, met the woman who would become his wife, and decided to stay. He now lives in Charleston and works at a small business in Montgomery.

He says anyone can find something fun to do in West Virginia. And he says it’s the true mountainous beauty of the state that keeps people here.

“I had never been rock climbing before until I went to New River Gorge. Just several experiences that I wouldn’t have had in other parts of the country,” Jones said.

“If people look up from their screens they will realize there’s plenty going on around them and not everything is going on away from them. I’ve experienced several people that will not be in the moment. They would rather be somewhere else. If that attitude doesn’t change, then they are not going to experience happiness.”

How Can West Virginia Keep Its Young People Here?

Editor’s Note: We begin a series of stories looking into the issue of how to keep young people in West Virginia. This came about as part of a special digital project undertaken at West Virginia Public Broadcasting over the past few months, WVNextIn6.

We asked you to tell us what’s next for West Virginia in six words or less. Several posts had the theme “Keep our Best and Brightest here.”

According to a recent report from the West Virginia University Bureau of Business and Economic Research, West Virginia is facing a difficult road ahead in keeping people in the state. The state’s expected to lose about 20 thousand people through the year 2030, and could lose a congressional seat because of it. It all leads to a question West Virginians have been asking for years: How do we keep young people here? We asked our younger listeners on Twitter and Facebook to talk to us about their thoughts.

“I’ve considered moving out of the state, but I’ve stayed close because of my family. My parents are in their 60s, grandparents in the 90s. I wanted to be close to the family in case something happens. It’s finding some kind of way to stay close to your family, but still you have to be able to make a living,” said Heather Sammons, a graduate of West Virginia University.

“You have to be able to find a job, and that’s my big hurdle right now.”

She admits that if she were looking in banking or health care, it might be a different story. But her passions don’t fall into those areas.

“It’s just really hard if you’re doing something where there isn’t this overabundance of work. I would really like to work for nonprofit, but our state, is in such a position that there’s no funding for anything. It’s either stick it out, stick to your guns, and figure out what you could do to survive until you find the job you want to do, or go somewhere else,” Sammons said.

“A lot of is having a really good support system. I came back to Morgantown because my friends are here. It’s easier here than in Huntington, definitely. Reaching out to my family, my sister has been a great help. She will text me and say you deserve great things.”

Johnna Bailey, from Barboursville, also faces similar challenges.

“All of my life has been in West Virginia. I graduated from Marshall last year. I received my degree from Marshall in Anthropology. I am interested in doing research. There’s not entry level work in anthropology around here, although there are some interest in archeological sites,” Bailey said.

“I think that people want to go where the jobs are, and the jobs aren’t here.”

That search for work has caused Bailey to feel a great deal of inner conflict.

“I fantasize about moving to the West Coast, I want that more than anything right now. I fantasize about joining the Peace Corps, and that’s what I am working towards right now, to see the other side of the world,” Bailey said.

“I know that although I want these things, that I love West Virginia so very much. I love the atmosphere, I love the people. I feel very torn because I love my family; I don’t want to abandon my family. They want what’s best for me. I also know I need to do this for myself.”

Bailey says she wants to learn things in her adventures and bring them back to West Virginia, to help the state. But for other people, the job market may be so difficult in West Virginia, they feel they have little choice but to leave, and they may never be able to make it back.

“Looking at my own professional career, it’s really hard to say that I will stay, because when you only have four or five universities in the state, it’s hard to get a creative writing job, when I think only two or three of those have creative writing programs. I think that’s sad because I do love the state, I mean I have lived here all my life. I think it’s beautiful; it’s wonderful. At the same time it’s really hard to grow here,” said Ian Williams, a 21-year-old Fairmont State University student.

“If we can establish these kinds of opportunities for the arts to flourish, for young professionals to take root and take claim to the area, I think that would be wonderful. I think that would be a wonderful thing to happen. If we can make the arts an emphasis in schools, and in communities, I think that would go a long way towards keeping people in the state.”

According to the WVU study, the researchers say population decline will start around 2016. And the state will continue to age. This report says by 2030, nearly 1 in 4 West Virginians will be over 65 years old.