Your Town Alabama: Designing Our Future

Getting to Know the ARC continued

Before we go any deeper, and just in case folks don't know anything about the ARC, we pulled information from the ARC’s website (http://www.arc.gov) You can also find out more information about Alabama's relationship with the ARC by clicking here.

The Appalachian Regional Commission's structure is designed to ensure an active federal-state partnership. There are 14 Commission members: the governors of the 13 Appalachian states and a federal co-chair. The federal co-chair is appointed by the president and is subject to Senate confirmation. Each year the 13 governors elect one of their number to serve as states' co-chair of the Commission.

Each governor appoints an alternate who oversees the state's ARC program and serves as the state-level contact for those seeking ARC assistance. Grassroots participation is provided through local development districts, multi-county agencies with boards made up of elected officials, businesspeople, and other local leaders.
The Appalachian Regional Commission's Area Development Program and Highway Program address the four goals identified in the Commission's strategic plan:

1. Increase job opportunities and per capita income in Appalachia to reach parity with the nation.
2. Strengthen the capacity of the people of Appalachia to compete in the global economy.
3. Develop and improve Appalachia's infrastructure to make the Region economically competitive.
4. Build the Appalachian Development Highway System to reduce Appalachia's isolation.

That’s a pretty basic definition of what the ARC is. Exactly what types of projects does ARC fund?In terms of the Your Town Program, in addition to the regular Your Town Alabama workshops, we’ve funded a Youth Leadership Development Initiative—training for 165 high school students in 6 distressed counties that was managed through the University of Alabama Center for Economic Development (Nisa Miranda) working with Dr. Cheryl Morgan at Auburn’s Urban Studio.

Our mainstay of investments has been infrastructure development in order to create jobs—we help local towns develop infrastructure that helps them get jobs. Infrastructure development is a big part, but over the years things have changed. We help with distance learning, education, literacy programs, telecommunications—entrepreneurship training. We worked on the first “Kitchen Incubator in Alabama” –the Shoals Culinary Center that helped to develop Mook’s Cheese Straws, among other products. Two TV channels have done specials on this project. We do drop-out prevention projects, asset-based economic development projects, business Incubators and help with equipment and training. Leadership development and healthcare projects are other areas we help. KidOne Transport is a great example of that—they provide transportation to ill children who otherwise wouldn’t be able to make doctor’s appointments. We’ve done lots of partnerships for teacher training and student achievement. We’re currently working with Alabama Mountain Lakes on a “Halleluiah Trail” of historic churches—under our asset based development program—that will help identify assets along a corridor for tourism impact. Our coming year’s interest is on energy—ways to develop and protect our region at the same time.

How long have you been involved with ARC and what stands out to you during that time?? I’ve worked as program manager since around 1988—and have been involved for much longer than that. Over that time, I’ve seen a real impact in the communities in the ARC region. We take a real bottom-up approach. We listen to see what people need. When people ask what grant funds can be used for, I usually ask them what they need in their community. We’ve worked with local governments, nonprofits, libraries and schools.

On one project, a group of teachers wanted to go for training on teaching reading—they came back and mentored other teachers. We went for a validation visit to see how the project had gone. We went in July—and, as you know, schools are out and people are off in the summer—but when we got there, all the teachers came back from summer vacation to tell us what they did. The ones who attended the workshops had come back and mentored others, even the custodial workers had been mentored and they even came to tell us that the mentoring helped them. Everyone at that school had been taught to help children read.

Your Town has been very fortunate to receive funding from ARC for workshops and the program. What about the program helps it to fit into the program for funding? How does ARC feel about the Your Town AL program? We love Your Town and I’d highly recommend it. I think it helps people to stop and think about how they want to grow—instead of not seeing that there are options in growth. Instead of creating a problem and then having to deal with it—the program helps you to understand that there are options in how your community grows.

Local citizens should all take three days and attend the workshop. Citizens sometimes leave everything up to government and they shouldn’t. That’s one of the reasons we did the Youth program through Your Town. Our youth today will be the leaders of tomorrow—we often don’t give them enough credit, and they certainly won’t do things if you don’t involve them. The children I’ve worked with all seem to understand that they need education to better themselves.

What would be your suggestion to a community looking for funding? What’s their best approach? First, make sure you are in our region [you can find that information on the adeca.state.al.us website and the arc.gov website]. If your community needs something that is an economic development program, they can contact us at any time. If it is a normal project, they can go to their planning agency (one of the Regional Planning Commissions—www.alarc.org) for technical assistance. I’m happy to help as well. Our normal application process begins with a three-page pre-application due at the end of August. All applicants must be public or non-profit. We have an annual workshop—this year it is August 3 in Scottsboro. All we ask is that attendees pay for lunch and their transportation. The workshop explains the process and how to apply. Projects are selected from the pre-application to complete a full application. Our workshop also has a panel of agencies that we partner with that talk about how to work with them directly, so it is a good opportunity to learn about other funding sources as well.

To contact Bonnie Durham, you can use the information below:
Bonnie Durham, Program Manager
Appalachian Regional Commission
P.O. Box 681093
Ft. Payne, AL  35968
(256) 845-3472