CHARLESTON -- The landscape of West Virginia used to be replete with bustling communities.

A lot of those areas, however, are quiet and slowly decaying despite the efforts of any number of local improvement organizations.

Now, 10 Mountain State communities will have new resources at their disposal that could help them rise once again.

"West Virginia Rising" was the theme of a ceremony at the state Capitol March 12 during which officials announced the 10 West Virginia communities that will be part of a Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh program aimed at creating sustainable economic development.

The Mountain State's first Blueprint Communities are Ansted, Fairmont (Southside), Gilmer County, McDowell County, Mullens, Ritchie County, St. Albans, Salem, Shinnston and Williamson.

"We know that together we can combine our resources and truly have an impact, said John Bendel, director of community investment for FHLBank Pittsburgh. "We know that West Virginia is rising."

Benefits

During the next year, leadership teams from those areas will receive training designed to help them develop and implement community revitalization plans. To help, FHLBank Pittsburgh and lender partners in each community will make funding available to them.

About 100 dignitaries from local and state government and the private sector attended the ceremony. Gov. Joe Manchin said the Blueprint program is a way to return vibrancy to those communities.

"We always hear how things used to be," he said. "Well, things changed. Why didn't we change with them?"

The Blueprint program could spur development in the selected communities and beyond, Manchin said.

"The creation of a thousand forests lie in one acorn," he said, referring to a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson. "We're planting 10 acorns in West Virginia today. This can bring back vibrant communities. It can happen again."

Two years ago, FHLBank Pittsburgh started the Blueprint program with 22 Pennsylvania communities. The bank considered 26 Mountain State communities for this year's program. The ones that were selected were chosen based on their capacities to plan and implement revitalization projects and to assemble leadership teams representing diverse community interests.

Each team must include a representative from a development organization, a local governing body, a financial institution and other important stakeholders.

FHLBank Pittsburgh will make available $300,000 that can be used for business startups, home ownership and other programs across the state during the program's first year of operation. Each team will receive training and other services worth about $20,000. Those benefits will include:

• five days of community revitalization training by the Heartland Center for Leadership Development and the Brush Fork Institute;
• a one-day housing capacity and technical training workshop;
• a community profile including key indicators and trends for planning;
• a matching mini grant for technical assistance, project implementation or pre-development needs after successful involvement in training; and
• funding opportunities and strengthened relationships between community leaders and funding source representatives.

The first workshop is scheduled for April in Beckley.

Excited Communities

Team members are looking forward to the workshops.

"This is a really good opportunity to learn some skills, do some networking and gain some resources that we wouldn't have otherwise," said Debra Herndon, Shinnston city manager.

Herndon said she is confident that residents of the northern Harrison County town will embrace the Blueprint program.

"We want to have input from our community," she said. "I think the community is ready for some changes."

Fairmont Community Development Partnerships Director Bob Gribben echoed those sentiments.

"This is something we want to do with the community, not to the community," he said.

The Fairmont team is interested in improving the downtown's southside neighborhood, which is on the eastern side of the Monongahela River, said Vera Sansalone, program manager for Main Street Fairmont. Sansalone and Gribbon spearheaded Fairmont's Blueprint initiative.

"(Southside) is the only neighborhood we included," she said. "It's adjacent to our downtown. ... The area is a great mixed-use neighborhood."

They are hopeful that, through the Blueprint program, they will be able to attract new businesses and new property owners to the area, she said.

Ansted team members are hopeful they will be able to build upon recent economic development successes, said Martha Leone, Ansted's banking team member from Fayette County National Bank.

"We hope to see more new businesses come to Ansted," she said. "We've had three new businesses the last couple of years."

During the ceremony, each team received a Blueprint Community banner. To wrap up the event, Larry Groce, host of "Mountain Stage," the West Virginia Public Broadcasting program that is heard internationally, performed a song, "West Virginia Rising," which he wrote for the event.