Radically Rural: Reimagining Rural Resettlement
On September 27th and 28th, the Southern Vermont Welcoming Communities initiative was front and center at the Radically Rural conference, hosted by the Hannah Grimes Center for Entrepreneurship and The Keene Sentinel. Radically Rural “builds powerful networks of passionate, engaged, innovative people willing to share ideas and resources and take action to strengthen their small communities across the country.”
To kick off the summit, Tony Pipa of the Brookings Institute hosted a panel featuring Alex Beck, BDCC’s Welcoming Communities manager, and Gloria Dickerson, founder and CEO of We2Gether Creating Change from Sunflower County, MS. The panel focused on understanding of the importance, history and current state of rural policy as Tony Pipa drew policy implications from the similarities- and differences- between the featured speakers’ work, largely based off of his Reimagine Rural podcast, on which Welcoming Communities was also featured.
Beck is quoted saying “So, if you’re familiar with rural New England, it’s all about population loss, and Vermont has struggled with that as many as other places. But instead of focusing on who’s leaving….we focused on who we want here. What does a vibrant, diverse, thriving community look like? And how do we build that?”
Later at the summit, the power of rural volunteerism and its impact on resettlement was highlighted by a panel facilitated by Beck. Panelists included Greg Richane, formerly from Ascentria Care Alliance, NH State Rep. Joe Shapiro from Keene Immigrant and Refugee Partnership, Judy Reed from Project Home, and Martha Tecca from CCL Welcome Fund and SHARE.
The panel explored the various organizations, partnerships, and resources that have sprung up- at times intentionally, and others less so- in rural communities in support of immigrants. Participants noted that a strong volunteer support network is often as important as more formalized resources that often don’t operate effectively at the rural scale.
More information about Welcoming Communities and our Volunteer Support and Education programs are found at these links.
