Last week, I had the pleasure of hosting the new Federal Co-Chair of the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC), Earl Gohl, on a tour of ARC funded projects in western North Carolina. Mr. Gohl was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate in March of 2010, to lead the ARC, which is a federal, state and local partnership that was created by Congress in the 1960’s to foster sustainable community and economic development in Appalachia. During the tour we were able to witness firsthand how federal dollars are being invested in North Carolina to improve the lives of Appalachian families.
Our first stop was the Blue Ridge Food Ventures Kitchen Incubator located at the A-B Technical Community College. There we met several entrepreneurs who are growing their food based businesses despite these hard economic times. The facility houses four primary production areas, including a full-scale commercial kitchen, a dry product prep room and bakery, a natural products food processing area, and a refrigerated food preparation room. ARC invested $157,500 in this project, which has created 60 small businesses since 2005.
Then, we visited the construction site of the WNC Regional Livestock Market. This market is important to the farming economy of western North Carolina due to the fact that raising livestock has the potential to replace the loss of tobacco income on family farms. When the market is completed, it will be used by over 3,000 livestock producers from 18 counties as a venue for selling livestock and training farmers in new agriculture technologies and practices. ARC provided a $200,000 grant to WNC Communities, Inc. to help equip this facility.
Our next stop brought us to FLS Energy’s solar farm in Clyde, NC. We were able to see how vital access to financial capital is for a growing small business. ARC has invested $697,000 in the Natural Capital Investment Fund (NCIF) since 2007. FLS used NCIF's financing, provided by an ARC grant, to fund a portion of the design work for the solar farm. Part of FLS’s mission is to support the local workforce and a way to accomplish this is to partner with a local non-profit, Asheville GO. Asheville GO is a non-profit that trains and places individuals in green collar jobs. During this site visit we were also able to meet one of the participants from Asheville GO, who now has a fulltime job with FLS and was heavily involved in the installation of the solar panels.
We then visited Smoky Mountain High School and participated in a demonstration of the WNC Education Network (WNC EdNet) fiber ring by joining a geometry class in session in Macon County from a classroom in Jackson County. The ARC invested $747,500 in the WNC EdNET, which is a partnership to use high speed, high capacity broadband infrastructure to aid teaching and learning in education institutions in the six western-most counties of the state. We talked to several high school students and we learned that the availability to access high speed internet has made a difference in their educational experiences.
After our visit at the high school, we met with local leaders to learn about how local governments are working together to plan for a better future through the Mountain Landscape Initiative. The ARC provided a $52,000 grant for this very unique public planning project that produced a “Tool Box” of best practices for planning and development in the mountain region. It has allowed this portion of western North Carolina to jointly prepare for their future growth and development.
Next on our tour was a visit to downtown Bakersville and we were fortunate to see a thriving small town. We met with Becky Anderson, former Executive Director of Handmade in America and current Mitchell County Economic Developer, to learn how small towns in Appalachia stay competitive. Over $1,000,000 in ARC funding has been used to help support Handmade in America’s work and we were able to see the fruit of that work firsthand.
After our visit to Bakersville, we visited Mountain Heritage High School in Burnsville and talked with a group of high school students about their future plans after high school. This high school receives assistance from the Western North Carolina Network for Access and Success, which is an ARC funded project that partners with three western NC branches of the university system to boost college going among students in the Appalachian counties. The ARC has provided over $648,000 in support for this project. We learned how this program has affected the students desire to earn more than a high school diploma.
We concluded the trip in Madison County touring a “Wind of Schools" project at Madison High School and saw how a demonstration wind turbine was being used in the classroom. ARC invested $75,000 in this demonstration project where four small wind turbines have been installed at Madison County Public School sites and at the Madison County Cooperative Extension Service. Teachers at the schools are implementing curriculum to provide scientific and economic education about wind power. We were able to see the curriculum being taught in the freshman earth science class.
From all of the sites we visited we not only saw that jobs are being created in North Carolina but we saw that the future for the youth is very bright in Appalachia. For more information on the ARC program in North Carolina, please visit, www.nccommerce.com/arc.
ARC Chief of Staff, Guy Land, Entrepreneur Tom Gallo, and ARC Federal Co-Chair Earl Gohl