Stories

Now Deputy Director of the West Virginia Community Development Hub, Stephanie Tyree served as its Director of Community Engagement and Policy for three years. The statewide non-profit organization’s mission is to engage communities and providers in an intentional, aligned and continuous system of community development. Before joining the Hub, Tyree worked as a community organizer and state policy coordinator in the southern West Virginia coalfields. At an environmental justice non-profit in New York City, Tyree worked closely with federal, state and local agencies to craft environmental policy, participating in the White House Forum on Environmental Justice as a top national environmental justice leader and graduating from the New York City Environmental Law Leadership Institute.

A native of Charleston, West Virginia, Tyree earned her undergraduate degree at the University of Pittsburgh and a J.D. at New York University School of Law. She has served as a steering committee member for the Stay Together Appalachian Youth Project, which promotes leadership, engagement and investment in the region by leaders ages 14-30. 

In this video, Tyree shares the story of a citizen who became empowered to approach a lawmaker about a policy issue.

Now Deputy Director of the West Virginia Community Development Hub, Stephanie Tyree served as its Director of Community Engagement and Policy for three years. The statewide non-profit organization’s mission is to engage communities and providers in an intentional, aligned and continuous system of community development. Before joining the Hub, Tyree worked as a community organizer and state policy coordinator in the southern West Virginia coalfields. At an environmental justice non-profit in New York City, Tyree worked closely with federal, state and local agencies to craft environmental policy, participating in the White House Forum on Environmental Justice as a top national environmental justice leader and graduating from the New York City Environmental Law Leadership Institute. 

A native of Charleston, West Virginia, Tyree earned her undergraduate degree at the University of Pittsburgh and a J.D. at New York University School of Law. She has served as a steering committee member for the Stay Together Appalachian Youth Project, which promotes leadership, engagement and investment in the region by leaders ages 14-30.

In this video, Tyree gives an overview of the Hub’s work.

Now Deputy Director of the West Virginia Community Development Hub, Stephanie Tyree has served as its Director of Community Engagement and Policy since November 2012. The statewide non-profit organization’s mission is to engage communities and providers in an intentional, aligned and continuous system of community development. Before joining the Hub, Tyree worked as a community organizer and state policy coordinator in the southern West Virginia coalfields. At an environmental justice non-profit in New York City, Tyree worked closely with federal, state and local agencies to craft environmental policy, participating in the White House Forum on Environmental Justice as a top national environmental justice leader and graduating from the New York City Environmental Law Leadership Institute.

A native of Charleston, West Virginia, Tyree earned her undergraduate degree at the University of Pittsburgh and a J.D. at New York University School of Law. She has served as a steering committee member for the Stay Together Appalachian Youth Project, which promotes leadership, engagement and investment in the region by leaders ages 14-30. 

In this video, Tyree highlights the importance of reframing environmental issues to include more stakeholders. 

Maureen O’Connell worked at SOCM for 35 years, 16 as Executive Director. During her tenure, SOCM expanded from a five-county grassroots community organization focused on coal (Save Our Cumberland Mountains) to a statewide organization working on a host of local, statewide, regional, and national issues of environmental, social and economic justice (Statewide Organizing for Community Empowerment).

Before joining SOCM, O’Connell taught high school history and social studies in Louisville, Kentucky. She has served on many boards, including the Tennessee Valley Energy Coalition, Tennesseans for Fair Taxation, Tennessee Partnership on Organizing and Public Policy, Southern Organizing Cooperative, Community Media Organizing Project, Southern Empowerment Project, Grassroots Leadership, Forest Organizing Project, the Alliance for Appalachia, Rural Coalition Natural Resources Task Force, Citizens Coal Council, Campaign for Human Development, Youth Project and Citizens Lead for Energy Action Now. Beyond her board service, O’Connell has volunteered extensively for a broad range of organizations and causes.

O’Connell studied at Webster College and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

In this video, O’Connell describes the ways SOCM has changed since its inception.

Bill Kopsky became Executive Director of the Arkansas Public Policy Panel in 1999.

The Panel helps Arkansans improve their communities and develop policy solutions by taking collective action and building coalitions. In 1998, it organized the Arkansas Citizens First Congress, a coalition of 58 community organizations advocating for progressive policy change in Arkansas. The organizations promote civic engagement and focus on economic, education, the environment and civil rights issues.

Kopsky joined the Panel in 1996 and was mentored by Brownie W. Ledbetter and other civil rights, community, environmental, labor and feminist leaders. Kopsky was a student organizer at the University of Colorado, where he studied biology, creative writing and philosophy. He is also a graduate of the Southern Empowerment Project Community Organizing School.

In this video, Kopsky explains why APPP is almost “issueless.” 

The South’s population is booming, increasing its influence on the rest of the country. The region holds a third of the Electoral College votes needed to take the White House, and it’s expected to gain five more after the 2020 Census. Thanks to immigration and reversal of the Great Migration, the region is becoming ever more diverse and its urban centers are growing. This evolution of the landscape has cultivated a robust civic engagement framework, presenting opportunities for collaborative, multi-strategy investment to shape a more inclusive American South. The need is great: Southerners have lower household incomes, greater income inequality, lower high school graduation rates, higher teen pregnancy rates and lower life expectancy. Data from the Foundation Center show philanthropy isn’t stepping in to address those disparities. Funding in the region falls far short of national averages.

In its 2013 report As the South Goes, Grantmakers for Southern Progress explored the ways local, regional and national funders think about social justice in the South and the reasons they choose to support or not support it. GSP wrote, “There are great opportunities, as well as persistent and severe challenges facing the South. Philanthropy can play a pivotal role in expanding the reach and benefit of these opportunities by making strategic investments toward dismantling the structural barriers to opportunity and fostering wellbeing by reducing persistent social and economic inequities. Consequently, the question becomes not why should we fund social justice work in the South, but why aren’t we funding social justice in the South?”

People who work in this environment of scarcity can recite and refute those reasons in the same breath. “I have heard often the story that the South is just a deep hole, throwing good resources behind bad,” said One Voice Louisiana Director Ashley Shelton, “but I want to offer the challenge that where goes the South goes the country. You think about every kind of debilitating policy that has plagued our country over the last ten years, all of them were seeded here. I would challenge that idea that it’s just this money pit in the sense that we’ve seen real change in the last ten years. We’ve seen real opportunity. … I’m excited about where we’re headed, but I also feel that pressure and that fear about what would happen if people turn away from the South when we know that so much of, historically, where this country has gone and where we’re going gets seeded right here in the Deep South. And if we don’t pay attention to those things and really create different voices, then our bad policies will be packaged and on their way to a state near you.”

FOCAL Founder and Executive Director Sophia Bracy Harris offers a similarly dire warning: “If you all want to write off the South, let me just tell you something. Look at the makeup of Congress. Look at the makeup of our court system. If you put a rotten apple in a basket of very good apples and you go and leave it there for a week or two, come back and see how many other good apples you’ve got left in that basket. So if you turn your head and decide that we’re too ignorant, too out-of-step with the world to see it as an investment for the creation of the world we want, I’ve got news for you: We’re gonna have a rude awakening, because what we are fighting and pushing back will soon consume all of us, and that includes you.”

Others argue failed support as a justification for underinvestment can be a self-fulfilling prophesy. “One of the things that drives me crazy in our work is we’ve heard from national and not just funders but allies, partners, that the South’s irrelevant to national politics. … We’re not relevant to the national conversation, that we’re too small to matter,” says Arkansas Public Policy Panel Executive Director Bill Kopsky. “They also look at the South as the South. Arkansas and Mississippi and Alabama are totally different. … If you really want to be effective, you have to allow the local people in those communities who understand those opportunities and challenges to figure out how to maneuver in that climate. … I’m optimistic about what can be done in the South instead of pessimistic, but I do think it has to be done in a way of doing the work with southern organizations and southern leaders and not dreaming up a grand, master plan in your New York office and trying to impose it on the South. That hasn’t worked very well and I think that’s what made a lot of funders gun-shy. … Those initiatives have truly gone terribly, so some of their gun-shyness is justified by their track record. But they might look at their own methodology instead of the region.”

To Southern Echo Founder and President Hollis Watkins, the ongoing imbalance of support sends a painful message to Southerners: “When you say, ‘Folks in Mississippi ain’t ready,’ then you are saying, ‘People in Mississippi are not ready to come out of slavery. People in Mississippi are not ready to be a part of a fair and equitable system for this country.’ And I don’t believe that. I think we all are ready for that.”

The local foods movement has become much more than a short-lived dietary or environmental trend. Can it actually fuel the new Southern economy?

The term “locavore” has become ubiquitous since appearing in the American vernacular about ten years ago. It represents a rapidly growing movement of people choosing locally produced food rather than packaged goods that traveled hundreds of miles to market. Last year, the local-food economy was valued at nearly $12 billion. According to the Department of Agriculture, the number of farmers markets rose 76 percent from 2008 to 2014. Direct-to-consumer food sales increased threefold between 1992 and 2007, twice as fast as overall agricultural sales. 

Friday, the USDA announced $35 million in grants to support local and regional food systems. That includes $13.3 million to promote farmers markets and community supported agriculture, as well as $11.9 million to promote food hubs, aggregation centers, local processors and farm-to-institution programs. The USDA is also awarding $8.1 million in grants to enhance SNAP operations at farmers markets so low-income families can access fresh, local food. The grants are aimed at boosting market opportunities for small and mid-size producers, stimulating rural economies and improving health. Organizations across the South have been putting that theory into practice for years.

Local food systems are emerging as a promising piece of community economic development and a key component of Appalachia’s transition away from extractive industries. The Foundation for Appalachian Kentucky is one of the recipients of the USDA’s Local Food Promotion Program grants. FAKY will use the funds to assess the community food system, conduct a feasibility study and design a business plan. Members of the Central Appalachian Network also received USDA grants to promote farmers markets and strengthen networks in the region. The Appalachia Funders Network‘s Food Systems Working Group is leading philanthropic efforts to support the local foods movement.

Earlier this year, the West Virginia Community Development Hub helped the WV Food and Farm Coalition and the WV Farmers Market Association score major local-foods victories in their state legislature: SB 352 allows businesses to structure themselves as co-ops, and SB 304 streamlines the permitting process for farmers market vendors. “There’s a really vibrant local food economy growing in West Virginia,” said WV Hub Deputy Directory Stephanie Tyree.

Farther South, McIntosh SEED is helping shape a similar network in coastal Georgia and beyond. “We have a lot of health conditions here in our community – folks are not having access to local foods – so we created a farmers market,” said Executive Director John Littles. “We try to open markets for small-scale farmers to be able to sell their produce directly. We work with local restaurants. … And on a larger level, we work with folks in Mississippi and Alabama in building value chains and getting small-scale farmers certifications that they may need…whatever it takes to get into the market, to sell institutionally so some of our farmers are meeting demand with Walmart, with local school districts, food chains, Sysco and Red Diamond. And it’s changing their economic conditions.”

In the persistently poor Black Belt counties of Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia, one of the ways the Southern Rural Black Women’s Initiative generates income for women is through an agricultural network that connects farmers with markets. SRBWI also worked with municipal leaders and community organizations to repurpose an abandoned school into a USDA-certified commercial kitchen for its members. “We work with farmers and trying to help women produce food that’s marketed to the school system and through farmers’ markets and other outlets in the area,” explained Cofounder Shirley Sherrod. “Many of them are widows who own land and need to derive an income from that land. … We have a community foods project and that’s in 22 counties.”

The Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund helps farmers widen their profit margins through credit unions and the cooperative model. “We’re talking about creating a form of wealth that people own and control, that would help communities to stabilize. We’re talking about sustainable farming, sustainable communities,” said former Executive Director Ralph Paige. “Someone will come to us and say, ‘I’ve got three acres of land. Can I make a living off it?’ You won’t get wealthy off it, but you can subsidize your income off it. You can grow produce and sell it to a local farmers market. You can get three or four other people to do it as a co-op, then you don’t have to own a tractor, per se. How do you use this kind of thing to make a difference for yourself in your life and livelihood for your family?”

Littles says the renewed focus local foods revitalizes communities and improves health while meeting the demands of a hungry nation. “People need food. Where they get it, we can help shape that in this country.”

Despite improving employment numbers, the U.S. Census Bureau announced Wednesday the poverty rate in 2014 remained virtually unchanged from 2013 – its fourth consecutive year of statistical stagnation. At 14.8 percent, 46.7 million Americans lived in poverty last year (defined as $24,230 or less for a family of four). There has also been negligible change in income for three years in a row, and wages still haven’t caught up to pre-recession numbers. Last year’s median household income was $53,657, about $3,700 lower than in 2007, adjusted for inflation. 

The static income and poverty numbers are especially disappointing, given the dramatic increase in the number of working Americans. Last year, about 2.8 million more people worked full-time than in 2013. This paradox underscores the need not just for jobs, but for better wages. Economists at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities say the poverty and wage stagnation reflects, in part, limits in the labor market’s recovery as well as the marked rise in income inequality over the past decade and a half. The growing wealth gap was one of the primary reasons for the establishment of Self Help Credit Union in North Carolina. “The issue of economic inequality has actually gotten worse in the 30 years that we’ve been working,” said Founder and CEO Martin Eakes. “There’s this battle of ideology that has polarized and paralyzed the state and the country, where we can’t really come to a consensus that a certain amount of economic inequality is so corrosive that it actually destroys the foundation of the society, which is exactly what we’re seeing.”

The Census data also highlight the importance of safety net programs designed to help low-income families. For the first time this year, the Bureau released its Supplemental Poverty Measure alongside the official poverty report. The SPM takes into account many of the government programs not included in the current official poverty measure. It found the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program lifted 4.7 million people out of poverty last year. The Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit lifted roughly 10 million people out of poverty – most of them children – while Supplemental Security Income for very low-income elderly and disabled people kept 3.8 million out of poverty. These figures come amid mounting evidence that children living in poverty experience greater learning and health problems, adverse effects on brain structure and risk of adult poverty than their peers. Income support and health insurance programs significantly mitigate these deficits. EITC expansions and Child Tax Credits, for example, have been associated with gains in middle school reading and math test scores, high school completion and college entry. Another study found young children given access to food stamps (now SNAP) showed strong improvements many years later, including an 18-percentage-point increase in high school completion.

Anti-poverty advocates know children’s wellbeing is an issue that brings people to the table. “There’s a statewide campaign that is being organized that is really looking at how does poverty and the safety and quality of life of children serve as a thread that runs through everything?” said Stephanie Tyree, Director of Community Engagement and Policy for the West Virginia Community Development Hub. “The Hub is a major partner in that campaign, even though we don’t really work on children’s health issues normally, but we think that you can’t have community development if you can’t have a place where children can grow up happy, healthy and safe, and you can’t have community development if you’re not addressing poverty.”

CBPP offers concrete solutions to these seemingly intractable challenges. President Robert Greenstein writes, “These findings, along with today’s disappointing poverty data, suggest that policymakers should seek common ground on measures that can make public policies still more effective in reducing poverty. Examples include strengthening the inadequate EITC for low-income childless workers; … enabling more low-income households with housing subsidies to live in lower-poverty neighborhoods; instituting criminal justice reforms to reduce incarceration without jeopardizing public safety; expanding access to pre-school and child care; and enacting a long-overdue increase in the federal minimum wage. Today’s data also underscore the importance of health reform’s historic coverage expansions — and of spreading its Medicaid expansion to all states.” 

Medicaid expansion is one of the core issues Jeremiah Group has focused on in Louisiana. “Our governor said no, which left approximately 300,000 people uninsured, so we worked very closely to get the stories of those people out on the forefront,” said Lead Organizer Jackie Jones. “We met with both Republicans and Democrats to tell the story and to lay out why it was important that we have Medicaid expansion, and that work is still going on.”

Advocates argue any policy changes must come from communities, not politicians. “We really philosophically believe strongly that the people who are affected by policy have the right and the ability to be engaged in developing that policy,” said Arkansas Public Policy Panel Executive Director Bill Kopsky. “It’s, from a social justice perspective, more inclusive, builds their leadership, but it also just results in better policy.”