"From Blight to Breakthrough: How Art Rebuilds Communities"

How creativity, investment, and community action transformed blighted areas into places of growth and renewal.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:07

So I want to go back so that everybody kind of kind of understands what you do exactly at Community Connections and what it is.

SPEAKER_00 0:14

So kind of walk us through it that's community connections is about a 35-year uh old agency. Uh it started off from the governor's cabinet on children and families. It was formulated back in uh 1990. It really kind of started, but really formulated as an as a nonprofit uh in 92. So we're working on that the 35th year, 34th, fifth year. Um our goal is to strengthen communities. Bar none, if you look at our mission, whatever that community looks like, uh it can be Mercer County specific. We've done a lot of amazing projects uh with Donald Reed actually, you know, here in McDowell County, uh working on some community um based issues. We have eight family support centers throughout Southern West Virginia. We work with community coalitions all over the state of West Virginia. Um and you know, this last year, uh because of the you know what we've been able to do, um, we've really focused on strengthening our communities where residents live. So I'll give you an example. For the last you know, 12, 13 years in in Mercer County, right on Mercer Street, downtown Princeton, when we went in there with our artistic partners, our people, our artisans, those, you know, the um the people that have lived there and create there, um, we looked at a community of dilapidation. Um no businesses wanted to be there. Prostitution was off the charts, uh, 17 prostitutes on a you know a quarter mile stretch. Uh we looked at um, you know, police wouldn't even go down there. It was, it was bad. And we said we want to take this area and make it somewhat of what we remember when we were kids and we were growing up there. And I think um we did that by saying, you know, we want to start with facilities, we want to start cleaning them up, you know, painting the facades, putting murals on walls, and letting the art transform the community. Since that time, even this past year, Mercer County and and Princeton specifically are known as the leading art communities in the state of West Virginia. Wow. Uh we have transformed now, we have businesses to where we have a parking problem downtown. We went from uh 8,000 cars a day to 14,000 cars a day. We have transformed this area of blight into something that's a thriving community where we have fairs and festivals now.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

Um it that and that's the kind of thing that it's the investment, but it's the physical, it's the mental, it's the financial investment that all come on culminates together to make change happen. And I think that's in a sense what Community Connections is trying to do as well. We look in communities across, you know, in the communities that we serve, West Williamson, we're we want to do some painting projects there. We have worked with murals, muralists in Nicholas County, Fayette County. Um, you know, one of the most amazing youth coalitions that exist is in Fayette County, West Virginia, and uh, you know, is transforming what that whole area looks like. And they've done it through the arts and they've done it through that investment of the visual and perception of what goes on and how to strengthen a community. In a sense, it's a lot goes in. Yeah. But that's about community connections. If we we do what the community needs, and we are a catalyst for change.