Building Community Resilience in Virginia’s Coalfields

Clinchco, Virginia. Photo by Brian Stansberry / Creative Commons

Appalachian Voices’ New Economy Program is kicking off a three-year community resilience project that will help coalfield communities address flooding, high power bills and other concerns. Resiliency is the ability of a community and its residents to survive and thrive in the face of economic difficulties, climate disasters and other hurdles. The work, funded through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, will allow five localities to invest in their long-term visions for a thriving community.

About the Environmental Justice Collaborative Problem-Solving Grant

In 2023, the EPA announced an award of $500,000 to Appalachian Voices for the organization’s Building Community Resilience in Virginia’s Coalfields with Place-based Climate Change Adaptation project. The organization is partnering with the coalfield communities of Clinchco, Dante, Dungannon, Pennington Gap and Pound on a three-year effort to map, plan and implement community-driven initiatives to boost local resiliency using this funding.

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Overall goals of the project

Create community-based projects that contribute to long-term redevelopment and boost future community work
Develop skills and capacity within communities to grow climate change adaptation and resiliency
Create a Coalfield Community Resilience Model and toolkit that will aid localities in their own resiliency development projects

Through these strategies, the project addresses many legacy environmental justice issues including flooding, erosion and high energy bills and build local capacity through grant writing, grant management and trainings.

Our New Economy team will guide project development around six broad categories:

Disaster Preparedness
Renewable Energy Deployment
Environmental Reclamation / Cleanup
Community Health
Flood or Pollution Mitigation
Creating Greenspace or Outdoor Recreation

Project development funding, administered by Appalachian Voices, will support community projects identified during a series of community engagement meetings and a mapping process.

The concept was designed based on Appalachian Voices’ experience working in resource-insecure communities and developing the Appalachian Solar Finance Fund and the Reclaiming Appalachia Coalition mini-grant program.

Ultimately, our goal is to stimulate community action and increase regional ability to cope with stresses resulting from social, economic and environmental change, and we are proud to partner with Clinchco, Dante, Dungannon, Pennington Gap and Pound in this effort.

Everyone is welcome and we want to ensure that everyone in the community can participate equally. If you are in need of translating services or other reasonable accommodation requests in order to participate, please contact New Economy Program Manager Robert Kell at Robert [at] appvoices.org.