Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Appalachian Regional Commission Announces New POWER Grant Recipients

Credit Appalachian Regional Commission Facebook

The Appalachian Regional Commission announced Thursday the latest recipients of grants designed to help struggling coal communities. The ARC will spend an additional $26 million for35 new grants in its POWER initiative, the Partnerships for Opportunity and Workforce and Economic Revitalization. Sixteen of those awards will go to projects in the Ohio Valley region.   

TheCenter for Rural Developmentin Somerset, Kentucky was awarded one million dollars for their Community Oriented Access to Learning program. The initiative is focused on the health and information technology sectors. The program expects to add 50 health worker students in a field related to their training, 110 in information technology and 26 in broadband technology. Wendy Wasserman is the spokesperson for theAppalachian Regional Commission.

“What’s kind of unique about this batch is that there are a bunch of awards that also help increase capital in the region,” she said. “So investments in setting up angel investing funds or other kind of more community based capital access.”Wasserman said Athens, Ohio has been identified as a leader in entrepreneurial development, which is one of the reasons theSocial Enterprise Ecosystemprogram received a $750,000 POWER grant. Wasserman says the Ohio University program will provide a support system for entrepreneurs and allow them to thrive.

“Entrepreneurs they’re clever people, we couldn’t live without them but it’s not a one and done, it’s not a i’m in it alone it’s really about building that network and maintaining momentum for that network,” she said.

 

The Creating Opportunities for Recovery Employment program in West Virginia will receive about one and a half million dollars for their initiative. TheMarshall University Research programwill develop a regional system to provide treatment, addiction recovery services, job training and placement for displaced workers.

“And one of the things that research has shown us and is showing smart people in this field is that having a job and having all the soft skills to be successful in that job is critical to recovery,” she said.

The Creating Opportunities for Recovery Employment program includes six Drug Free Moms and Babies sites and three new programs offering medication assisted treatment. 

Copyright 2018 WKU Public Radio

Becca Schimmel is a multimedia journalist with the Ohio Valley ReSource, a collaborative of public radio stations in Kentucky, West Virginia and Ohio. She's based out of the WKU Public Radio newsroom in Bowling Green.