State program could pave way to grants

Proponents emphasize regional cooperation

BY ERIC STEINKOPFF
news@theandrewsjournal.com

ANDREWS – A group of community leaders gathered Monday to discuss things needed to improve the economy and what might be in store for the town following selection into the N. C. Small Town Economic Prosperity or NC STEP.
NC STEP is a Rural Center program for towns with fewer than 10,000 people to support economic recovery and revitalization, test technical help to write grants for townships too small to have large staffs and give information for public policy for long-term investments.
But with more than 400 small communities in North Carolina, it’s not easy to get noticed.
“We’re a state of small towns,” said David Quinn of Hand Made in America out of
Asheville. “How do you stand out?”Making things particularly difficult, according to rural center information, between 1970 and 2000 nearly one-third of the state’s municipalities lost people and most of those were in towns with populations under 5,000.
“They have taken away timber, minerals and our youth,” said Quinn who was able to gather groups or clusters of small towns – like Andrews with about 1,700 people – to qualify for N.C. STEP programs to improve their economic posture as two regions in statewide grant competition.
They did this by organizing two clusters, a highlands group that includes West Jefferson, Todd, Crossmore, Bakersville and Old Fort; and the western group ?that includes Chimney Rock, Mars Hill, Bryson City, Hayesville and Andrews, Quinn said.
Then they focused on what makes each cluster region different, unique and interesting.
“When you come to Asheville, you’re not at the western end of North Carolina. You had to be resourceful in the mountains, otherwise you didn’t survive,” Quinn said Monday. “We used a reverse method of marketing to take people to where crafts were being made.”
That reverse method is a decentralized approach using the things that make small towns unique, such as crafts and figuring out ways to preserve them in the structural design of the home and in furnishings within those houses.
Then as people come to the region for various festivals, there is enough similarity between the towns to help each other promote neighboring events as well as their own and reap the economic affects in the form of stores, restaurants and lodging.
“We have to learn, not only to (market) Andrews, but Hayesville and Bryson City too,” Quinn said. “We have to learn to pass them along to create a regional concept.”
Quinn said that Handmade in America will help writing the financial support grants and reports, and the Town ?of Andrews recently selected the Andrews Valley Initiative as a lead agency to interact with these people for ?grants and other economic issues.
“You cannot do things in small towns without partnerships,” Quinn said. “You are a showcase for how this program can develop.”
But there is still a challenge welcoming newcomers who are there to help.
“That’s our hardest divide in western North Carolina,” Quinn said. ‘It’s between those who already lived here and those who just arrived. The main thing is to get our foot in the door. The (grant) money does not require matching funds and it can be used as leverage to match other grants.”