Alliance of Champion Communities

The Alliance of West Virginia Champion Communities (http://www.alliancewv.org/)  its foundation in the Empowerment Zone Program initiated in 1993. As a result of this Small Cities Block Grant [SCBG] opportunity, three awards were made in West Virginia. Subsequent to these initial awards, eight communities in West Virginia were named Champion Communities by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which afforded each special consideration for future grant awards. Governor Gaston Caperton thereafter awarded grants to each community. Additional awards were made under this funding in 1997 and 1999.

Each Champion Community was established to improve economic and community development of their rural region and to mitigate the negative effects of economic problems and job losses. This initiative was begun as a "grass roots" movement, which included the requisite empowerment for each community to identify and solve their own problems and to achieve sustainable development.

Representing 12 West Virginia counties, Champion Communities include the following:

• Barbour County
• Lincoln County
• Wyoming County
• McDowell County
• Mt. Champion [Webster and E. Nicholas Counties]
• Tri-Count [Summers, Fayette, and Greenbrier Counties]
• CAEZ [Clay, Roane, Braxton, W. Nicholas, and Fayette Counties]

To facilitate these changes and to support grass-roots community planning and development among Champion Communities, the ACC established a base of operations and assumed responsibility for the following activities:

• Technology and community development education and marketing
• Ensuring access to convergence technologies
• Information and policy changes that facilitate community development
• A forum for sharing best practices and lessons learned
• Facilitating replication of successful programs and initiatives among Champion Communities through the development and publication of white papers of successful activities
• Creation and management of a development plan that assured sustainability of the ACC through development of membership structures, obtaining grants and gifts, and providing services for fees.

The ACC will work to seek support from legislators and policy makers because they can dedicate a portion of their effort to ensure that all understand the importance of integrating emerging technologies into rural regions.