LOCAL INSTITUTIONS
LOCAL INSTITUTIONS
How a Foundation Transforms the Well-Being of Residents
Our Towns' Ben Speggen talks with the Findlay-Hancock County Community Foundation team to discuss how the Foundation is empowering community development, has transformed a former grocery store into an innovative hub for nonprofits, and more.
LOCAL INSTITUTIONS
How a Community Center Helps a Town Rise Again
Residents of Fort Lawn, South Carolina used a community development model to identify 51 actionable goals to improve their town. Today, they’re checking off the list, one by one.
COMMUNITIES THAT WORK
Kershaw invests in community with new ideas in old spaces
A train depot that’s a museum. A bank branch building that’s become a library. Another former bank that is serving as an early education center. Here is how this South Carolina town is repurposing buildings of the past to build up its future.
COMMUNITIES THAT WORK
How one small Ohio town practices democracy
Small is big in Mount Blanchard, Ohio. The town approached change in two ways, and Deborah Fallows reports on the impact she and her husband, James, saw during their travels there.
LIBRARIES
Global Effort Takes Libraries to the People
Libraries Without Borders finds innovative ways to meet community residents where they are to provide equitable access to the range of services today’s libraries offer.
CIVIC LIFE
To Both See and Tell the Country: From the Road through North Carolina to South Carolina
Why seeing more of America matters.
EDUCATION
A Student Newspaper Takes on Community Responsibilities
The Ball State Daily News has filled a local journalism gap.
LIBRARIES
A Library Garden Celebrates Reading, Art, and Nature
In 2015, Dillsburg, Pennsylvania relocated the town's library to a bigger space to better serve its growing population. A year later, when tragedy struck, the community stepped up to grow the library to include a reading garden.
EDUCATION
‘When Gown Embraces Town’: Two Stories from Indiana
What is happening in the 'Middletown' of Muncie, and why it matters.
JOURNALISM & CIVIC NEWS
What Happened at Chautauqua, and Why It Matters
Friday, Aug. 12, an assailant rushed the stage at the Chautauqua Institution. He stabbed Salman Rushdie in the neck and abdomen. Rushdie was not the only victim in this attack.
BIG LITTLE IDEAS
Inside Our Towns: Project Fighting Chance
Evan Sanford and James Fallows talk with Ian Franklin and Terry Boykins about Project Fighting Chance -- a boxing gym that is more than a boxing gym in San Bernardino. They discuss how it got started, how it has grown, and an immediate challenge it faces today.
YOUTH ENGAGEMENT
The Paper Clips Project: Students Bring Holocaust History to Southeastern Tennessee
Whitwell, Tennessee has become the center for a world-renowned cultural education project and Holocaust memorial.
RURAL & REGIONAL
Inside Our Towns: Jason Neises
Discussing opportunities, real and perceived challenges in small-town America, and the impact of Community Heart & Soul in Iowa.
LIBRARIES
A Remarkable Woman Builds a Remarkable Library
This is the story of how a late-1800s free public library built by Amelia S. Givin in Mt. Holly Springs, Pennsylvania continues to bring the region together today.
HEALTH
A Safe Place to Talk: Raising HIV Awareness through Barbershops
Barbershops are often hubs for conversation in Black and Latinx communities. DKBmed’s Fade Out HIV initiative strives to make use of these gathering spots to destigmatize HIV education and save lives.
FAITH INSTITUTIONS & ORGANIZATIONS
How Powerful Stories Are Rebuilding a Church
This is the story of Elias Van Buren Parker and how today’s telling of his story has the power to pull the town of Mt. Holly Springs, Pennsylvania from its early glory days, then decline, back to new days of glory.