Original intro/outro music:
"'Till I See Stars" by The Parachute Brigade
The sun does not always shine in West Virginia but the people always do. I'm delighted to be here.
Brandon Dennison:These are historic times in Appalachia. A lot has changed. A lot is changing now and a lot still needs to change. In our podcast, we talked with change makers right square in the middle of all this working to ensure the change is for the good. You're listening to Change in the Coalfields podcast by Coalfield Development. I'm your host Brandon Dennison. This is Change in the Coalfields. My name is Brandon Dennison. I'm your host. And this week, we have a friend and colleague named Ruston Seaman. Ruston is the executive director of an amazing group called New Vision, and has a great story about positive change in West Virginia. So Ruston, thanks for coming on the podcast. It's
Ruston Seaman:Great to be here today and see everybody.
Brandon Dennison:I'd like to go back to the beginning in a second. But here at the top, tell us about your organization and some of the goals and priorities you have.
Ruston Seaman:Well, New Vision, we're a Christian community development organization. So we try and look at the whole environment. We're right outside of Philippi. But we work all around Barbour County, we're been in the same neighborhood for about 40 years. So I've really seen kind of generational cycles, we're committed to three primary activities. One of them is mentoring youth. So we have a number of initiatives that are both in the school and in communities with, you know, we probably mentor, you know, 50 or 60 young people at different ages with different activities. We would our second initiative is called Re-energizing Communities. And that's partly where we try and be a catalyst for, you know, sometimes it's helping communities fix their buildings, a lot of times it's incorporating some leadership change, we try and develop resources. We have a small network of communities that we work with up here that's probably in part why we got connected with you at Coalfield is there are a ton of organizations in the state that are really focused on community level and environmental change, like you all are part of our inspiration. And then the third initiative has evolved over time we started with, we made renewable lighting, actually it was in history seeing initiative. Where as a community, we manufactured 4000 solar lights, and we figured out how to get them you know, in in the world in 39 countries. And that initiative has kind of morphed itself into a category we call community production. We operate a community makerspace, we're trying to stimulate the small business, you know, kind of economy in our community. So we have a little venture ourselves that connected us with Coalfield as well, our little games little company, we're very involved with job training as it relates to community production. Obviously, when you work at it a long time you realize the best strategies are those when you're not helping people as much as you're helping them help themselves. And so with job training, we have a bit of a summer job training program analysis will be our fourth year. And it's one of the only job training programs for in school youth in the summer that's happening in the state. And then we have a small cohort of wraps workers. So that's been just such a positive energizer for our organization, and we partner with you and Coalfield to pull that off. And so in all that we have busy life and we have a band we try and get we're the primary organization in our county for substance use prevention. So we probably go deeper with that subject then most community organization just because so many of the kids that we started helping eventually became young adults and adults and the opioid crisis led to a lot of people struggle. So we are trying to lead Barbour County through a strategic initiative plan, you know, to try and work on the prevention side. More so than just treating all the people that already have the problem. So for most people, we feel like an octopus were involved a little bit of too many things, probably but all of it is connected to you know, really believing that small rural communities really have potential. We're an asset based organization. I think that draws us together. You know, with you Brandon, and Coalfield work. We started years ago with just trying to meet all the needs of our community. And it was like an endless loop of never ending struggle until we realized our approach mattered. So we're very much we don't actually even ask people what they need anymore. We like John Kennedy's approach. You know, don't ask what your country is going to do for you, ask what you're gonna do for your country. And in a funny kind of way, it gets us involved with the people that have the need. But it doesn't start in a kind of codependent way. We're much more about acid based development than anything else that makes us a little bit unique.
Brandon Dennison:You make an interesting point, I think a lot of rural groups do get accused of the octopus thing. But the reality is that there's capacity issues, it's hard to specialize. Sometimes it's not appropriate to specialize if you're trying to develop the community. And you know, communities are saying, well, I've got these educational goals, I've got these employment goals, I got these business goals. If there are other groups serving those needs, then you're not going to be effective if you're not willing to be more holistic, right?
Ruston Seaman:I think you're right. I mean, I think if everybody would think more about what family practice medicine is, you know, the doctors that are serving great, and now they have to have a knowledge of a lot of things. But none of them are brain surgeons, none of them are, you know, they refer those kinds of specialties. So, I would say, yes, you're right. And in terms of the leadership that we are, as an organization, we are pretty knowledgeable about a lot of different things. I can't say that we're specialists in any one thing other than I would say we specialize in trying to be a bridge partner, for people in our own community context. I think we know how to talk to people, I think we know how to, you know, stimulate their interests, and we're more likely to you know, get them engaged, because we are the, we are, it isn't like an outside agency serving like, really, it's just all of us together working. So
Brandon Dennison:Can you say a bit more when you say asset based? Can you tell the listener what you really mean by that?
Ruston Seaman:I think my own personal orientation, my serving background, and a community pastor, as well, as a lot of times charity work, you know, this is probably the 40th year of learning about how to do what I'm called to do. It started from a framework of kind of compassion and care. And I think when you're, you know, a compassion driven organization, and leadership, sometimes you're more focused on making sure that people are warm, they're fed, you know, kids have, you know, clothes and backpacks. And so that's kind of a need based approach I studied in seminary, Christian faith and public policy, and it's been my driving work in life is the welfare system really is, you know, the government is so involved in our communities at every level, that you know, you can't you want to get around that. But the question I always had is, why aren't people getting better, quicker? And what's embedded in the system that's kind of fundamentally flawed that people, it's almost like a spider web. When people get involved with all the support, they just end up in tangled. And they, it's like, it's hard for them to be free and empowered. And partly, the answer to why that is, is our government's approach is a needs based approach. You know, to get some help, you got to be certain level of need you to start to describe yourself more from your deficiencies in order to get support, then your capacities. So I think about asset based approach, if you turn the coin over, it's helping from a different position. And it's not totally the opposite of needs based work. But in essence, it is because you don't start by asking people what they need. You start by asking people what interests and capacities to you have, and you're assessing your community. And when you're all done, you're not feeling depressed and overwhelmed. Because my God, there's so many needs, you're actually energized. And that's why we like our name is New Vision. We feel like that's part of our work has helped people to reframe their thinking as part of why you know, Coalfield is such a, you know, a blessing and fresh air in our world, in our state and in our own community work. Because you model that, you know, in the way that you go about your work, you're you're believing for the future. I think Martin Luther King's one of the inspirational leaders in my life and you know, he said that the difference between a dreamer and a visionary is a dreamer has a dream, but he has his eyes closed and a visionary, you know, has a dream, but his eyes are open and he also has a plan. And I guess, you know, my orientation is for bigger and better. You're done investing your one lifetime that you will have me leave something better behind and that's kind of, you know, the essence of New Vision. We were optimistic people were fighting really hard. The opioid crisis really devastated our whole infrastructure of our county. Over you know, our whole state has the problem of families that are broken, but you know, our counties up to about 60% of the kids in the school system aren't living with their parents. And I think, you know, our statewide average is about 51%. Now and you know, I don't, it's just like, Okay, what do you do about that? And so we're, we've got our, we've kind of backed up a little bit, and we're back down to mentoring young children. And, you know, they're young adults that have kids, like when their kids are in first and second grade, trying to talk to them about how you're going to plan to be a parent for the life of your kid, not just for the next four years, and so it's good work.
Brandon Dennison:40 years. So what, what brought you to Barbour County in the first place?
Ruston Seaman:Well, I think all of us as human beings, we probably have a question like, What in the world is life about? And what am I supposed to do with my life? I was 19. I was I'm from Lincoln, Nebraska is where I grew up. I was an athlete, and I had a good pathway to success. But I got injured at the very end of my high school career. And when I went to play college ball, my injury meant that I didn't get to play any farther. And I didn't have a plan B. So I, I just started hitchhiking and trying to figure out what the meaning of life was for myself. And in the process, you know, I found, you know, my own personal faith, you know, became alive. And that led me to the question, Okay, God, if you created me, where do you want me to live my life and I was, I talked too much. So I say, Okay, God, I'll go anywhere you want to go, and I'll do anything you want me to do. And I'm sure enough. A guy in Texas gave me a Bible that had the word Phillippe on it. And I was hitchhiking in South Dakota. And I met a traveling evangelist from Philippi, West Virginia. So I'm not the smartest guy. But I figured those two things belong to them, to each other. When I came here, I could see that it was a neighborhood where I could dig in and make a difference. I had to make a lot of adjustments and all of that, and there's a local college and after a couple of years, I enrolled in college and now raise my kids here. So my kids are all mountaineers, and they're from this neighborhood. And that's how I ended up here. I feel I feel like it was more about Providence, and it was anything else that I could describe as to why this has been important.
Brandon Dennison:I'm curious to hear a little bit more about hitchhiking your way to Philippi, West Virginia.
Ruston Seaman:Yeah. I think in my life, it probably was the most formative practice, you know, when you're a hitchhiker, you don't you don't have control of stuff. You end up having to make friends with strangers pretty quickly, you have to I had I had to really learn, you know, is if there was God, did he know who, where I was standing on the side of the road anywhere. And, you know, as a hitchhiker, I always had a strategy of sticking out my thumb. And sometimes you put a little sign out there, and you always try and wear clothes that don't make you look dangerous, you know, because people don't want to pick up somebody that looks like they're gonna roll them. And I got to the point where I said, Well, I'm not even going to do any of that. I'm just going to pray. And I would stand and read everyday sit on their side of the road. And, you know, it's a wonderful thing. I felt like, I'm not alone in the world. I felt like everybody that picked me up, you know, I had something to share with them. And they, I had some to learn from them. And it made me more resourceful probably made me more grateful, you know, we all have beds to sleep in and homes. And, you know, it's just what a wonderful thing to have a place to bed down at night and being homeless and rootless. And I would stop and help people randomly. I mean, I learned about city missions, I learned about, you know, people that were struggling, but it was kind of lonely until I met a person and somebody said, Well, you need to settle down. You know, my mom, especially she hated it. That was kind of a rambling. She never knew where I was. And I came here. She she wasn't so sure if you'd like West Virginia, it's a long ways from Nebraska. But anyways, I've come to love the mountains as a kid, I had posters in my bedroom of forests. I don't know why in Nebraska, the Nebraska State Forest you would laugh. It's about 1000 pine trees in the middle of a sign they call it, you're now entering the Nebraska State Forest. And you know, literally within four minutes, you're now exiting the Nebraska State. So anyway, and I was a city boy, so living in the country. I don't you know, that. So by training like that, I've I love meeting people and you know, you try and some people you meet, you'll never ever meet again in your life as a hitchhiker. But sometimes you make friendships. You know, I still have some people that 40 years later, we still communicate with each other. And some people would say it's random and I think that got brought them into my life.
Brandon Dennison:So you met a preacher from Philippi, West Virginia.
Ruston Seaman:Yeah his name was Reverend Frank Peoples. He was a first African American student at Salem College back in the 50s. Then he became a pastor in this community. It's of the AME Church was his African Methodist Episcopal. So he was, he was a gospel pianist as well as a preacher. So back in the 80s, revivals were big deals everywhere around here. And we would go with him to revivals. And so I learned, I didn't know what a revival was. In his home he raised 14, foster children, he actually helped people get out of jail and prison, you know, so his house was kind of a house of ministry. And he was a pastor in the community for 37 years. I was his assistant for about 15 of those years, and eventually, I became the community pastor. So I'm the second pastor in our community church, first project was we had to build a basketball court, you know, first things first, it was part of my settled negotiations. Okay, God, if I'm gonna stay there, we're gonna, we got to have a concrete court, there were five brothers that had, they had their stadium with a hoop on the side of the tree. And I could never figure out how to dribble over the roots and around. So in building a basketball court, it was our first big initiative, we also learned about an organization called World Vision, they were helping internationally. And when I learned about that, I thought, Well, why, like, why wouldn't you help also in America? And so I started writing letters to the President, and eventually they helped us a little bit. And once we built the basketball court, then I learned about what a nonprofit organization is, I think it was 1982 World Vision, even helped us, you know, get a legal structure. And we created what now is called Appalachian Community Care. And it's a local nonprofit that manages a really nice community center, our, our community is blessed to have, you know, a center that probably could house 60 people, and it's got eight individual rooms, we've done a lot of work with short term teams that come and bring energy and dollars, and help us do home repair work in our county. And we created a community co-op store. So you know, food has always been a big deal. I think, you know, nutrition matters. And our community, you know, unfortunately, when all you can afford is what you can buy with limited money. You know, kids are eating the wrong things, and families don't always eat well. So we tried to, we tried to bring a co op, it's the Ohio River co-op, and I was my first job out of college, I was a storekeeper for a community co-op store, okay. And I raised tomatoes, we were teaching kids how to how to raise produce, and you know, it's exciting work, but it doesn't pay very well. So it's hard to run a little store, our biggest problem was, we didn't want to sell snuff and alcohol. And you know, in a little country store, we, you know, money makers, we always sell it the things that a guy did the analysis of our spreadsheet, he said, you know, you'll never make this one work, because you won't sell the things that make money for small stores. And so anyway, we've we've failed at quite a few things. But I don't think it's a failure, it's something we learned forward. You know, some of the business enterprises that we've tried to develop, you know, haven't been wrong in initiative, but we had to figure out how to make money better. I'm still wrestling with that. I think our community still struggles economically. And, you know, it's one of the hills we're trying to take. We have a few good ideas right now.
Brandon Dennison:You mentioned a couple key words, I wanted to go a little deeper on mentorship, catalyst, and production are some things that I picked up on. So starting with mentorship. What makes mentorship work?
Ruston Seaman:Well, I think, unfortunately, our society has opted for particularly relates to young people, as we always, they think of youth programs. And in a way, it's all young people hanging out with their peers. And not that that's not necessary and important. But I think what we've done is we've, we don't have young people and productive adults in near proximity to each other at the level that it needs to happen. I mean, we have a large amount of kind of professional retired people that, you know, now are either going to just do nothing in their later years, a lot of them, unfortunately, are raising their grandkids. But, you know, I think there's a need for caring adults or older people to be in the lives of younger people. And I don't think to have to be ancient, you know, it's just at some level. We're all better served when we're part of a team of small group. There's somebody else that knows my name, and unfortunately, rural communities used to be a little bit more stronger social fabric. You would have community events where everybody in the neighborhood would show up and kids were kind of raised more in a village approach. So I think what makes it work is you have to find, I don't think kids want to sit across the table from some adult and are always doing homework and schoolwork. I think mentoring might be a little bit more dynamic than that. I think having fun together is important. Learning how to do things together is a better format. So we do help kids with their schoolwork, when, when that's needed. But what's most important, I think, is building relational friendships that matter why, you know, some kids are really, they're not getting the nutrition from school or their family, because even kids in foster care, everybody that's an adult in their life is kind of like a paid professional. And, and kids are curious whether there's anybody in their life that cares about me, that's not paid to be there. And so we talk a lot about the adults in our community to say, Hey, you got to...we had to create a place. I mean, the hard part is, it just doesn't happen by accident as much. So we have tried to create a community environment where we're actually trying to think about, well, how do you do something that will match adults and kids together in a way that's got something for everybody
Brandon Dennison:Talk about rest, and just how hard it is, if some folks, you know, very few folks know what it's like to be the director of a rural community organization working with, you know, folks who, who have traumatic backgrounds or various barriers? And could you just talk us through how hard that is, and what some of the challenges are, that your organization has encountered these past 40 years?
Ruston Seaman:You know, one thing is hard to sustain energy, you know, sometimes new initiatives are important because they kind of bring kind of fresh life. So in a way, we're still doing the same thing we've ever done. But you just have to kind of repackage it, you know, at some, you know, at some level now we have an Esports program. Well, it's, you know, it's a little bit different than basketball, but it's still engaging kids and activities that they like, and you know, some people you have to you have to be willing to let some things you know, kind of fade away and give it a fresh face. So being willing to do that a lot of people like say they're going to do one thing and they drive it to the ground. And like when it's over, the ship has ended, I always think we have to continually innovate like we're we're no longer making solar light for the developing world. At some level, solar lighting, well, years ago was very different than it is today. Now, every store you go to you can buy a solar at your time. Yeah, so we wouldn't we can't compete economically. And it served us very well. We were manufacturing solar panels. At one point were West Virginia's largest solar manufacturer, because we literally manufactured 180 solar panels from raw materials, they were made right here in Barbour County. But obviously, you know, we, we use it as a tool to learn for a brief period of time, and we keep trying to fail or build forward. The hardest thing is, West Virginia, I don't think is a very friendly state for nonprofit work in our county commission, you know, you might get a pat on your back, maybe, you know, sometimes, you know, and then when you start asking for money, it's like, you know, I don't know why the nonprofit sector isn't more highly valued in our state, statewide all the way from the governor's office on down, because so many nonprofits really are kind of the unit of measure in a community that's making a difference. But it's like, you have to figure it all out, and you have to fund it yourself. And that's, that's been probably the most draining thing. I, I just, I've never felt like I could quit doing what I'm doing or I should quit. And then COVID happens, it even gets a little more difficult. And but it's like every time you think I can't do this anymore, like a new window of light, you know, comes in, I was thinking, I can't tell you how thankful I was when the seeds group came along for our little company with an idea it was it was just more than even the financial support. It was like the fact that somebody cared about what we were trying to accomplish, and it mattered. And you have to kind of pump yourself up because most nonprofits are a little bit discouraged. Our community is kind of a draining place. Because when you're doing needs based work, everybody say, Well, what have you done for me lately? And that's where I think this shift to asset based work has helped us a little bit in sustainability because we're not, we're not as larger than we used to be. But the people that are helping us now are people that are coming to our work, feeling like there's some way that they should be involved in something they have to offer. So I think we have more fundamental structure to build from today than we did even when we were doing more work with more families.
Brandon Dennison:Really interesting. Another word was catalyst. What do you mean by catalyst? And how can a nonprofit service...
Ruston Seaman:I think you got to stick your nose in stuff, you know, so drug prevention was just one of those things. Like, you know, we were being negative as...
Brandon Dennison:You're saying prevention. So you're not talking about necessarily serving folks in recovery, but you're trying to prevent?
Ruston Seaman:Okay, so the opioid crisis led to huge problems. And what I see as our whole nation is, you know, kind of good at better at responding to treating people after they've had a problem. You know, it's like, we have all kinds of doctors and hospitals that are treating disease, we have psychiatrists, and you know, they're not enough of them even to do it that way. But the reason why there's not enough of them is nobody is working on the prevention side. So primary prevention is a strategy I found, this is probably what I'm most gifted because I'm a hitchhiker. Because I like best practices, you find out who will? Is there anybody out there? That's really, is there a county that's not having as much drug problem as another? And are they doing anything different? I found out the country of Iceland is a country that 20 years ago, they were the worst in Europe, and now they would, they don't even talk about substance abuse problems, because they have a national strategy. And so I literally found a way to get money to where I could - I've been to Iceland twice, to look at what they do, and how does it work? And why does it work? And how can you apply some of that in our own country context. And so that's what being a catalyst is, I were, we have applied for a million dollars as a county, and we got funded for treatment, recovery and prevention. Prevention was a smallest amount of it, because first, I wanted to give more money to treat people in the crisis. Well, that's fine. So you know, we're now going to apply for another$750,000, all of it related to prevention work. So as a catalyst, I get everybody saying, you know, like our local clinics are adding since COVID, we have more mental health therapy people than ever before. It's wonderful for our county to have some treatment available. But they haven't started applying health and wellness. I'm a big believer, we need more health and less medicine. You know, I think it would be a better day, if we were investing more resources as a county, helping everybody be more physically fit, mentally fit. And to be a catalyst, you just have to, you have to say, you know, we same thing with economic development, you kind of assume somebody is responsible for being the driver of that. In our county, there's some systems, but if they're not succeeding in any kind of way, then I think you get called in to say, well, what can we contribute? And I don't think we want to build an organization, that's the solver of all that, but I do think we can call people together. You know, when you're in a place for 40 years, I pretty much everybody I know everybody that's a leader of anything and Barbour County, and they kind of know I, you know, not everybody likes to work together. But at least everybody knows one another. Like when COVID happened, our county was I think, modestly successful at pulling ourselves together, because we now had a common enemy to fight in our, you know, our county plan worked, you know, relatively well. And so, how many people live in Barbour County, 16,000 people? And I think that's part of why we're hopeful if to have a model that works is - can you solve drug abuse problems in a small county? Well, it's, if you can't do it in a small place, it's a lot more difficult, you know, in bigger cities where it's more complicated, and they're just more lives on the line. But it's still just as hard here. But anyway, at the end of the day, I think we are able to measure some things in terms of how are we doing? Because we know the number of kids in the school system, they're, you know, all the principals are people that we see at the grocery store, you know, and Barbour County, there's only one there's only one place to buy groceries. So you know, you're more likely to know your neighbors in a geography well.
Brandon Dennison:And there's there's more racial diversity in Barbour county than a person might at first assume, right?
Ruston Seaman:Well, exactly. And it's, you know, it's most people don't know this, but Alderson Broaddus University is the most racially diverse university in America, because they have so many athletes that are, you know, it's a smaller number of population, and they recruit division two athletes. So in terms of racial diversity, it's that in our own community, we're a racially mixed community. And and it's not, it's not high. But anyway, there is diversity.
Brandon Dennison:Yeah, more than a lot of folks assume. So another word that caught my attention was production. And I like that, because you and I shared, we're sort of cut from the same cloth. And a lot of ways I think this asset based approach, for sure, the willingness to innovate, not sort of reframing failure. So we've always just sort of connected from day one. But also, it's got to be tangible, right, like, community members are tired of having meetings, and being asked, you know, what are your problems? And how many of those problems do we have and want to be a part of something real that we can see and touch and feel and experience and be a part of?
Ruston Seaman:Exactly. And you know, and I think at the most basic level, when you're if you're economically, if you say you're going to poor, you have poverty is just the the income and the out, you know, where do you get money into the economy? And how do you keep it circulating in our county, that's always been something that's important. So like, when we were making solar lights in our community, that we found the money from donors, but we were producing the product right here in our community. And at some level, every time you took a box of them to the, you know, to be sent away, it represented the right kind of progress. Our our community is in a wonderful forest. I mean, my gosh, this is the most beautiful hardwood forest in the world, you know, and why aren't we producing, you know, oak and walnut, wood pieces. So, you know, we're very fascinated with what you all are doing with saws edge, and we're excited that we're finally starting to make momentum all the way now we're, we're trying to develop a strategy that we're going to build tiny houses as a community and, you know, all the trailers that roll across our state borders and become the housing stock for our, our state isn't such a great idea, economically, if those units were built within the state, funded within the state, and they stay within the state. And then eventually, if you can roll stuff across borders to states, then all of a sudden, the money shift is going in the right direction. And what I think is true is that we haven't thought as deeply about how to bring about economic change, particularly, you know, as a pastor, you know, some people think about helping people with clothes and food, but they don't think about stimulating businesses is actually a great mission. And so we're, we see the challenge and the opportunity, I can't say that we've developed all the muscles we need, but we're sure trying to make the big swing what you all did, you know, with the you know, build back better strategy is inspiring, you know, we started a little in our organization called New Vision, renewable energy, where we have solar equipment on every facility that we function from, you know, and you all are taking it, you know, to a bigger level in our state, I think, when we started, it felt like we were, we were almost the cold people thought we were the enemy. You know, and I don't, I don't feel that today. But we have to create productive people. And I think, if people are able to take what their God given skills are, even if they're not driving a lot of money, we have we have kids making pins, it's one of the interesting parts of our strategy. One of our guys is, you know, so they're just handcrafted pens, they're made out of wood, you know, they have to put them on the lathe, they have to sand them. And each of them, they have to put the guts on a pen and pretty much every kid in our work now, you know, they carry them in their pocket, you know, and I know why is big. You know, it's something you know, now this is this is something I made? Yeah. Shouldn't we live in a world where every kid has confidence that they can make things it's not made in China? I mean, that's, that's one of the things I think is so bad is everything people think has to be made abroad or you buy it at Walmart. We would love to be more aggressively involved with more communities, just teaching kids how to make picture frames and birdhouses the most basic stuff. I still have a candle holder that I made in ninth grade, you know, and it's not because it's the best candle or the reason why I still have it is I made it and it was funny we we were making cutting boards in shop class and it was a it was outline of a fish. And so I was with my best friend from kindergarten. Oh, was at his house in Nebraska. And guess what I saw was I saw his cutting board that was a fish. And I sent him a picture, I still have it. You know, it's, you know, it's now 40 years old, but it was the same thing. And he kept it for the same reason I kept mine, because I made it. And I think our communities will be better off if there are more things community art, community supplies that we make.
Brandon Dennison:So last question here - For years it's inspiring how much truly Ruston, it's inspiring your faithfulness in your innovation and your boldness, biblically, that's a significant number, right? I mean, 40 years in the desert, 40 years in the wilderness 40 years of fasting. So I just wonder if you're reflecting on the significance of that number. And then I wonder what changes you hope New Vision will be inspiring in the next four years?
Ruston Seaman:Well, it's a great question. I was really hopeful that 40 years meant that it was finally time I could retire on the beach. And like, I was saved. Every time I go to the summer vacation. There's a little chapel by the seaside. And I was thinking, I keep listening for that voice. Actually, when I got to 40 years was when COVID happened. It was kind of it was like the very opposite of what, you know, just the time you think, Well, it's time to slow down. It became now it's not that time to speed up. So anyway, our son's a senior at WVU. He's graduating in landscape architecture, our daughter finished here, she's got her own art company. So at least for my wife, and I were trying to think through - Well, what what is, you know, this next season. And at the same time, I was thinking about, what's the legacy of the work here and a project came to our radar screen that I think is the right project at the right time, and will totally transform our community is the all of us are aware how big the foster care system is. And when we were doing drug prevention work, we're trying to figure out well, what can we do to make a positive difference in the foster care system. And what came into our knowledge is, and Susan Frey was the person who has started a little tiny house village, down in Huntington. And she's got those five little houses set up. And she was the first person I talked to, was expressing the dilemma when kids are aging out of foster care what was happening to them. And Amy Saunders there at Marshall does great research work. You know, she reported that 20% of the kids are homeless on day one. And 50% of the boys were in trouble with the law, you know, in the first 18 months or so, my prevention flag, you know, kind of drove up. And since we're a building organization, the idea of building tiny houses is a scalable thing. Because, you know, if you can create a tiny house that has market value, you're not selling a $500 unit, you're selling a unit that's going to generate real revenue. And I own a piece of property this connected to our community multipurpose center, it's the right size. I met Gail Manchin down at a great organization called Coalfield Development. So I you know, I obviously I've seen Gail, and, you know, in all kinds of settings, but I seldom have been at the place where she was at the same time. And you invited us down the first time she was there not long ago, and I was so fascinated by what she was doing at the ARC, a big organization and over 40 years, I've thought about applying for grants, but it was like, you know, you're always kind of on the outside looking in. And it sounded too complicated. So I told her, I'm going to be in DC, can I just stop and see you? Well, she agreed that and I had a meeting with her. And the more we got discussing, I told her about our vision for the possibility of building a tiny house village that also was building the tiny houses, you know, what you did with getting us inspired with the WRAPs work was it forced us as an organization, we had to, we had to figure out how to qualify with job training dollars, we had to make some changes in our infrastructure as an organization, you're, you know, gifting us with the idea of being able to hire a wonderful, we have a great crew chief. And all those pieces kind of fell in mind, but in my mind is, well if you're gonna keep doing training over and over what are the trainees going to do and the idea of being in a job training program where you're building tiny houses, I would have died as a kid and 18 to get hired as an organization doing that because I'd love to build that whole thing has emerged. We got it Research Grant from ARC. And so we're, we've been tasked with two things to build a research project around the state of affairs for kids aging out of foster care. So once again, as a catalyst, I've stuck my nose in the middle of something that I didn't know much about. But I'm probably quickly becoming one of our state's subject matter experts on how are kids doing when they're coming out of foster care, and is connected to traveling the country and trying to ask what are other people doing for that, you know, condition for kids. And in the process, we visited a few tiny house villages that are being built for homeless people. So I found out the connection between homelessness and foster care. And the guys that are running these villages, 70% of the homeless people they're working with today, were in the foster care system when they were kids, the failure to help kids thrive, you know, at that critical window of their life will mean the difference, it'll just been all kinds of difference. And so we're also creating a manual on how a village will function. And we're swinging for about $5 million in federal earmarking, this next cycle, you know, that would have been such a big stretch for me, but like, you guys go on for build back better and coming up with a plan that generated $63 million worth of interest, said to me, like who am I, they doubt that we could win $5 million. So that would be the legacy is that our neighborhood, we do have, I believe, probably the most exciting multipurpose community center in all of West Virginia. I you know, I'm open to seeing others that are trying to dare as bravely as we are to create a community space that you can, you can build something, you can solder something, you can kick a ball. And eventually, we're now going to have bathrooms, we just got the money for that you can take a shower, and that multipurpose space. Now we'll be connected to a village of you know, I just in my mind, I'm a visionary, but I have my eyes open, we got to go get the dollars and secure the win. But eventually to have 25 little houses in a little space right on top of our community center will mean that neighborhood won't perish when I'm gone. And a factory that's building the most energy efficient, tiny houses on the East Coast. The technology is the right technology, but you have to have the investment capital for the equipment. And if you can get all that at one time, you know, then I know what job I want to have. I don't I don't want to be the builder. I don't want to, I'm too old now again, do that but to have the resources to hire young, skilled, professional people that can operate that that system moving forward. I believe I can be successful. Talking to the right people and maybe getting the money from.
Brandon Dennison:Ruston, go, go get those dollars, man. Keep mentoring. Keep sticking your nose and stuff as a catalyst. You know, keep working towards production and prevention. It's incredible how much work you've done and I appreciate you sharing your story today.
Ruston Seaman:We appreciate you all you will never know you know how helpful it is to be a partner with you.
Brandon Dennison:Change in the Coalfields is a podcast created by Coalfield Development in the hills and hollers of West Virginia. This episode was hosted by Brandon Dennison, and produced and edited by JJN Multimedia. Become a part of our mission to rebuild the Appalachian economy by going to our website Coalfield-Development.org. To make a donation, you can email us anytime at info at Coalfield-Development.org and subscribe to our newsletter for more information on the podcast. You can follow us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn by searching Coalfield Development. Check back soon for more episodes.