Connections cited as key for grants

By Brook R. Corwin
brook@surrymessenger.com

DOBSON — Surry County is filled with ample resources to fuel a successful economy, but interconnecting those assets remains a big stumbling block.
That was a consistent theme of participants in a community forum Tuesday at Surry Community College to identify the best use of a $2 million grant from the Golden LEAF Foundation. In a process that broke up the 56 attendees into four subgroups, the broad issue categories agreed upon at the last Golden LEAF meeting were studied in depth.
In the reports from all four of those subgroups, connecting resources was cited as a top need, whether for water and sewer infrastructure, education and retraining, new economies or quality of life.
“Communication came up a lot; communicating what’s out there and what’s available,” said Greg Perkins, who was representing the Greater Mount Airy Chamber of Commerce. “We need to make sure we get the right people in the right places.”
Perkins was summarizing the report of the education subgroup, but his sentiments were echoed in the other reports as well. Among the priorities reported by each subgroup were that small businesses needed connection to more support systems, municipalities and the county needed to improve cooperation and the area’s water and sewer systems needed to link into a functional network.
“We’ll need to reconvene in those small groups, review the work and take these themes to create result statements,” said Leslie Anderson, a facilitator for Golden LEAF. “At the next session we’ll ask you to make some choices about what result statements would have the greatest benefit.”
Tuesday’s meeting was the third in a process to reach consensus on the best uses for Golden LEAF’s grant. The foundation, which uses proceeds from the national tobacco settlement to aid communities in economic transition, has set aside $2 million for each of the state’s most economically distressed counties.
Among those in attendance was Mike Almond, a Pilot Mountain native who is on Golden LEAF’s board of directors. He stressed to the group that by identifying the most important topics and the biggest needs in each, a system for picking projects now and in the future would emerge.
“This is not a one-shot deal,” Almond said, noting that Surry should be up for another $2 million in two years. “If you trust the process, focus on the issues and can get consensus on what’s holding us back ... then picking the projects will become easy.”
At last month’s Golden LEAF meeting, participants threw out the issues facing the county and voted on the most pressing. The issues getting the most votes were grouped Tuesday into four broad categories — quality of life, water/sewer infrastructure, new economies and education/retraining — and each had a subgroup break into a separate classroom to detail the topic’s positives and negatives locally. The reports from each subgroup listed abundant resources that weren’t always being leveraged in the most effective way.
The report from the new economies group, for instance, discussed how small businesses in the area don’t always have access to resources they need to take the next step. The possibility of developing a business incubator, which could help cover overhead costs while a small company gets a foothold, was raised.
“We have lots of good, small sized businesses that represent a tremendous opportunity for economic growth,” said Martin Collin, community development director for Mount Airy and spokesman for the subgroup. “We’re probably not leveraging that opportunity.”
Speaking for the education subgroup, Perkins said partnerships exist between SCC, the K-12 school systems and local businesses, but that better integration of curriculums and more efforts to reach out to displaced workers are needed in order to match the population with the skills new companies will require.
“We’ve got to inspire people to gain marketable job skills,” Perkins said. “We have to create a flexible workforce that’s attractive to major employers.”
The report from the water/sewer group was all about linking resources, with members in agreement that connecting the four municipal water systems into one network could bring costs down and better leverage the county’s ample water supply as a marketable asset.
“An important result is cooperation of our water systems, instead of competition between our systems,” said Robin Rhyne, president of the Surry Economic Development Partnership and spokeswoman for the subgroup. “There needs to be political cooperation and interconnection of infrastructure.”
The report from the quality of life group discussed human resources, focusing on bright youth that are leaving the area because they aren’t connected to activities and opportunities locally. It also mentioned the benefits of expanding public transportation into more interconnected routes and better integration of the Hispanic population into the community.
Another forum was tentatively scheduled for Aug. 26 to build upon those reports and identify quantifiable results for each issue. Projects that can produce those results will then enter into the discussion.
“We’re hoping everyone here can come back. And if new people arrive, we’ll work them in,” Anderson said. “Continuity will really help us move forward.”