Never Too Soon: Engaging America’s Youngest Citizens Early and Often

This article first appeared on the Our Towns Civic Foundation website on April 18, 2022, which you can see here.

Americans know that retaining their young people requires getting them involved in the civic process early and often. But how early is early enough? Communities across the country are showing that engaging kids as early as grades K-6 in civic activities and conversations is not only possible, but may be right on time.

Americans are aware that the ongoing vitality of their towns depends on keeping or attracting young people to live and work there, as Deb Fallows has written here. Young adults will stay or return to towns when they see opportunity, lifestyle amenities, affordability, and other familiar attributes. Teenagers are more likely to build positive impressions of their hometowns when they feel they contribute to community efforts and are being taken seriously.

But what about the youngest residents? What does it mean when a town tries to encourage its grade schoolers to be active participants where they live? Is it too early to be thinking about that for 5-year-olds?

Getting the tiniest of citizens plugged in early isn’t new. Our Towns has written about examples of how communities are doing this here, here, and here.

Here are more examples of how communities are introducing civic activities to their young children.


Civic-Education Opportunities

Since 1983, fourth-grade students in Redlands, California have participated in the Smiley Heritage Tour, a day-long fieldtrip run by a volunteer committee at the A.K. Smiley Public Library. Until the Covid-19 pandemic hit, there were 55 in-person bus tours a year serving 2,000 fourth graders.

The tour weaves students through nearly 20 sites that reflect the town’s proud history and cultural heritage: the introduction of the navel orange, the coming of the railroad, and the history of native tribes in the region. The tour also highlights the philanthropic efforts that contributed to building Redlands.

Redlands students lineup outside the bus to begin the Smiley Heritage Tour. They join the ranks of all the fourth graders who have taken the tour since 1983. (Courtesy A.K. Smiley Public Library)

“A key message to the students is telling the stories of many people who have given back to make our town a special place,” said Tish Sandos, the Fundraising Chair of the Smiley Heritage Tour Committee.

When the pandemic prevented in-person tours, Jamie Cortz, Jennifer Hunt, and Olivia Davison (who took the tour herself as a fourth grader in Redlands) at Redlands Unified School District partnered with the Smiley Heritage Tour team to build a virtual tour for students. The virtual tour includes an interactive Esri StoryMap of the historic Mill Creek Zanja.

A screenshot of the Mill Creek Zanja StoryMap that maps the location of the creek relative to all the elementary schools in the Redlands Unified School District.

Here are more examples of civic activities for the youngest students:

  • How Keene Valley Central School elementary teachers in Keene, NY are using the OurStoryBridge model, (which we have reported on here) to bring oral histories from the community on topics like music, agriculture, and architecture to life in the classroom.
  • How young residents ages 8-12 of Paonia, Colorado produced the radio program “Pass the Mic”, as we wrote here.
  • How volunteers walk with elementary students to school in Galesburg, Illinois, which we wrote about here, for the “Walking School Bus”. The Walking School Bus is a National Program that Galesburg has adopted in a big way.
  • How elementary aged children join parents in the upkeep of local community gardens, Williamsport, Pennsylvania, as detailed here.

Community Planning Opportunities

Second and third graders in Cameron County, Pennsylvania draw “Me on the Map,” which shows how they see themselves in relation to their community. (Courtesy of Community Heart & Soul)

Galesburg, Paonia, and Williamsport (all listed above) are three towns that have turned to Community Heart & Soul (CH&S), a partner and supporter of Our Towns reporting efforts, as a model for their town development process. These three communities involved K-6-aged kids through exposing them to civic activities or projects. Other CH&S locales, like Cameron County, Pennsylvania, have involved young folks by asking them to weigh in on conversations that inform community development planning.

When Jessica Herzing, the Cameron County CH&S project coordinator, started collecting resident feedback on Cameron County, she knew that the youngest citizens, who make up a large part of the county’s population, should have a voice in that conversation.

“When evaluating what people love about Cameron County, we thought it was really important to find out what the youth love,” Herzing said.

The information Herzing collected from the elementary students was included in the “thin” (the second and third graders’ pictures) and “thick” (the fourth and fifth graders’ brochures) data that informed a community action plan, which Herzing and others are in the process of sharing with the county’s decision-making bodies.

Fourth and fifth graders were invited to create brochures of Cameron County, Pennsylvania highlighting their favorite spots. (Courtesy of Community Heart & Soul)

Here are more examples of other CH&S communities that have included their town’s youngest voice in planning opportunities:

  • Elementary students in Dillsburg, Pennsylvania were invited to weigh in during community-wide planning conversations by writing what they liked about their town (open spaces, baseball and soccer fields, hiking trails) and what they wished could be added to their town (an amusement park, a pool).
  • A local civic center in Thomaston, Georgia hosted an all-ages free game night to invite young people in the conversation about what kinds of changes they wanted to see in their town.
  • HEAL Winchendon (which stands for “Hope, Empower, Access, and Live,” and is a community project aimed at improving the quality of life of Winchendon, Massachusetts residents) invited all residents, including elementary-aged students, to design banners for the Seeds of Hope project to show their favorite parts of town and what they hope for in the community as a way to propose community improvements.

Two things are clear: It’s never too early to be thinking about civic engagement; and, this list is far from being exhaustive.

Is your town engaging youth in creative ways? We want to hear from you. Write to Our Towns here to tell us about what’s happening in your town.


Allie Kuroff headshot
Allie Kuroff

Allie Kuroff serves as the Communications Director at Our Towns Civic Foundation, where she uses multi-media platforms to bring stories of American Renewal to the public. Allie works as a communications strategist at Ballast Research, a political research firm in Washington, D.C. She studied social anthropology and vocal music at the University of Redlands where she wrote for the Redlands Bulldog as a news and culture reporter. During her time at Redlands, Allie worked to promote cross-discipline idea sharing through collaborating on the inaugural TEDx event on campus. Having lived in many different states throughout her life, Allie is passionate about building bridges and increasing communication between communities across America. She is currently based in Washington, D.C.

Fountains of Youth for Towns

This article first appeared on the Our Towns Civic Foundation website on March 15, 2022, which you can see here.


The life and spirit of any town or city depend on its ability to attract and retain people. In a time when many worry about brain drain, how communities keep their young people, or bring them back, or attract newcomers illustrates a place’s sense of and attention to renewal.

When we first met Jake Soberal in Fresno, California, in 2015, he was in his late 20s. He had gone East for college, worked as a lawyer for a few years, and was newly returned to Fresno to become part of the entrepreneurial renewal of the town.

Jake might have been as surprised as anyone else to find himself back in Fresno. As Jim Fallows wrote back then, Jake had recalled the commencement address he delivered at his high school in Clovis, the city bordering Fresno: “I can distinctly remember sitting up there, this arrogant 18-year-old thinking, you know, these folks really ought to enjoy this speech because they’ll never see me here again.”

Well, they did see him again. He returned to co-found Bitwise Industries, a multi-missioned technology company embedded in the economic, cultural, and social life of Fresno, and committed to arming a new upskilled workforce to help Fresno realize its aspirations. We were impressed enough by their work and spirit of Bitwise, that we chose them to build the very website you are reading now.

The Spirit of Fresno, circa 2015

The comment from Soberal’s 18-year-old version of himself (coming in part from being 18 years old, of course) speaks to a concern we hear time and again in communities all over the country. The adults are worrying—deeply—that if their young people don’t engage, see opportunity, want to stay, or even entertain the idea to return, then their towns are in trouble. Any town’s vitality and even survival depends on ongoing decisions about whether people want to live there. Attracting young people as they are starting careers and family is an enormous step toward a vibrant future for the community.

Jason Neises, who got a degree in history and politics from Northern Iowa University in the early 1990s and then served in the Peace Corps in Africa, has been working in small towns in eastern Iowa for over six years in community development for the Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque. There he uses planning processes, like the Community Heart & Soul (CH&S) approach that we have previously described in Bucksport, Maine, and Galesburg, Illinois. CH&S is based in Vermont and is a partner with Our Towns in reporting on small-town development.

Neises believes that engaging the young people and giving them reason to return is neither a pipe dream nor a lost cause. There is reason to believe he’s right: Ben Winchester of the University of Minnesota Extension has been charting a shift from what he calls “brain drain”  of those in their late teens and 20s to “brain gain”, as those in their 30s and 40s return to rural hometowns, with families in tow and grown-up commitments in hand. Covid has given this kind of migration a boost, with young people moving back or to more rural roots for lifestyle and family reasons. Stephanie Sowl from Iowa State University reports that early and positive feelings about their hometowns is indeed a noteworthy reason for high-achieving young people deciding to return home later.


How to transition from the youth exodus worry to action? Or as many town citizens have put it to me: What do we do? How do we start? Here are some answers we have heard:

Open the doors and invite them in.  Bellevue, Iowa, population 2,200, is one of Jason Neises’s towns. A 2017 survey by CH&S and the Center for Rural Strategies found that only 15% of young people said they had been asked for their input about their town’s future, but 68% said they would volunteer if asked.

The public school system—a potentially readymade asset in any town—played a fundamental role in bringing the young people of Bellevue into the town’s development efforts, to include those whom Jason Neises calls the “missing voices in the community.”

They made room in the curriculum and the students’ days for them to take part in city-oriented projects, like planning for bike lanes and town parks, and to participate on the city council. Bellevue also opened a project-based education center, called BIG, for students to move beyond school to learn and “broaden their horizons into the Bellevue community.” Right now, during this late winter week, the BIG website is advertising for community orders for the products from their aquaponics project—kale, watercress, lettuce, and mushrooms. And they are featuring the progress of three high school juniors who are renovating the basement of BIG, a former button factory in downtown Bellevue, with a soundproof recording room. They are now working on insulation, drywall, and ceilings. Collaborations among a town’s organizations and schools are not always as optimal as they are in a town like Bellevue. It takes the right town leadership to make it look easy.

Some towns and organizations push hard to find and bring in young people from other venues, like youth groups, churches, scouts, 4H, Boys and Girls clubs, and FFA. Laura Furr from the National League of Cities points out that when tackling the hardest issues, like homelessness and social justice, it’s important to find the authentic young voices who can speak from experience and personal perspectives. Where are they? Look to the juvenile justice groups, foster care, child welfare agencies, and homeless organizations to find them.

Listen to them.  Judy Larson is a community activist in the small town of Lemmon, South Dakota, population 1,200. Over the past two years of pandemic lockdown, I have talked with her frequently, as I described in this earlier post.

Larson told me about generational and cultural gaps between the adults and the young people, even when they sit at the same table. While (well-meaning) adults may say, “Oh, we have a youth member on our board,” or “Let’s ask the kids in the Honor Society to do that,” the young people hear those intentions differently. Larson relayed what her husband, a former math teacher, reminded her: Kids can suss out pretty quickly when it’s not a real situation, when the adults in the room are not listening to them.

Ali Lightfoot is now general manager for KVMR radio in Nevada City, California. Several years ago, living in Paonia (pay-oh-knee-ya) Colorado, where she was production manager for KVNF radio, she had an idea for a radio program, called “Pass the Mic”. The show would be produced and delivered entirely by young people. The town would be – literally and figuratively – listening to the young people. Lightfoot described what she heard when the young reporters interviewed coal miners and others about the history, economics, and experiences of working in the Hinsdale County mines.

They approached their interviews differently from adults, she told me. As kids, they would start at a more basic level of understanding the topic, (and could get away with that), with no political agenda (not yet acquiring the baggage that adults often carry), unveil their interviewees (with disarming bearing). They would, for example, ask rough-around-the-edges coal miners, ‘Tell me how mining actually works.’ ‘Why do you do this?’ ‘What do you love about your job?’ This approach elicited heartfelt conversation rarely heard among adults, Lightfoot reports, and says about the youth, “We don’t ask them what they think very often. We should learn from them.”

Give them pizza. Teach them skills. Go for the Easy wins.  The group HEAL Winchendon, in the Massachusetts town of 10,000 people, describes itself as “more than a project…  a community movement for long lasting change to improve the health and quality of life for Winchendon’s residents.” Among their many institutional partners is a Youth Changemaker group of local high schoolers, whose work became streamlined into the system through a progressive 2018 Massachusetts law, requiring public high schools provide a student-led, non-partisan civics project for each student.

Miranda Jennings, who works with HEAL, which is also a new partner with CH&S, described two student initiatives in their town. Their students were very concerned about sexual orientation discrimination, which they saw as a problem. Their idea was to raise awareness through a kickball game. Jennings listened, agreed on the kickball, and suggested they might think even bigger. Had they heard about city proclamations? They hadn’t. “Sometimes we don’t know what we don’t know,” she said. So, the students wrote a proclamation to recognize Pride Month in June 2021, and presented it to the city council.  It was approved. “It was actually a very easy win,” Jennings said. The adults in the community were astonished, saying, “The kids did that?”

The second was more complex. The students wanted the young people to feel “proud to live in Winchendon, proud to be a resident here,” a sentiment that they felt was lacking. What they also saw lacking was a teen space in their town. They thought a teen space could be the vehicle for young people feeling more happy—and proud—about their town. Their first step was securing a modest mobile pushcart, which they hauled to monthly summer events in the park in 2021, to raise awareness and money toward their ultimate goal, a brick and mortar teen café. Shrewdly, and intentionally, they lobbied to place a student on the town board that was creating a physical makerspace, to be sure there would room for the café inside that makerspace.

This video shows the planning, preparation and newly-honed speaking skills that the students used to present their case to the United Way. They were rewarded with a $500 check for their teen café.

Adult supervision and proceed with passion.  The adults I spoke with had their own set of takeaways from working with the young people. While the youth identified gaining what you’d expect, crucial, real-life skills and a new understanding of their hometowns, the adults offered these.

From Massachusetts to Iowa to California, adults described learning to check their initial reactions to a crazy-sounding idea, take a step back, and move from “I don’t know if you can do that” to “OK, what is our first step.”

Radio producer Ali Lightfoot said that matching her own passion for radio work to the youth radio project was critical to their successes. And now she sees the value and necessity of passing this legacy down to someone equally as passionate, lest it disappear, as it did when she moved away from Paonia. In Nevada City, Lightfoot has introduced a brand new program for and by young people, called the Youth News Corps.

Jason Neises points to longevity and sustainability. What happens when, inevitably, powerful individuals in crucial organizations come and go—managers of chambers of commerce, mayors or city managers, directors of local community colleges, and the young people themselves. (Teachers, he says, tend to stay around longer.) Who will be there to make sure that the systems enabling youth engagement stay in place, and that lessons will be passed along. Neises says that his veteran status as multiple-times coach for several local communities in the CH&S process and his longtime work in the community foundation helps. He can spot programs becoming stagnant or  going untended. He can assume license to approach newcomers and suggest “Let’s have lunch sometime,” as a way to renew or revive energy.


I keep returning to a mantra Jim and I heard in Winters, California (population 10,000) during our reporting trips there. We met young adults in town who were starting businesses and raising young families. Half of each couple was born and raised in Winters, and had returned. The other half were spouses from away, but who had words to pass along. “Be forewarned,” they said,  “that if you marry someone from Winters, you will end up living in Winters.”

I have tried to figure out what magic Winters creates (besides being a really pretty small town, in a beautiful part of the country, with a rich agricultural heritage and very nice people) to embed this affection in the DNA of the young people who grow up there. I don’t know the answer. But I think I can see that some of the approaches  in Winchendon, or Bellevue, or Fresno today may be part of the answer. Or it may just be how one of the kids from the pushcart project in Winchendon described what he experienced, when he said, “The adults are always on the ball.”


Deb Fallows Headshot
Deborah Fallows

Deborah Fallows is a writer and a linguist. She has written for The Atlantic, National Geographic, Slate, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Washington Monthly. She is the author of three books including Our Towns: A 100,000 Mile Journey into the Heart of America (2018), a New York Times bestseller co-written with her husband, James Fallows. The HBO documentary, also called Our Towns, based on the book, is now streaming on HBO Max. Deborah and James founded the nonprofit Our Towns Civic Foundation to promote the ideas of resilience and renewal in towns across America.

Dillsburg Community Heart & Soul team finds ways to stay creatively connected

This post originally appeared on the Pennsylvania Humanities website and was written by PA Humanities staff Karen Price.


Staying connected in the thick of a pandemic was challenging for everyone, but imagine trying to launch a program that hinges on a tremendous amount of community involvement.

That was the situation in which the Dillsburg Community Heart & Soul team found itself during the past 20 months.

“It’s kind of hard to get strangers to talk to each other when everyone is telling you to stay apart,” program coordinator Kelly Falck said. “Not only were people not going to anything, but they certainly weren’t going to something they’d never heard of or weren’t exactly sure what it was.”

Community Heart & Soul in Dillsburg, Pa

Dillsburg is a town of 2,500 located in northern York County, near Harrisburg, at the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains. A group of local volunteers had recently formed the Community Heart & Soul team and were in the initial phase of the four-step process of engaging the community to shape its future when Covid-19 hit in early 2020.

Story gathering is a critical component in the Heart & Soul process.

They adapted to the challenge of lockdown by meeting regularly online to continue working on their goals and laying the groundwork for the next step. That kept them connected, but they wondered about Phase 2. That stage involves more community engagement with the gathering of stories from residents to form Heart & Soul Statements identifying the town’s priorities and what the people love and value most. They needed to hear what brought their neighbors to Dillsburg, Pa, why they stayed, what they loved about it, and what they hoped for in the future.

But how do you do that when health and safety concerns discourage people from gathering in the settings where those conversations would normally take place?

The team soon found its answers.

The Photo Contest Launch

Katelyn Beam, a sustainability studies major from Messiah University in nearby Mechanicsburg, came on as an intern and took on the role of establishing Dillsburg Community Heart & Soul’s social media presence. In February 2021, she launched a photo contest asking residents to submit their favorite shots in categories including “heart of Dillsburg,” “only in Dillsburg,” “best scenic view,” “favorite place to spend time outdoors” and “favorite place to eat.” The submissions are now displayed in a photo gallery on the Dillsburg Heart & Soul website.

“I highly recommend it to be part of the process for any team,” Falck said. “(Beam) did a great job of getting our social media presence off the ground. She made a great splash and built our recognition in the community through social media.”

Entries into the online photo contest.

Winners were announced in April, and while they continued to make space for people to share their stories on the website and social media, the team also took advantage of the willingness to gather outdoors in the nicer weather. A few volunteers were already regulars at the local farmer’s market, so they set up a table as a way to introduce themselves to more members of the community and gather more stories.

It was a great success.

“We were like, ‘Hey, that worked. Let’s do that again. And what else is coming up?’” Falck said. “We started showing up at anything the community was doing and just asking if we could have a table, and eventually people started asking us, ‘We’re doing this event, could you come?’ It built a lot of trust and credibility by showing up at events in our community.”

They went to outdoor events including food truck nights, the Dillsburg Pickle Fest, a chalk art celebration at the middle school, a garden club tour, concerts in the park, and National Night Out.

Finding Common Ground

Kelly Falck shares some of the team’s findings at the Farmers Fair.

In October, they shared some of their findings and continued to chat with neighbors at the 106th Annual Farmers Fair, a treasured Dillsburg, Pa tradition. Although it rained that Saturday, the Community Heart & Soul team was set up on the covered porch of the historic Quay House and everyone welcomed the opportunity to interact while staying dry.

“The most beautiful thing about the stories we’ve gathered is that we are finding those common threads so easily,” Falck said. “Like any little city or town across America, our little town is extremely politically divided and divided over masks or no masks, vaccine or no vaccine, and we’ve had some contentious school board meetings. And yet our themes are the same regardless of political persuasion. The things people want are so very similar.”

For instance, she said, people love the rural aspect of Dillsburg and value open space. They want to contain development and make sure that the rural and agricultural areas surrounding the downtown center don’t get lost. And while people remain largely unexcited by the thought of big box stores moving in, they are interested in the revitalization of their downtown area into a place where they can shop and eat.

Engaging the Next Generation

Dillsburg’s young residents weigh in.

Not wanting to exclude the younger residents, the team also went to all four elementary schools in the district and asked students to either draw a picture or write what they loved about Dillsburg and what they wished could be added to the town.

The kids listed all sorts of things, Falck said, and many were quite insightful.

“They talked a lot about liking open space, baseball and soccer fields, hiking trails, and all that stuff,” said Falck, adding that the team is currently asking the same questions of area middle school students. “Then their big wishes were everything from amusement parks to some really crazy things. Certainly a water park and a pool.”

Next Steps in Dillsburg, Pa

The team is now nearing the end of Phase 2 and will be using what they learned during the story gathering process to create their Heart & Soul Statements. In Phase 3, they’ll develop action plans to guide future town planning based on those statements. They are currently seeking additional volunteers as well as a paid, part-time project coordinator and a social media intern.

Falck said she’s been so impressed by what their group has been able to accomplish, even with a smaller leadership team compared to some Heart & Soul communities. She encourages others not to be dismayed if they, too, have smaller numbers.

“I think that Dillsburg is really on the cusp of taking some strides forward in defining what we want to be and really owning who we are and making the most of it,” she said. “I hope Heart & Soul makes people feel excited about that.”

The most beautiful thing about the stories we’ve gathered is that we are finding those common threads so easily.”

Kelly Falck, Dillsburg Heart & Soul program coordinator
Neighbors talk about Dillsburg during National Night Out festivities.

PA Heart & Soul in Dillsburg is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and South Mountain Partnership, through funds from the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR).

Karen Price

Karen Price is a Content Writer and Storyteller for Pennsylvania Humanities. A longtime journalist and writer, Karen has always believed in the power of storytelling to uplift, inspire, unite and inform.


Webinar: Meet Millennials Going Big in Small Places

Did you miss our webinar about Millennials who chose to live in towns and small cities?

Hear how they are defying conventional wisdom about so-called “brain drain” from rural America. Ben Winchester, an expert on rural migration, sets the stage for an insightful discussion with three Millennials who are contributing to the vibrancy of the places they live—in a big way.

Winchester notes that the rural population has grown 11 percent since 1970. While younger adults do leave hometowns for college towns and metropolitan areas, people in their 30s, 40s, and 50s are moving back. They are seeking a slower pace, safety and security, and lower-cost housing. That spells opportunity for small cities and towns.

During the live webinar our chat window was busy with an engaging discussion that prompted provocative questions, information and resource sharing. We thought you might find the transcript useful.

Click here to read the live chat transcript.

Featured: Whitney Kimball Coe, coordinator, National Rural Assembly, Athens,Tennessee; Brittany Grimes, director of public relations and marketing, Carl Sandburg College, Galesburg, Illinois; Bree Henderson, owner, Polished & Proper Barbershop & Shave Parlor, Laconia, New Hampshire; Ben Winchester, senior research fellow, University of Minnesota Extension, Center for Community Vitality.

Hobgoblins in the Humanities

This post first appeared on the Pennsylvania Historic Preservation blog.

Can I tell you about something that gives me chills and sends me running? October is Arts & Humanities Month. It’s also time for Halloween, so when I was invited to submit a post, our friends at SHPO asked if I could kill two birds with one stone and do justice to both October happenings. I decided to oblige by writing about some bad spirits that bedevil me at work: the humanities hobgoblins!

Pennsylvania Humanities Council Blog
Mansour de Toth, “Jack o’lantern : Ange et demon”, Oct 20, 2007

I start with background about my job at the Pennsylvania Humanities Council (PHC). I’m proud that PHC prioritizes working with people who face financial challenges and intentionally focuses on them. Our programming is grounded in research that point to how the humanities can expand opportunities for Pennsylvanians through civic engagement and education.

We are motivated by our conviction that the humanities are indispensable to a strong democracy and a vibrant America. We are also driven by our concern about the growing divide between the haves and have nots, especially citizens of color whose potential is drastically constricted by the forces of racism. To address this divide, we embrace impactful humanities programming that makes positive change.

Pennsylvania Humanities Council Blog
Upper Chichester Heart & Soul Leadership Team members

PHC views the humanities well beyond liberal arts subject areas. They are a process for thinking, learning, and reimagining; they are a method for collecting and analyzing ideas and information and synthesizing them in order to develop a new vision. The humanities build skills such as critical thinking, communications, and collaboration. They are also tools for bringing people together to deliberate over issues and ideas. If you acquire valuable skills, you can contribute to the community and the economy. If you and your neighbors agree on how you can make a difference, you can work together to improve your town.

Pennsylvania Humanities Council Blog
Greater Carlisle Heart & Soul teen leaders

And the place you call home matters!

Economist Raj Chetty and his project The Opportunity Atlas demonstrate how much communities determine how their kids will do in life – for many families, scary stuff. Community Heart & Soul, a resident-driven community visioning and planning model, is one way we support residents in strengthening their communities. Pioneered by our partners the Orton Family Foundation, Heart & Soul uses people’s stories and the humanities to engage residents in learning from one another, exploring community narratives, and articulating the community’s core values, values that unite residents and serve as criteria for collective decision-making.

Heart & Soul is a long-range commitment, but the hard work is not handed off to experts or consultants. Heart & Soul rests on the principle that the residents themselves are the experts who can do the work with the right support. That aligns with PHC’s belief that every person can be a humanities practitioner if given the opportunity and resources.

Pennsylvania Humanities Council and Meadville Heart & Soul Team
Meadville residents at a Heart & Soul Summit

Now to the humanities hobgoblins.

These hobgoblins are imps of the mind, preconceptions and misconceptions, which tell us how the humanities should be. Some hobgoblins wonder how a program can be a humanities program if it takes place outside traditional cultural venues like colleges, museums, or public libraries or is sponsored by organizations that seem like unlikely hosts, for example, a revitalization authority. Others are flummoxed when community stories, not literary classics, are the focal point for inquiry.

Yet others, more comfortable with traditional cultural fare such as scholarly lectures, are baffled by the way resident-driven humanities programs unfold; they are flabbergasted by the commotion at Heart & Soul workshops where citizens work together and parse values emerging from residents’ stories or generate ideas around their community values.

More virulent hobgoblins demand to know where the “real” expert is, that is, the credentialed academic. Last, the most fiendish stridently opposes applying the humanities to social causes and insists that the humanities should be appreciated for their own sake. Do these hobgoblins sound familiar to you?

Pennsylvania Humanities Council and Meadville City Hall
Meadville City Hall lawn with Heart & Soul Statements

Arts & Humanities Month is an occasion to reflect on the value of the humanities to the public, and I hope that we can consider how these hobgoblins touch on serious equity issues. When we make calls about where the humanities take place, how humanities programs should be conducted, and what texts can be counted as humanities-worthy, we set limits on the types of people who participate in the humanities.

When we privilege some people over others because they are “experts,” we create a hierarchy where some are more important than others. Finally, I’d like to note that the opinion that the humanities should be appreciated for their own sake is often espoused by those who are often older, white, and affluent. People from other backgrounds may appreciate the humanities in different ways. To promote equality, we may need to revisit our personal beliefs and examine how they may reinforce inequities that make life harder for many.

Pennsylvania Humanities Council and Lumber Heritage Sign
Lumber Heritage Sign

The humanities shine a light on local culture, heritage, and unique landscapes.

I end this post by encouraging us all to cast the hobgoblins aside and see what happens when ordinary people have the chance to step up as humanities practitioners.

In Greater Carlisle, Williamsport, and Meadville, the Heart & Soul process has elevated residents to lead through the humanities. Folks in all three communities came out strongly for heritage and historic preservation, vibrant cultural life, education, and diversity – priorities for many of my humanities colleagues — and affirmed that they are as important as a strong local economy, health and well-being, and the natural environment and green space.

I’m looking forward to watching our Heart & Soul towns as they implement their action ideas, and I’m hoping that by benefiting many Pennsylvanians, their successes will convince others that it may be time to let go of the hobgoblins and let them rest in peace.

This week’s guest contributor is Mimi Iijima from the Pennsylvania Humanities Council. The Pennsylvania Humanities Council is an independent partner for the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), part of a network of 56 state humanities councils that span the nation and US jurisdictions. Mimi Iijima is Director of Programs at PHC, and since 2013, when PHC embarked on a major change in strategic direction, Mimi has been leading the charge to overhaul PHC’s programming, applying the humanities to build avenues for civic involvement and community development and to strengthen skills for school, work, and personal improvement among youth and adult learners.

This post first appeared on the Pennsylvania Historic Preservation blog.

Building Civic Courage and Living It Too

Whitney Kimball Coe is coordinator of the National Rural Assembly, a rural movement made up of activities and partnerships geared toward building better policy and more opportunity across the country. Her work is focused on building civic courage. She has chosen to live in the Tennessee town where she grew up.

She is among the guests featured on an upcoming free Heart & Soul Talks webinar, where you can hear more of her story and others who made the choice to go big in small towns.

Heart & Soul Talks: Going Big in Small Places: Millennials Make Their Mark in America’s Towns,
Wednesday, Nov. 14, 1-2 p.m. Eastern. Free!


Orton Family Foundation:
Where did you grow up?

Whitney Kimball Coe: I am a daughter of Athens, Tennessee, which is a town of about 14,000 in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee.

Orton: When did you leave and when did you return to your hometown?

I left for undergrad at Queens University of Charlotte, North Carolina, in 2002 and attended Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, for my masters. I made my way back to Athens in 2013.

Orton: Why did you decide to return?

WC: I decided I wanted to return to Athens in the midst of my first year at college back in 2002, and every step I made afterward was in service to returning home. I value my small town existence. Our family precept is, “These are precious times.” I see my parents and my brother’s family everyday. I act in community theater, serve on multiple boards, participate in school programs and teach fitness classes at the YMCA. It is a rich life, full of intricate, precious connection and relationship.

For the fuller story, see: https://dailyyonder.com/practicing-small-town-art-participation/2017/11/02/

Orton: What can your town do to draw more Millennials like you?

WC: I’m an ambassador for “homecoming.” I think my contemporaries are looking for purpose and meaning, and there is room in rural America for you to have that/create that if you choose it.

Register now for the upcoming Heart & Soul Talk: Going Big in Small Places: Millennials Make Their Mark in America’s Towns, 
Wednesday, Nov. 14, 1-2 p.m. Eastern. Free!

(Can’t make that date? Sign up and we’ll send you the call recording. Free!)

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Homecoming: This Millennial Returned Home and Never Looked Back

As many young people do, Brittany Grimes left her hometown for college and to start her career. Then she decided to return. She is director of public relations and marketing at Carl Sandburg College in Galesburg, Illinois (pop. 31,000). She’s an example of a Millennial (age 22 to 37) who made the choice to return to her small city roots, reversing the so-called “brain drain” from rural America. Brittany is one of the guests featured on an upcoming free Heart & Soul Talks webinar, where you can hear more of her story and others who made the choice to go big in small towns.

Heart & Soul Talks: Going Big in Small Places: Millennials Make Their Mark in America’s Towns,
Wednesday, Nov. 14, 1-2 p.m. Eastern. Free!


Orton Family Foundation:
Where did you grow up?

Brittany Grimes:  I grew up in Galesburg, Illinois. My family relocated to the quaint town when I was eight years old. My mother’s family is originally from the area.

Orton:  When did you leave and when did you return to your hometown?

BG: I left Galesburg in 2004 to attend Virginia State University in Petersburg, Virginia. I returned to Galesburg fourteen years later in 2016 with eight years spent in the Washington D.C. area.

Orton: Why did you decide to return?

BG: I decided to return in order to be closer to my family and explore local opportunities.

Orton: What can your town do to draw more Millennials like you?

BG: I believe Galesburg is doing the right things already. We have a Guide to Greater Galesburg available through the Knox County Area Partnership for Economic Development and the Galesburg Area Chamber of Commerce that share the benefits of moving to Galesburg. We have various local restaurants (Korean, Japanese, Indian and American) two microbreweries, many local small businesses, a young professional group, plenty of volunteer groups to get involved with from arts to advocacy groups, and career opportunities and broad experiences that as a professional you are not likely to get anywhere else.

Register today for: Going Big in Small Places: Millennials Make Their Mark in America’s Towns, Wednesday, Nov. 14, 1-2 p.m. Eastern. Free! (If you can’t make the live session, sign up and we will send you the recording.)

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Walking School Bus Offers Active Option for Students

In Community Heart & Soul city Galesburg, Illinois, schoolchildren are discovering an active alternative for getting to school. Since September, elementary school students have had the chance to get on board the Walking School Bus instead of riding the bus or getting chauffeured to school by their parents.

The idea came out of the Galesburg on Track Action Plan, which was finalized last winter. One goal in the plan is to create more activities for youth. So the members of the Heart & Soul Stewardship Team took the lead and got the Walking School Bus rolling—a great example of how motivated volunteers can transform an idea into an action!

Fire Chief Tom Simkins and fellow Stewardship Team member Sam Jarvis promoted the Walking School Bus idea because it encourages exercise and outdoor activity, rather than sitting in front of a computer or phone screen. Simkins corralled approximately 40 volunteers from numerous community organizations, including a local hospital and the city’s chamber of commerce, to participate.

Every morning, weather permitting, the students escorted by volunteers clad in orange vests join the group at two pickup points and wind their way through the neighborhood to the local elementary school, a distance of a half mile. About 25 students participate on a weekly basis.

The Walking School Bus on the move in Galesburg, Illinois. The idea came from Galesburg’s Heart & Soul Action Plan.

The Action Plan is based on eight Heart & Soul Statements that were drawn up by the community after the Heart & Soul Team led extensive resident engagement that was focused on aspirations and hopes for the city.  One of Galesburg’s statements is “We value having things to do.” The Action Plan picked up on that shared sentiment and emphasized youth in particular.

“Anything we can do that stimulates something that speaks to our value statements through action, that’s what we’re about,” said Simkins, who coordinated the program.

Volunteer Sara Robison noted the program has brought children together who previously did not walk to school. That included younger students whose parents felt concerned about letting their children walk to school unsupervised.

“I really feel (the Stewardship Team volunteers) are putting their very best effort into attempting to bring all parts of the community together,” Robison said. “We’re seeing the Action Plan in action through this program.”

The Walking School Bus is scheduled to run through late fall and start up again in spring. Simkins hopes to grow it into a district and countywide program to last for years to come.

Rebecca Susmarski is a writer based in Galesburg, Illinois.

Galesburg on Track Action Plan

Rolling the Dice: Millennial Sets Up Shop in Struggling Downtown

Bree Henderson owns Polished & Proper Barbershop & Shave Parlor in Laconia, New Hampshire (pop. 16,500). She chose to start her business in the struggling downtown in this former New England mill town. She’s an example of a Millennial (age 22 to 37) who made the choice to take some risk on a small town–reversing so called “brain drain” from rural America. Bree is among the guests featured on an upcoming free Heart & Soul Talks webinar, where you can hear more of her story and other Millennials who made the choice to go big in small towns.

Heart & Soul Talks: Going Big in Small Places: Millennials Make Their Mark in America’s Towns, Wednesday, Nov. 14, 1-2 p.m. Eastern. Free!

Orton Family Foundation: Where did you grow up?

Bree Henderson: I grew up in Mansfield, Ohio, a city in Northeast Ohio that has gone from 100,000+ people to under 50,000 in the last 10 years due to recession and closing of manufacturers like General Motors and severe reduction in steel production.

Orton: How did you choose Laconia, New Hampshire (pop. 16,464)?

BH: I originally moved to New Hampshire to be close to my ex-husband’s children, when I separated from the U.S. Air Force. We lived on the seacoast while I attended barber school, about an hour away. There was a general understanding in the barber community, at the time, that Laconia was in need of a good barbershop. There just happened to be an older barber looking to sell his business in Laconia.  I had no hesitation of owning a shop that was an hour and twenty minutes away from where I lived. It was an opportunity, and I took it. After a year of being open, life changes allowed me the opportunity to move to Laconia. It was like it was meant to be.

Orton: You opened your business in a downtown that was struggling. Why did you choose downtown?

BH: I didn’t really choose downtown, but from the beginning I took the location of the shop I purchased to be a major selling point. The walkability of the area coupled with parking were obvious perks to the location, in addition to the placement of three banks with ATMs nearby. Barbershops being traditionally cash only, made that another positive. Most of all, I was banking on the fact that it was generally known throughout the community that you could go downtown for a haircut. This was evident due to the presence of a beauty school, several salons, and another barbershop within the same area.

Orton: What can your town do to draw more Millennials like you?

BH: The city of Laconia has many wonderful natural amenities, given that it is surrounded by lakes. It also possesses many outdoor activities to participate in year round, with a ski resort one town over. One of two things I think Laconia could do to attract more of my generation would be to spend serious time and attention to marketing, so that people can know how much we have to offer as a community. Having wonderful things is great, but not if no one knows about them. The second thing is mid-income housing. The housing market here, given that it is a vacation destination, is heavy on high end, lake shore housing, coupled with very old construction that New England is known for. Adding to these housing complications is the fact that Laconia is the only city in the county, which means it has services for less fortunate individuals, making the housing market more difficult.

You can find low-income/workforce housing and million-dollar condos, but there isn’t much in the middle. The middle is where the average Americans budget lands, but we struggle to be able to offer housing for those who wish to raise families.

Register today for: Going Big in Small Places: Millennials Make Their Mark in America’s Towns, Wednesday, Nov. 14, 1-2 p.m. Eastern. Free! (If you can’t make the live session, sign up and we will send you the recording.)

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Golden could be the first Colorado city to lower the minimum voting age to 16

Editor’s note: On Nov. 6, 2018, Golden voters rejected the measure to give teens the right to vote on municipal ballot items and local candidates.

This article first appeared in the Denver Post and is reposted here with permission.


Bella Macarelli regularly discusses the big issues of the day — politics, immigration, gun control — with her classmates at Golden High School.

She says her age (she turns 16 in November) shouldn’t preclude her and her friends from bringing those lofty thoughts from the schoolyard to the ballot box.

“Most of the votes you would get are from students who care and are well informed,” Macarelli said. “We have highly intelligent conversations in class.”

The Golden High sophomore may earn that suffrage on Nov. 6, when voters in the city of 21,000 on the metro area’s west side will be asked whether their elected leaders should move forward with lowering the voting age in Golden from 18 to 16 for local issues and candidates.

Golden would be the first community in Colorado to make such a move, although a proposal to lower the voting age to 16 was discussed in Boulder last year as was a bill at the state legislature that would have lowered the age to vote in school board races to 16.

“We do know that 16- and 17-year-olds are more than able to decide issues like this,” said Golden Mayor Marjorie Sloan. “It’s not really related to age — it’s related to the individual.”

The Golden City Council referred the idea to the ballot late last month.

Colorado law limits voting to adults 18 and older, but as a home rule city, Golden could lower that age threshold for municipal-only races and ballot issues. People would still need to be at least 18 to hold office in Golden. If the measure passes, the first election that minors would likely be able to vote in would be November 2019.

It’s an idea that makes sense to Brian Conroy, principal of Golden High.

“It’s an excellent opportunity for kids to become involved in the democratic process,” he said. “If we can help kids take part in the voting process, and understand the process, they’re going to do it.”

And do it long term, supporters of lowering the voting age say.

“It is clear that age 16 is a better time to establish a new habit than age 18, and data from places that have lowered the voting age shows that 16-year-olds do indeed vote at higher rates than older first-time voters,” claims Vote16USA, a relatively new get-out-the-vote campaign run by the New York-based group Generation Citizen.

The group also says youth in a household may prompt their parents, who may have lapsed in their civic duties, to revisit the polling place. Nearly three-quarters of registered voters turned out in the 2016 election in Colorado, but only one in three did so in the 2017 election, according to state election data.

The more people participating in the democratic process, the stronger democracy becomes, proponents of a lower voting age argue.

A handful of cities in the United States have opened up municipal elections to those 16 and older, starting with Takoma Park, Md., in 2013. Washington, D.C., this year has talked about opening up the ballot — including the selection of a president — to 16- and 17-year-olds.

While news reports following the 2013 election in Takoma Park noted that citizens ages 16 and 17 turned out at more than four times the rate of registered voters 18 and up, not everyone is certain lowering the voting age is a good idea. David Davenport, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, said he doesn’t believe there “is a case” for the change and that minors, who typically don’t pay property taxes and cannot serve on a jury, don’t have enough “skin in the game” to fully participate in the civic process.

Teens, he said, tend to get excited about certain hot-button issues — as happened with multiple youth-led rallies that pushed gun control following the killing of 17 students at a Florida high school in February — but don’t necessarily consider the full political landscape that faces voters on a typical ballot.

“I would like to see that they are going to take seriously the full range of issues rather than just the one issue they are passionate about,” said Davenport, noting that his objections to a lower voting age lie primarily with national elections rather than municipal ones. “There’s not a lot of evidence that this is going to be a big civic engagement thing.”

Another leading argument against a lower voting age touches on the idea that the teenage brain is still maturing and that young people are more susceptible to what social psychologists term “hot cognition,” where choices are made more rashly and emotionally and are more influenced by hormones and peer pressure.

But supporters of the lower threshold point out that “cold cognition” — the mature, analytical mind-set less influenced by impulse — is fully developed by age 16. It’s just a matter of accessing it.

“We see that cold cognition every day,” said Conroy, the Golden High principal, who noted that society trusts kids to start driving legally as early as age 15. “They are sitting down and focusing in class and asking informative questions.”

Macarelli, the sophomore, said high school is the perfect environment in which to immerse oneself in slow and thoughtful deliberation about the big issues of the day. It’s an environment, she said, that often eludes the people who have earned the right to vote simply by virtue of their age.

“I think a lot of teenagers like myself are more involved in these issues than a lot of adults,” she said.


Photo Credit: The lead image used is from www.flickr.com/photos/theresasthompson/.