ORR's Rural Grants Generate Nationwide Impact

Midway through 2023, Outdoor Recreation Roundtable awarded five communities funding to implement their Community Action Plans developed through the Recreation Economy for Rural Communities Program, an interagency partnership between the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) , USDA Forest Service , Northern Border Regional Commission (NBRC) , and Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) . Now one year later, we are pleased to share what communities have been able to accomplish, as well as advice for other rural communities seeking to pursue similar goals.

Butte, Montana

Butte, Montana used their ORR grant to reestablish Basecamp Butte as a portal for area recreation opportunities within an hour of the city. The original Basecamp Butte website was allowed to languish without significant updates and the domain was allowed to lapse. Resurrecting the domain was accomplished through the Butte Local Development Corporation and was pushed out to Butte’s Recreation Economy for Rural Communities participants for evaluation and comments.

Hartwell, Georgia

Hartwell, Georgia used their ORR grant to install a granite statue in their downtown dedicated to Nancy Hart, the county’s namesake (the only Georgia county named after a woman), that will act as the first marker for a regional trail system connecting major outdoor recreation areas. The trail experience will provide recreational opportunities and history education through inscriptions and other signage to enhance pride in the community.

Marshfield, Vermont

Marshfield, Vermont used their ORR grant to provide local match to repair and resurface a stretch of the Cross Vermont Trail System destroyed by significant flooding in July 2023. The project was eligible for partial funding from FEMA since it was a recreational asset owned by the town. The town is now working with the Cross Vermont Trail Association to develop signage for the trail, and there are plans underway to improve and extend the trail in other towns.

Monte Vista, Colorado

Monte Vista, Colorado used their ORR grant to host multiple community engagement sessions regarding the Recreation Economy for Rural Communities program and build momentum for goals identified by Monte Vista residents and the SLV community. The grant supported an information session on the Lariat Ditch Trail, with a representative from the Language Justice Cooperative present for translation and interpretation services. These sessions allowed community members to voice their excitement and concerns around the potential of the pathway that will connect the East side of Monte Vista to the West side without needing to walk or ride a bike along Highway 160, which is a common and unsafe experience for non-vehicular travel.

Yreka, California

Yreka, California used their ORR grant for multiple purposes, including facilitating a collaboration between Siskiyou County’s Destination Marketing Organization and Jefferson Bike Company to develop a marketing plan focused on cycling, as well as developing a cohort of innovating outdoor businesses in Siskiyou County.

“Without the ORR grant, it would not be possible to access the technical side of the site and make updates as it relates to ARCGIS,” said Dori Skrukrud, Community Development Coordinator for Butte-Silver Bow. “We are working with an ARCGIS coordinator that has intimate knowledge of web-based mapping as a former employee of Butte-Silver Bow’s GIS Department for this technical work.”

Advice for Communities

This year's grant recipients also shared advice and recommendations for other communities taking on this work. Among their suggestions:

1) Make certain to align your actions to other organizations in the community that are doing the same or similar work.

For example, the Butte Chamber of Commerce has been utilizing the term “Basecamp Butte” (i.e.” Make Butte Your Basecamp”) in its recent marketing campaign, as a tagline in its infomercials, so there is a current campaign that will connect to the updated recreation portal. With a new marketing director on board at the Chamber, their site updates will align with ongoing and new campaigns and themes.

2) Be persistent with federal funding opportunities and make personal relationships.

In Marshfield, the town was initially told that the project was not eligible for FEMA funds. However, it ended up being eligible since it is a town recreation asset. The advice to other towns would be to be persistent with FEMA staff to make sure a project is FEMA eligible.

3) Transparent access to information is the root of civic engagement.

In Monte Vista, community leaders recognized the importance of reading, watching, or listening to what is happening in the community to build trust, learn and understand how residents are best informed, leverage local resources, and save internal capacity from burnout.

Grant applicant SLV GO! and the City of Monte Vista have spent time not only writing press releases to radio stations and the local newspaper but also engaging in one-on-one conversations with local journalists so the story is told correctly from the beginning of the project. This trust builds a needed partnership that has made a huge impact on RERC overall in the number of volunteers who participate in action planning meetings and take initiative in the community. This ‘ripple effect’ continues the momentum of the project by connecting networks of people across the region.

4) Patience is the key.

In Hartwell, Georgia, at the beginning of the process, they thought it would only take a short time to decide what their plaque/marker/statue should be. While there were no disagreements from core stakeholders, the process took more time than anticipated to get it right. Ensuring that level of buy-in along the way helps ensure broad support for big projects.

Outdoor Recreation Roundtable works on society’s pressing issues through access to the outdoors and building the $1.1 trillion dollar outdoor recreation economy.

These grants were made possible by the Richard King Mellon Foundation and The VF Foundation, long-time supporters of ORR’s efforts to research and support rural economic development through outdoor recreation.