How Community-Led Change is Helping Rural Places and People Thrive

November 30, 2023

Growing up in rural Delaware, I feel deeply rooted in the experience of living in a small town. I know what it’s like to grow up in an agricultural landscape, to play in the forests behind my childhood home, to walk to the local library in town, and to explore the beautiful coastline and beaches nearby. I’ve returned home to visit these special places with my own children, so that they can feel those rural roots too.

I’ve also seen my own hometown change in the last few decades, with development eroding the forests and farmland of my childhood. But importantly, I’ve witnessed the resilience of people in my hometown as they navigate these changes in their community. This is what makes my work in EPA’s Office of Community Revitalization so meaningful to me—I am able to support rural communities like my own hometown. 

Rural communities cover a vast amount of land across the U.S. and are home to 14 percent of the U.S. population. They are stewards of the forests, wetlands, grasslands, and coastal marshes that many of us depend upon—places that help clean both the air and water, provide wildlife habitat, and mitigate the impacts of climate change. They provide bountiful agricultural resources that feed the nation. Their cherished landscapes and waterways create opportunities for all of us to spend time outside.

However, many small towns have suffered environmental damage and economic impacts due to the rise and subsequent decline of natural resource extraction, manufacturing, and other industries. Federal programs that can help often feel removed from everyday life and can be difficult to access. The community members I’ve worked with often tell me they feel left behind.

One program that is lifting up rural communities is the Recreation Economy for Rural Communities (RERC) program, a federal interagency partnership between EPA, the USDA Forest Service, the Northern Border Regional Commission, and the Appalachian Regional Commission.

I am proud to help manage this program, which provides planning assistance to help rural communities and small towns leverage growing interest in outdoor recreation so they can revitalize their main streets, diversify their economies, and steward their natural resources. At EPA, where our mission is to protect human health and the environment, we have seen that investing in economically vibrant, healthy main streets and neighborhoods is good for the environment, and it’s good for people’s health.  All our federal partners want to see rural communities thrive, and together we are coordinating our efforts so that rural communities can more easily access federal resources and the assistance they need to support their vision for the future.

The RERC program brings everyone to the table – especially community members who have previously felt excluded from planning processes. Federal agencies also participate in the conversation – first to listen to each community’s vision, then to help connect the dots with resources to make that vision a reality. When federal representatives show up in rural America, it puts a face to agency names that may seem far away and disconnected from rural realities, and it helps rural communities feel valued. The RERC program invests in the most important asset that rural communities have – the people who live there.

The RERC program brings everyone to the table – especially community members who have previously felt excluded from planning processes.

The communities I’ve worked with through the RERC program are increasingly diverse, creative places, full of people who I call “community sparkplugs” – the people who are re-envisioning the future and making things happen. Federal agencies can support these sparkplugs by investing in and elevating their innovative work to create a more sustainable environment and diverse and thriving economy.

The RERC program supports community sparkplugs like Michelle McCarron in Poultney, Vt., who ran the local senior center and had a vision for creating an outdoor fitness garden for seniors in her community; Rick Roberts, a village clerk in Granville, N.Y., who is making it easier for community members to access the river that runs through town; and Natalie Dawson in Haines, Alaska, who is building alpine huts in the mountains so more people can get outside year-round to enjoy the stunning Alaskan wilderness.

These inspiring people, and many more, are doing the slow and steady work of changing their communities for the better. Their stories and more are featured in recent videos (below) highlighting communities who have participated in the RERC program.

Investing in rural communities drives innovative thinking and yields results. When federal agencies partner with small towns and communities, we can work together to create thriving, walkable, and economically vibrant main streets and neighborhoods that protect human health and the environment. Real change can happen, one community at a time.

About the Author

Steph Bertaina
Senior Policy Analyst
Office of Community Revitalization

Steph Bertaina is a Senior Policy Analyst with the U.S. EPA Office of Community Revitalization in Washington DC, where she helps rural communities and small towns build economically vibrant, healthy, sustainable, and inclusive neighborhoods and downtowns. Steph manages the Recreation Economy for Rural Communities program, which is partnering with rural communities across the country to help them leverage the power of outdoor recreation to diversify local economies and revitalize main streets.