Last fall, I met Mark Rembert and Taylor Stuckert at the Pop!Tech Conference in Maine where the three of us (and others) were part of the Social Innovation Fellows program. Mark and Taylor are the founders of Energize Clinton County, a community economic development group based in Wilmington, OH, which also happens to be their hometown. Watch their presentation above for the amazing story of how they ended up doing the work they’re doing today.
Main Street, Wilmington
Of all the Fellows in the program, I seemed to relate most to Mark and Taylor, who believe in working locally, going deep into a problem, and committing resources to pervasive work with exponential impact. The two have backgrounds in economics and development and have applied the micro-local approach to bring a local food economy, downtown development, and community to Wilmington and the surrounding county. Their approach, like Project H’s, is in a way the anti-scalable, not looking to do one thing in a million places, but to do one thing well for the long-run.
When we fist arrived, we headed to the local bar/hotel, the General Denver (above), where the food is great and the beer aplenty. Mark and Taylor know everyone, and in between greeting folks passing by, told us about how they took a “reverse boycott” approach to rally the bar to serve draft beer, how rural development is SO overlooked compared to urban issues, and how eventually the US will return to rural lives. We spoke about how we have all traveled to the far reaches of the earth, to challenging places without water and where we don’t speak the language, and yet the small town, where resources don’t come in droves like they do in big cities, is actually just as much of a challenge. And we heard about the county’s history, from a glacier bringing nutrients to the now agricultural region, to General Denver himself (yes, THAT Denver), the underground railroad stop which is now a KKK meeting spot, and the Murphy Theatre downtown founded by a former owner of the Cubs. Mark and Taylor have since been joined by some of their friends moving back to Wilmington to work and “make a home.” One of these “move-backers,” as they call them, is John Cropper, photographer and writer who came out to the trailer and wrote an article for the local paper (read it here).
As Matt and I are in the process of moving to Bertie County, North Carolina, which is even more rural and poor by comparison to Clinton County but shares a lot of the same economic battles, we have drawn a lot of inspiration from Mark and Taylor (they are even a big chunk of our presentation as examples of the importance of working locally). And so, they were a logical second-to-last stop on our tour as we pulled up to Wilmington High School yesterday.
Their friend Steve Reed, an art teacher, had organized a morning presentation to all art students, followed by four class periods of high school and middle school students coming out to see the road show. In the lecture, I asked what “design” meant to students, and one answered, “Gucci,” which so perfectly demonstrated why we need a design revolution. A group of 6th graders was working on an Invention Project, and were particularly inspired by the Hippo Roller and some of the solar gadgets that they said might inform their project. All the students were well-behaved and engaged, and as usual we loved sharing the work with a younger crop of students.
In the afternoon, we stopped by the Clinton County Youth Council, run by Mark and Taylor’s friend Kevin. About fifteen middle and high school students were there for the after school program, and we did a brief show-and-tell, in which the One Laptop Per Child and “brass knuckles” Subtle Safety Ring were supremely popular.
A particular thanks to Mark and Taylor for setting up the day with their friends and community, and a thanks to Taylor’s parents for letting us park outside their house!! We were so excited to end the road show with friends doing work that inspires us, and we do hope to come back to Wilmington soon, not only for the local asparagus served at the General Denver, but because here’s a place where the local commitment of youth and resources is truly making a difference.
