This is a big American story worth telling.
Hi Neighbor,
As we crest into 2025, our storytelling team is looking back on the 130 stories that we’ve produced in 2024, and what we’ve learned from the many good people who have shared them with us.
In the engine room of this storytelling process are two producers, Sara and Lisa, who are the folks on our team who conduct the interviews, write the first pieces, and help us stay in coordination with storytellers. Each of them has spoken with dozens upon dozens of rurally-based people who have implemented federally funded projects, from Alaska to Florida and 39 states in between.
To kick off the New Year — here’s some of what our story producers have learned on the hard work and faith that make progress possible in America’s hometowns.
Resource Rural
“This is a big American story slipping under the radar, and it’s a story worth telling.”
Sara Millhouse has worked as a Story Producer with Resource Rural since Spring of 2024. She’s based in Iowa and The Driftless Area of the Midwest.
Since April, I’ve talked to farmers, grocers, bar owners, churchgoers, and meat processors. I’ve interviewed people strategizing to help their isolated communities survive power outages in the Nevada desert and the Colorado mountains. I’ve learned how land is being restored and enriched through agriculture and conservation in Arkansas, Wisconsin, and Washington. I’ve seen how solar and other renewable energy sources are revolutionizing businesses as diverse as seed companies, grocery distribution, and innkeeping.
To be honest, the interviews are great fun. I sometimes can’t believe I get paid to talk to people about why they love their hometown or how their irrigation systems work. It’s an honor as well.
It’s inspiring to see the work people are doing all over the country to better their lives and their communities.
As I’ve talked to folks in Maine, Pennsylvania, and Idaho, I’ve learned in a granular way how federal funding can change people’s lives and improve local communities. In Cassville, Wis., Carrie Wunderlin opened The Neighborhood Slush because she got a $10,000 grant to open the business in a vacant downtown building. “This space wouldn’t exist without that grant,” she said of The Neighborhood Slush. “I opened this with just $87 in my pocket. I jumped in, headfirst. The grant was the only reason I could launch my business.”
In the 1930s, the New Deal transformed America through federal investment in the midst of economic emergency. This story is summarized in history textbooks and is still household knowledge for many Americans. The “lights going on in the countryside” might be compared to rural broadband rollouts and rural economic transformation today, but the breadth and depth of today’s investments are lost in endless, vague program names and passthrough layers.
No one has effectively branded the huge investments of the American Rescue Plan Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law or the Chips and Science Act. The best we have so far are the chewy names of “landmark legislation” that are hardly recognizable to most Americans as anything beyond a bureaucratic acronym. We need a name for these historic investments, which will continue to roll out over the coming years.
We can do more to connect the dots between our individual storytellers and national stories of federal investment across the country. This is a big American story slipping under the radar, and it’s a story worth telling.
“Our storytelling is taking that quiet celebration and elevating it in a way that seems to be valued.”
Lisa Abelar has worked as a Story Producer with Resource Rural since fall of 2023. She’s based in Arizona.
When I first got on the phone with Tommy Everett, I didn’t realize I was about to begin a conversation that would last nearly 90 minutes and cover decades of his life. I had called about a bridge project, but the full context of that project couldn’t be felt unless it was filled in with the colors of his lived experience.
This is what he thought. And it’s what I came to understand.
One of Lisa's stories includes Tommy Everett, who shared with us how funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is restoring a dangerous bridge — creating a social and economic connector for residents in Tyrell and Dare counties in rural North Carolina.
Tommy knew everything about the bridge project and the impact it would have on his rural North Carolina community, not just because he was an elected official who had helped gather bipartisan support for funding, but also because he lives in and grew up in the town that uses that increasingly unreliable bridge every day.
He had been stuck on that bridge during an emergency as an adult. And he had been among the first to use it, as a boy scout, when it was constructed six decades earlier.
As a storyteller, I see Tommy in almost everyone I get a chance to talk to. No matter what state or what line of work or what project is being implemented, every story we tell has a Tommy — someone who hopes to see the project come to life and knows how the community will benefit from it.
Invariably, the projects and the hard work people put into them — school electrification, a nonprofit expanding services, new community facilities, or a farmer growing their operation — could not have been implemented without the availability of federal funding.
What’s most striking over the past year of speaking with all kinds of storytellers from all walks of life in dozens of rural communities across the country, is the sheer enormity of funding that has been made available in an effort to improve the lives of rural Americans. It’s not just checks from the government. It’s an investment in people who have a passion for their crafts, a desire to serve and love for their community.
Every single Tommy, whether they’re an elected official, a food co-op manager, a meat processor, or a community activist, have shared how their project has helped someone beyond themselves. They’ve recognized a need, seized an opportunity, and celebrated the opportunity to work with their family, partners, and neighbors to build their community.
Rural communities have needs that have long been overlooked. And I know that because I’ve spent the past year or so talking with people living in those communities who are — over and over again — telling me that they’ve never in their lifetime seen investment in their communities like they’re seeing now.
The pictures often aren't complete without all the colors of an individual’s life, like the ones Tommy shared. Our program is connecting those colors to small victories and celebrating them as a national triumph because the innovation and initiative of rural people can be an example to anyone who desires to improve their life and the lives of those around them. These are stories worth telling.
If the stories above inspire you, share them. If they remind you of someone in your own community, tell us. Together, we can spotlight the hard work and ingenuity that makes rural America thrive. Thank you for being here, check out our full collection of stories and reach out to us to start a story of your own.