Celebrating 10 Years of Coalfield Development
By Cathy Bonnstetter
Coalfield Development recently celebrated 10 years of rebuilding Appalachia by propelling both residents and entire communities forward from the days when coal was king. The group’s goal is to unlock Appalachia’s full potential, power and purpose, not with programs and bureaucracy but with hands-on training and network building.
According to Brandon Dennison, co-founder and CEO, the nonprofit is a true grassroots movement. He and his best friend started Coalfield Development, and despite what he calls surprising growth, they have stayed true to their original vision.
“We really tried to stay true to a servant heart and a belief that it’s human relationships that really change things, much more so than programs and projects,” says Dennison. “To celebrate 10 years is deeply gratifying. We’ve made mistakes, but our intentions have stayed pure, and I know hundreds of people whose lives are better because this organization believed in them.”
Coalfield Development’s team has grown from three to 32 with a 10-member board of directors and has assembled a network of enterprises across the region. This network fuels Coalfield’s success with its mission of providing the state with personal and professional development, employment-based social enterprises and community-based revitalization projects.
Coalfield Development’s partners in the network measure their impact and success with a triple bottom line philosophy: people, planet and profit. Social enterprise and economic diversification (SEED) partners make equity investments in social entrepreneurs with environmentally sustainable ideas who plan to follow the nonprofit’s retraining model. Workforce readiness and professional success partners identify community-based organizations willing to provide training using the Coalfield model. Coalfield also partially or wholly owns strategic partners that diversify regional economies and provide employment for program grads.
Coalfield Development has trained 1,200 people in new economic sectors, many of whom have faced barriers to employment such as substance use or poverty, and created more than 300 jobs.
“Our on-the-job approach creates the kind of real-world experience employers want to see in a recruit,” says Dennison. “But more than the technical training, our people become critical thinkers, communicators, problem solvers and reliable team members. Rather than training people and then praying they get a job, we’ve shown that you can and should create the job and the training simultaneously.”
Coalfield Development uses a 33-6-3 workweek model in its training that offers displaced workers a 2.5-year contract consisting of 33 hours per week of paid work, six credit hours of higher education and three hours of personal development mentorship designed to help trainees excel in the modern world of work. The model has transcended state borders.
“33-6-3 has become a social innovation of global importance,” says Dennison. “The World Bank is incorporating it into a global curriculum designed to help coal communities around the world diversify and retrain workers.”
Over the past 10 years, Coalfield Development has supported and grown 52 new businesses in Appalachia, attracted $25 million in new investments to the region and revitalized more than 200,000 square feet of formerly dilapidated and abandoned property.
Revitalize Appalachia
Revitalize Appalachia, Coalfield Development’s social enterprise dedicated to retraining and professional development in green construction, jumpstarts community redesign. Revitalize operates in Cabell, Wayne, Lincoln and Mingo counties with three main programs: real estate development, construction and property management.
“We collaborate with residents, local leaders and partner organizations to prioritize projects that are catalysts for local transformation,” says Nick Guertin, interim director for Revitalize Appalachia and an Enterprise Rose Fellow. “We take properties that are often vacant, polluted or in need of major repair and transform them into assets.”
Revitalize staffs its crews with recruits from local project areas so they become invested in their community’s transformation. No matter what their skill level, recruits broaden their horizons.
“Many crew members have a basic familiarity with the work before joining our team but in the process learn a whole new range of skills,” says Guertin. “Construction is work that requires precision, determination and a problem-solving mindset. I think plenty of employers, whether in the construction field or outside it, would tell you that those are invaluable qualities in any person.”
Crew members can obtain professional safety certifications such as OSHA 10 Construction or more specialized certifications such as lead and asbestos abatement or blueprint reading. The sustainable construction practices also broaden workers’ skillsets.
“Every time we give an existing building new life, we divert the materials of a demolished building from the landfill,” says Guertin. “Our crew members also help install energy and water conserving fixtures and ensure all projects are well insulated.”
Revitalize’s green construction projects include an eight-unit, multi-family project with affordable apartments for seniors or individuals with disabilities and the restoration of the West Edge building, a former textiles factory in Huntington, that includes commercial, community and production spaces. The team is also working on a major rehabilitation of 24 units of affordable housing at a Coalfield owned property in Lincoln County.
“Our projects have a whole set of associated primary and spin off effects,” says Guertin, who has been with Revitalize since October 2019. “On the construction side, in addition to employing local residents, we also pay for services from specialized subcontractors and order building materials locally. On the real estate side, we are creating new spaces for entrepreneurs and other community initiatives.”
Saw’s Edge Woodshop
For Saw’s Edge Woodshop, a Coalfield Development enterprise in Huntington’s West Edge building, the triple bottom line translates to handmade woodworking projects that give both people and materials a second chance. The 33-6-3 model is one ingredient in the mix of betterment for the state and its people.
“We want to empower Appalachian people to make profits, while also protecting and bettering our planet,” says Director Eddie Austin. “We are specifically focused on using reclaimed materials in our handmade items to keep as much waste as possible out of the landfills. We are creating new lives for our trainees and the building materials we use.”
Austin was hired to jumpstart the program in 2016. At that time, Saw’s Edge was not much more than a plan.
“The first time I walked into Saw’s Edge, the shop was raw and gritty with few working machines and tools,” says Austin. “The facility has come full circle since then, becoming one of the industry’s leading training grounds for fine woodworking. Today, we are equipped with the finest tools and new heating and even cooling, which is a rarity in a woodshop.”
Saw’s Edge is billed as a place where grit meets creativity. The shop produces home decor items, furniture and custom cabinetry. In fact, the shop has had more than $200,000 in custom furniture and cabinet sales in the past few years. Trainees have also delivered more than 100 custom builds, according to Austin. The enterprise offers both retail and wholesale transactions.
“We are using this early success as a building block to launch a brand new home/office product lineup that features many handmade items in stock and ready to ship,” says Austin. “Our work is impacting the state economy in many ways. Perhaps most importantly, it’s investing in the hands and minds of our young men and women while producing income for their families. We are committed to increasing jobs and paying fair wages. We hope that sentiment will spread to other businesses and inspire them to pay fair wages as well.”
Saw’s Edge clients include the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, where, over the course of three years, these West Virginia woodworkers fully refinished the gift shop with completely reclaimed display tables and a custom cash wrap counter. Inside state boundaries, the Huntington Museum of Art commissioned a curved receptionist desk, a piece that took weeks to template.
“The biggest win at Saw’s Edge is watching our employees learn, grow and better themselves,” says Austin. “With hard work, we’ve rescued dilapidated buildings, given a new life to Appalachian people who desperately wanted to work but didn’t have the right opportunity and earned respect for our program worldwide.”
Solar Holler
Solar Holler, a solar developer in Shepherdstown, WV, joined forces with Coalfield in 2015. Solar Holler works with individual homeowners, businesses, charities and municipalities to harness the sun’s clean energy.
“Central Appalachia has powered our nation for generations and more than deserves to be a part of, and benefit from, this next-generation in energy technology,” says Jessica Edgerly Walsh, director of marketing at Solar Holler.
Solar Holler tackled its first install in 2014, with some outside-the-box funding. The company installed a solar array on Shepherdstown Presbyterian Church using crowdsourcing through church members’ home efficiency savings. Today, still reaching out with innovative funding for its customers, Solar Holler offers group rates for its services in the southeastern counties of the state. The company is closing in on its 400th solar installation.
With the joint mission to move Appalachia forward, Solar Holler and Coalfield Development partnered to launch Rewire Appalachia and ran the initiative together from 2015-2018. Forty Coalfield trainees completed the intensive training, which included North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners certification and on-the-job training alongside Solar Holler’s workforce. Eight of those 40 joined the Solar Holler team as full-time employees.
“We created a pathway into the solar industry for folks living in the heart of coal country,” says Walsh. “Our business is about building opportunity, wealth and resiliency in our communities with solar. Core to our success is workforce development.”
Today, Solar Holler is a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and continues to create solar training opportunities in order to grow a strong workforce in this new energy source. Some of its projects include The Peddler Brewery in Huntington, Appalachian Headwaters in Lewisburg, Shepherd University’s library, dozens of nonprofits and small businesses and hundreds of private homes.
Solar Holler is one of Coalfield Developments SEED partners, and Coalfield is a minor shareholder in the company. With a team of 45 and expansion planned, Walsh says Solar Holler’s future looks bright.
“We are planning on continued growth and innovation,” she says. “We’re proud to offer high-quality equipment installed by a team of trained electricians with decades of experience and innovative financing mechanisms that meet our customers’ financial goals. The more homes and businesses we help go solar, the more we’re able to grow our team and create homegrown job opportunities.”
Turnrow Appalachian Farm Collective
Although the 33-6-3 workweek and the triple bottom line of people, planet and profit run through every Coalfield Development plan, the partner network and program organization evolve to meet the region’s needs. Such was the case with Refresh Appalachia, Coalfield’s social enterprise to grow and support agriculture within the region.
“During a five-year period, we experimented a lot to see what we could do to infuse and strengthen the agricultural economy,” says Adam Hudson, former director of Refresh Appalachia and current Coalfield Development program development director. “We worked a lot with displaced coal miners and beginning farmers, and we realized there was a market gap, as well as a grower gap. Not only were there not enough producers, there was not enough access to market.”
Refresh began in 2015 in Lincoln, Mingo and Wayne counties and worked with a variety of partners to create a regional food network. In 2017, Refresh and Sprouting Farms, a nonprofit agricultural center and farm in Summers County, ran their own food hubs and jointly grossed more than $200,000. Today, Sprouting Farms and Refresh have joined forces as Turnrow Appalachian Farm Collective, a collaborative of food hubs that spans the region.
The on-the-job training crews, the farms and Turnrow all have integral parts to play to flip the region’s focus from fossil fuels to sustainable farming. The training piece of the initiative has been pulled back into Coalfield Development.
“On the people or social side, we have our crew members and trainees, as well as the outreach we do with local farmers and producers,” says Hudson. “Then the product is sold, and that profit sustains the enterprise. Environmentally, we practice sustainable agriculture and, in many cases, organic or nearly organic agriculture.”
Although the Refresh enterprise has been disassembled and reassigned, the partnerships stay strong. Some of Refresh’s partners include Unlimited Future, Inc., a business planning and job prep firm; Appalachian Sustainable Development; and its food hub Appalachian Harvest out of Virginia.
“We have worked with all the local colleges and universities at some point in time,” says Hudson. “Even though we have restructured, we will stay very much involved in regional system development.”
