Calvin W Price Appalachian Enrichment Series Gives Out First Grants

Marlinton, WV – Starting April 21st tourists and Pocahontas County residents alike will have an opportunity to take a “hands-on” view of who we are. Thanks to the Pocahontas Convention and Visitors Bureau some new and unique events will be introduced to our county. These programs will showcase and educate everyone involved, about the people of Pocahontas County, through a diverse series of workshops and performances. These workshops will be taught by individuals and organizations from our communities. Blair Campbell is the Chairperson for the Tourism Board’s Education Committee.

“We’ve been looking at some money that we set aside, for a living classroom project for a few years now on the tourism board, and have been trying to figure out the best way to allocate that money,” says Campbell. “And we really didn’t just want to make a new logo that said “living classroom” we wanted to give this money to people in the community that are really striving to put warm bodies in places where tourists can be enriched in our culture and heritage in Appalachia. So we created the Calvin W. Price Appalachian Enrichment Series to fund some of these projects.”

April 2nd marked an important date for the Enrichment Series.

“Well today we gave out checks, which is a huge step, for these organizations or individuals, to get their projects started,” she says. “We had a lot of really good applications, we had to narrow it down, it’s not like we gave out all the money we had to everybody that applied. We really interviewed people, and had a really kind of strict guideline of what we wanted to fund, and basically that came down to knowledgeable people.”

“Emily Newton is going to be doing this really great play up at Cranberry, based on a murder mystery. And we have Mr. Sheets , up in the northern end of the county, [who’s] gonna be bringing people in to do some excavating on his site for the Warrick Fort. These are people really going above and beyond to have these events for tourists and community members, to learn more about our heritage and culture as Pocahontas County residents.”

The Calvin W. Price Appalachian Enrichment Series will showcase a half-dozen workshops throughout the spring, summer and fall that will explore some of Pocahontas County’s best kept secrets. For more information you may visit the CVB’s website at pocahontascountywv.com or call toll free 1-800-336-7009. Also look for rack cards displaying all the events and their location at the CVB office and various other locations.