Our Towns Flyer November Edition
Mapping the Thanksgiving harvest, plus new reports from Ohio, the Carolinas, and more.
From Our Towns to your towns, we wish you all a happy and healthy Thanksgiving holiday.
Our Towns was on the road in August, and we have new dispatches from that reporting. Ben Speggen and Michelle Ellia visited Kershaw, South Carolina in late August. Ben wrote about his first impressions, and has since offered a new dispatch about the town’s embrace of “new ideas in old spaces.”
In other coverage from South Carolina, Evan Sanford interviewed Scott and Tiffany Whaley in the latest edition of the Inside Our Towns podcast about the Kershaw Area Resource Exchange (KARE) and its thrift store and food pantry. The Whaleys describe how they expanded KARE into a food distribution hub that serves thousands of area residents.
When Ben and Michelle were in South Carolina, Deb and Jim were airborne in the little Cirrus to Northwestern Ohio. Jim wrote about how it feels to return to a familiar place in America and see it with new eyes. Deb has since written about how citizens of tiny Mount Blanchard, Ohio practice democracy as they make improvements in their town.
Finally, here, Our Towns presents two Esri StoryMaps. The first is an Our Towns original, based on Ashoka Fellow Noran Sanford’s work to empower at-risk youth to flip a decommissioned prison into a sustainable farm and community asset in Wagram, North Carolina.
The second StoryMap comes from Esri, and it brings us back to Thanksgiving. Check out “Mapping the Thanksgiving Harvest,” which tracks the origin of cranberries, green beans, pumpkins, and more, and offers curious data along the way – like how Minnesota raises more turkeys than any other state.
We at Our Towns are thankful for the opportunity to share these stories – and the many more on our website – with you, our readers. Around tables nationwide, we believe more unites us than divides us, and that starts at the local level.
COMMUNITIES THAT WORK
ENVIRONMENT & SUSTAINABILITY
UNLOCKING POTENTIAL
BY BEN SPEGGEN
What happens when a prison is turned into a sustainable farm and community asset? Local, at-risk teens in Scotland County, North Carolina are given new opportunities to succeed by Growing Change, an organization transforming abandoned properties into tools to help build better, stronger communities.
READ MORE >
PODCAST
INSIDE OUR TOWNS: SCOTT & TIFFANY WHALEY
BY EVAN SANFORD
How do you ensure five pallets worth of cabbage get to those experiencing need before it spoils? Learn how KARE, a nonprofit providing hunger relief and crisis assistance, helps feed, sustain, and build community in South Carolina.
READ MORE >
COMMUNITIES THAT WORK
KERSHAW INVESTS IN COMMUNITY WITH NEW IDEAS IN OLD SPACES
BY BEN SPEGGEN
A train depot that’s a museum. A former bank branch building that’s become a library. Another former bank that is serving as an early education center. Here is how this South Carolina town is repurposing buildings of the past to build up its future.
READ MORE >
COMMUNITIES THAT WORK
HOW ONE SMALL OHIO TOWN PRACTICES DEMOCRACY
BY DEBORAH FALLOWS
Small is Big in Mount Blanchard, Ohio. Deb Fallows writes about how the 500-person town located 60 miles south of Toledo has embraced small improvements, from installing new benches to adopting a resident-led democratic process.
READ MORE >
Republish Our Stories. Our Towns is devoted to connecting and supporting those leading today’s American renewal from the ground up. That’s why we're now making our stories available for other publications to republish for their audiences.
REPORTS FROM AMERICA
STORYMAPS
MAPPING THE THANKSGIVING HARVEST
BY ESRI'S STORYMAPS TEAM
Millions of Americans gather each November to celebrate family solidarity and enjoy a calorie-laden feast. But have you ever contemplated the origins of that food? This StoryMap will help you appreciate the farms and distribution systems that bring everything from cranberries to sweet potatoes to your table.
READ MORE >