As communities throughout Southwest Virginia seek to emerge from the health and economic crisis caused by COVID-19, the topic of resilience in rural communities is gaining relevance, interest and importance.
The Rural Resilience Summit, slated for Oct.28, will bring together leaders, practitioners, educators, and community members to provide strategies that can be employed to address kindergarten and school readiness, workforce readiness, and mental health in the region through the prism of resilience.
“Resilience isn’t a new topic by any means,” says Travis Staton, president and CEO, United Way of Southwest Virginia, “but over the last year-and-a-half it has become a key to establishing, and in some cases re-establishing, a better quality of life.”
Using a live virtual conferencing app, Socio, community members will attend, engage, and interact during live sessions. In partnership with the Virginia State Office of Rural Health and Ballad Health, the Rural Resilience Summit will provide a dozen expert-led sessions. Attendees will also be provided with resources to learn how to utilize the collective impact model by employing new strategies from the event.
The feature keynote speaker for the Summit is J.R. Martinez. He is an army veteran, burn survivor, and Dancing with the Stars season 13 winner. Martinez is also the author of The New York Times bestselling book, Full of Heart: My Story of Survival, Strength, and Spirit, a memoir about how he was able to take his personal tragedy and turn it into an inspiration for others.
“We are very excited to have J.R. Martinez as the keynote speaker for our Rural Resilience Summit,” said United Way of Southwest Virginia Community Resilience Manager Danielle Dye. “He embodies the core values of the event, and shows us that we can all overcome challenges we face and practice resiliency to better ourselves and our community.”
For more information, and to register, visit theruralsummit.org.
