While on our visit to Fayette County, we were able to meet with two high schools and their faculty. These were Uniontown high school and Laurel Highlands High School. During our Uniontown visit, we met with the principle, the gifted student teacher/librarian, and two high school students. We recorded the meeting to listen back on and pull clips from if needed for our video presentation. We also met with a number of faculty members at Laurel Highland High School. This included the academic coordinator, principle, and all of the high school guidance counselors. Prior to our visits, we met with Michael Edwards and Daniel Cocks and Sophia Shapiro. Our meeting with Michael and Daniel occurred during our Friday weekly meeting. They discussed local facets in the community including the Rural Arts Collaborative, the Connellsville Canteen, Fayette County Cultural Trust, and the extensive trail system throughout Fayette County. It was evident that both Michael and Dan take great pride in Fayette County, actively participating in community initiatives and striving for its sustained development. Their overarching goals for the region were centered on strategically utilizing the Entrepreneurship and Education Center for community and economic growth, along with transforming Fayette County and its surroundings into a comprehensive destination for visitors. Discussing their recent project, the Entrepreneurship and Education Center, they highlighted its potential as a versatile space offering free classes on diverse subjects, while eagerly seeking our cohort’s input for its future direction. Their vision for Fayette County as an all-encompassing destination revolves around the trail network that spans the area. Their vision is to connect the towns along the trails, allowing visitors to explore everything that the area has to offer. Though logistical challenges such as transportation are a major setback, such a development would undoubtedly be an invaluable asset to the area
Our meeting with Sophia was extremely helpful to learn the background about Celebrate Uniontown and also provided us with a connection to Mrs. Baker who helps champion this initiative at the local high school. We met with her to discuss adopting the Celebrate Uniontown proposal. Sophia has essentially overseen the proposal since its creation last year. During our meeting, Sophia was able to give us a comprehensive overview of what exactly Celebrate Uniontown is and what we could do when we take over responsibility of it. We gathered that this proposal was born out of last year’s cohort noticing that there was an immense sense of pride seen in the community of Uniontown, but that this sense of pride was not centralized. The goals of this proposal were to celebrate, promote, and improve upon the existing community of Uniontown, PA through the use social media, improving the Uniontown website, and connecting with young people. Sophia gave us several suggestions for what we could do to further Celebrate Uniontown. She recommended that we continue the relationship with the high school student interns and continue approving their posts for the Instagram page. She also suggested that we brainstorm social media programming ideas, such as a small business week, to keep the Instagram account interesting while continuing the promote the community. She gave us several contacts for people that have previously been involved with Celebrate Uniontown, and even initiated the first contact with the high school student interns and their advisor, Mrs. Baker. Our last meeting was with Bill Talkington and Brad Trott. They are the ones who will be dispersing the community survey. They will mostly be promoting the survey through social media pages of prominent organizations and various figures in Uniontown. Bill and Brad are both active community members in Uniontown working on initiatives from the Sheepskin Trail to the Redevelopment Authority.
When we visited Fayette County, I was surprised with all of the steep inclines when driving there. We arrived at night so we got to see a beautiful display of shiny lights when we were getting close to Touchstone Crafts. It was a very rural area and we would lose phone service when we approached it. Luckily, there was wifi when we were in or around our cabins at Touchstone. Each area that we needed to visit was only about 15-20 minutes from Touchstone Crafts. We were able to carpool and visit each site efficiently. Even stopping by Penn State Fayette was convenient to see the travel Vietnam Wall memorial. We also were able to all attend a football game at Albert Gallatin high school where unfortunately they lost. It was still great to interact with the students during the game.
On our visit, we wanted to address one or more needs that would leave a long-term impact on the community. We had originally brainstormed some solutions including the development of an app, providing economic assistance to small businesses, and capitalizing on the land and water trail network. We eventually decided we wanted to focus on selecting a few feasible and highly impactful solutions. We will be facilitating interviews with high school and college students, and professors and business owners in hopes of forming a connection for career opportunities. A large issue we saw was that graduating high school students were not fully aware of the career opportunities that they could pursue. We are hoping to eventually also provide an interactive way for students to express an interest and see career paths associated with it. With our initial idea about the app, had a vision that included implementation of the Asset Map and features that allowed visitors to take self-guided tours of the area. We were interested in this idea and discussed the possibility of making an app that would fit their vision. However, we lacked the overall skillset required to develop an adequate app. We also considered working on the Fayette County Cultural Trust Website to make it more accessible and friendly. We chose not to do this though because other issues were more pushing.
We also will be evaluating the results from a community survey. This survey investigates the causes of some discomfort in Uniontown in regards to the government and assets provided. We are hoping to be able to identify prominent trends and gain a comprehensive understanding of the community’s demographics, needs and preferences. This will hopefully guide our initiatives and resource allocation decisions. We will also communicate our findings with other members of the cohorts. Our initial idea for this social media programming includes combining our findings from the education focus groups and Celebrate Uniontown by filming and posting interviews with professionals, specifically catered for high school students. By leveraging digital platforms and creative marketing techniques, we aspire to enhance community engagement and foster a deeper sense of pride and belonging among Uniontown residents.
Each solution that we have chosen to pursue will require distinct approaches in our next steps. Following our Fayette County visit on October 13th we will review and combine all our interview notes. Our meeting with Uniontown High School and Laurel Highlands High School provided us with incredible insight on academic programs, student career interests, student attitudes, and overall needs. We will be compiling our notes and organizing the information we learned in an easily presentable way. We want to use this information to evaluate what we can offer the schools and students of Fayette County in the future.
From our meeting with Uniontown High School, it became evident that students there were unaware of the vast career options they could pursue. To combat this, we will be organizing various interviews with Pitt students, faculty, and Fayette County business owners and professionals. High school students, Delaney and Dominic, will be collecting potential career interests from their peers and then conducting the interviews. These interviews will be recorded and promoted on both their social media accounts and the Tomahawk Talk website. The goal is for students to learn about unique career interests that they otherwise may not be aware of. This not only contributes to our interest in providing resources to high school students in the region, but also adds to Celebrate Uniontown.
Following our meeting with Bill and Brad, we will be monitoring results from the community survey until November 10th. The survey will remain open past that date, but we will only be evaluating responses up to the November 10th. We will be looking for trends in the responses collected and will present that out on our November 17th visit to Fayette County. Following this, we will finish any other interviews with the Uniontown students that need to be done. Below is our timeline outlining the objectives we aim to achieve and the corresponding schedule for their completion.
- Send thank you emails – October 18th
- Combine and review interview notes – October 19th
- Submit interim report – October 19th
- Complete interview notes and analysis – October 24th
- Develop plan for future education and workforce development initiatives – October 25th
- Follow up meeting with Uniontown students – October 30th
- Evaluate Community Survey data – November 10th
- Organize interviews with Uniontown students – November 13th
- Present out on deliverables to Fayette County – November 17th
- Complete interviews with Uniontown students – November 24th
- Present research findings in D.C. – November 30th – December 2nd