In a rural community, a local leader isn’t always the person gracing headlines or standing on a podium. Sometimes, they’re your neighbor who spends weekends organizing community clean-ups. Or the friend tirelessly working to bring economic opportunity through a small business. You might recognize them in a recent mother demanding a better life for a coming generation. 

These champions – often unsung – weave the fabric of rural prosperity with quiet determination and hard work. They embody resilience and commitment, demonstrating the impactful change that can spring from our everyday actions. Though progress can be slow, you’ll usually find that it’s a collective endeavor. 

Today, we’ll be singing the praises of three of these advocates in coastal Mississippi and Alabama.

Rural Alabama community hopes to establish water infrastructure

Carletta Davis’ rural Alabama hometown of Prichard has been reeling from a groundwater situation that has gone from bad to worse over the past few years. 

“So we did the only thing we could do. We organized and we started demanding better for our community,” said Davis, who founded the We Matter Community Association. In collaboration with the Anthropocene Alliance, Davis is working on a well-researched plan to clean up pollution and bring about positive change for Prichard residents by utilizing federal grant money to create much-needed recreational green spaces in our community. The funding is the result of a $200,000 technical assistance grant, known as a Community Change Equitable Resilience Technical Assistance, funded by the Inflation Reduction Act and facilitated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

“We learned how because we had to,” Carletta shared with Resource Rural. “It’s likely going to take a generation for our groundwater to truly be clean. However, despite these challenges, my community is making steps toward a better future.”

Mississippi community uses federal grant to advocate for more livable environment

And while change might not look the way that we expect, there are a hundred ways to demonstrate resilience. Folks like Barbara Weckesser of Pascagoula, Mississippi know that sometimes the best way to protect their community is to move that community to a safer location. 

Weckesser leads Cherokee Concerned Citizens, a community group advocating for a buy-out of her and her neighbors’ subdivision. The Cherokee subdivision includes homes that took on upwards of 10 feet of water from Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Residents have rebuilt, but the area remains at high risk for coastal surges, and nearby industry — largely fueled by oil — has caused irreparable harm to the community due to an unchecked flow of pollutants.

A federal grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, with funds from the Inflation Reduction Act, will fund the development of a restoration and relocation plan. It will also give residents living in the heavily polluted area the buy-out opportunity they’ve been waiting for while creating a roadmap for resilience for other communities. 

“I started this and I’m going to stay until it’s finished,” Barabara shared with us.

community Investment is helping mississippi city manage rainwater and restore wetlands

Nowhere is this seen more clearly than in Biloxi, Mississippi – a coastal city hard-hit by Hurricane Katrina — where residents are used  to the challenges created by recurring floods. But one local organization, the Steps Coalition, is using federal funding and the help of the Anthropocene Alliance to utilize native landscaping and an underground bioswale to capture rainwater and allow it to release into the soil over time. That measured release mitigates the likelihood of flooding in an area where the water table is exceptionally high.

And that singular, thoughtful project has led to two more efforts that could have an even greater impact on the Biloxi community. The two new projects will utilize $227,000 in funding from additional National Fish and Wildlife Foundation grants made possible by the Inflation Reduction Act.

“It would have an immediate benefit for the community,” Gordon Jackson, Steps Coalition Development Manager. “We’re trying to create healthy spaces for the community that also protect at the same time.”