Making Small Towns Happen

“In most rural communities, the water and sewer systems are 75-100 years old” said Mayor Evereth Stanton of Shaw Mississippi. “The towns don’t have a lot of sales taxes to generate the money to replace the systems.” A two term mayor in a town with 1,400 residents, Stanton is familiar with the challenges associated with finding resources for basic infrastructure improvements. “Leaders in small municipalities, mayors and aldermen, are part time and can’t devote eight hours a day to the job. Towns also don’t have the expertise in-house and can’t afford consultants to apply for federal grants,” said Stanton.

Fortunately, the story is different in Shaw. In 2023, the community was awarded over $2 million in federal resources from three separate sources. The funds will be used to make water, sewer and sidewalk improvements.

The Mayor credits Shaw’s involvement in the Hope Municipal Opportunity Partnership (HMOP). Through HMOP, HOPE connects small towns in need of investment with the technical expertise to successfully plan, apply for and manage compliance on federal grants.

Harvey Johnson, the former mayor of Jackson, Mississippi, and the founder of the Mississippi Institute for Small Towns, joined HOPE’s team in 2022 and plays a central role in the work. Johnson and HOPE collaborate with local governments and community organizations to develop long-term plans to identify community development priorities and garner the resources to improve the quality of life for residents. When barriers to funding are identified, such as the need for an audit or assistance interpreting an engineer’s recommendation, Johnson provides direction or brings in experts to fill the information gap. “Larger communities have the upper hand in getting resources, and once they get the resources they can manage them” Johnson said of the need for this service in small towns. “[HMOP] is an opportunity to help [small towns] build their capacity and skills. Once they do it, they’ll be able to repeat it.”

In 2015, HOPE acquired the last bank branch in the town of Shaw. Not soon after, HOPE partnered with the town to develop a strategic plan. Last year, the town completed an update of the plan which has been the lynchpin to acquiring the historic levels of federal resources made available through legislation like the American Rescue Plan Act, the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bi-Partisan Infrastructure Law.

The plan also laid the ground work to attain philanthropic funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to replicate the Grocery Online Ordering Delivery Service (GOODS) in Shaw. GOODS was successfully piloted in the nearby town of Drew in 2021 as an alternative to a stand-alone grocery after a market analysis revealed a population too small to sustain a traditional store. With local leadership provided by a local nonprofit organization, We2gether Change, the people of Drew renovated a community space to include cold storage, set up an online ordering system and purchased a refrigerated van to pick up groceries from the Walmart in Cleveland, Mississippi.

Last year, Delta Hands for HOPE, a nonprofit organization in Shaw, took on the local leadership of GOODS in its community and leveraged the lessons learned in Drew. The nonprofit renovated space in its facility to include a separate room with its own entrance, coolers and a work station to fulfill online orders. Only 30 minutes apart, We2gether Change and Delta Hands for HOPE made the strategic decision to share the refrigerated van which kept costs down for participating residents in Shaw. “The GOODS program is making an impact in the town of Shaw by reducing barriers to fresh food and enabling individuals who need alternatives to transportation and mobility services as a mean to access resources that can be delivered to their front door. We don’t look at the program as the solution to food deserts, but we definitely promote it as a viable option to support the community,” said Chiquikta Fountain, Director, Delta Hands for Hope.