A nonprofit community action agency, BusinesStart, provides business training and small loans to entrepreneurs in 18 rural counties in southwestern Virginia and northeastern Tennessee. The entrepreneurs, many with no previous business experience, cite the agency's basic business training as key to their success. (SV)

Shoals Entrepreneurial Center, in two Alabama locations, supports would-be entrepreneurs with extensive planning advice, rental space, loans, business training, and back-office infrastructure. The center favors business plans with the potential to create fairly high-paying jobs, a different focus from other businesses in the region, and an…

Created to fill a need for low-cost Internet access in rural Washington County, Ohio, the nonprofit Information Technology Group teamed up with a local college to provide technical assistance and free seminars on basic computing and technology use for local residents. The group regards residents' technological literacy as a building block of…

A two-year culinary arts program at Muskingum College (Zanesville, Ohio) prepares students for jobs in an emerging service-based economy. Students receive intensive classroom instruction and hands-on learning in a high-tech kitchen. Twenty-five full-time and 12 part-time students are completing their first year in the program. (LP)

In Wise County, Virginia, the If I Had a Hammer Housing Construction and Rehabilitation Program teaches the construction trades to local men and women receiving county housing assistance, while rehabilitating local housing. Trainees work for minimum wage, attend classes eight hours per week without pay, and receive support services and high school…

Last summer, 400 elementary school students from rural Athens County, Ohio, spent six weeks attending a day program at Ohio University. Originally intended to feed poor children during the summer, the program now provides tutoring in reading, math, and computers, as well as enrichment activities and swimming. Parent aides can take one university…

Since 1981, Mike Duncan, who was chairman and chief executive officer of two banks in eastern Kentucky, has offered internships to high school and college students. Duncan has mentored students on educational goals and has encouraged them to take advantage of job opportunities in their local communities. To date, 73 students have interned at…

Describes programs of Comprehensive Interdisciplinary Development Services, a private nonprofit agency that provides preventive health care services to families in Chemung County, New York. The Infant Registry program registers, tracks, and screens the health and development of children from birth until the child starts school. (LP)

Initially funded by the Appalachian Regional Commission, North Georgia Community Action's School Outreach Program identifies young children at risk of school failure. Outreach workers make home visits to help parents overcome problems affecting participation in their children's education. In the program's second year, 11% of program children…

Caring Start is a mobile-clinic program that provides prenatal care, well-baby clinics, childhood immunizations, counseling services, and contraceptives to rural poor families in northwest Pennsylvania. Before the mobile clinic, many rural women (mostly teenagers) went without prenatal health care due to lack of transportation. (LP)

In rural Alleghany County (North Carolina), one of the state's seven "cyber campuses" provides an expanded curriculum and advanced placement college courses to high school students and an array of community college and 4-year college courses to residents, who otherwise would be deterred from further education by their isolated location.…

The David School in rural Floyd County, Kentucky, is a small private nonprofit high school that has served high-risk students and returned dropouts for the past 22 years. All students receive job training in a practical field and do not graduate until they have a well-paying job or are enrolled in college or vocational training. (LP)

Funded in part by a two-year grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission, the Greene County Family Center in southwest Pennsylvania allows clients to meet with representatives from county human services agencies and offers many services including Head Start, crisis intervention, tutoring programs, adult education programs, and other services to…