Rural Partners forum aims to help areas tap unrealized capacity

ORONO – The Maine Rural Partners, formerly the Maine Rural Development Council, will host its annual forum, “Building Community Capacity through Rural Partnerships,” 8:30 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 9, at the Senator Inn in Augusta. Participants will include rural Maine residents, community leaders, community organizations, business representatives, legislators, and municipal officials.

A central purpose of the forum is to develop and use strategic partnerships and capacity-building as stepping stones for re-energizing rural Maine communities, said Patricia Kontur, acting director of Maine Rural Partners.

“Rural communities have strengths and unrealized capacity to face the threats of a rapidly changing economy, such as policy that often directs resources to population dense urban areas,” she said.

A mid-morning roundtable will focus on how a positive vision for rural Maine’s future can inform and shape recommendations for state policy, and consider the most important next steps for local action on a rural policy agenda.

Featured speakers include Michael Swack of Southern New Hampshire University, who will present a keynote address about financing, sustaining, and using capacity-building tools in community economic development; and Tom Usiadek, manager, state of Pennsylvania Keystone Opportunity Zones, who will address the success of the economic development program in Pennsylvania that is a model for Maine Pine Tree Zones. Both speakers will be on hand to answer questions.

Morning sessions will demonstrate how efforts seeded with limited resources, but broadened through partnership, can have a positive impact on communities and businesses. Afternoon workshops will provide training about how to use community assets such as leadership development programs, land resources, working rural farm landscapes, and housing infrastructure to build capacity.

Registration begins at 8:30 a.m. At that time, a 30-minute video will be shown, “Micro-Business Downeast: The Story of Six Entrepreneurs, Maine Rural Partners Work with the Downeast Rural Entrepreneurship Initiative.”

Participating partners include Coastal Enterprises Inc., Four Directions Development Corporation, Hancock County Planning Commission, Maine Department of Agriculture, Maine Municipal Association, Millinocket Area Growth and Investment Council, Penquis Higher Education Center, University of Maine Cooperative Extension, USDA-Natural Resource Conservation Service and USDA-Rural Development.

A continental breakfast and lunch are included in the program.