The things Bill Woodrum is most excited about right now — a new restaurant in Marlinton, a renovated downtown theater, trails drawing people into communities that used to feel overlooked — have been fifteen years in the making. That’s the timeline he keeps coming back to: the slow, deliberate work of organizations like the Mon Forest Towns Partnership and Partner Community Capital, the coaching and capacity building that doesn’t make headlines but changes what’s possible on the ground. The Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation has been in the room for most of it, connecting resources so no single funder has to carry the full weight.
What’s emerging now, in Woodrum’s view, is a narrative shift. Kids in West Virginia are growing up hearing that they can stay — that there’s a bike shop to run, a guide service to build, a community worth investing in long-term. Michael Benedum was a West Virginia entrepreneur who made his fortune in oil and gas and spent it reinvesting in the state — an inversion of the extractive story that has defined much of the region’s history. Bill sees the outdoor economy as the latest chapter in that same arc..
Learn more about: Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation / Mon Forest Towns Partnership
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