Welcome to Wild, Wonderful & Healthy Summers County

What is Wild, Wonderful & Healthy WV?

No matter what your respective role is – to mitigate the opioid crisis, to ensure our children are ready for school and adults are ready to work, or to support economic growth – it all begins with healthy West Virginians. No one of us alone will have all the answers, but the direction we must go is clear, and together we can achieve our vision of a healthy West Virginia. Learn more about the WWH program as a whole here.

Summers County’s Vision

Wild, Wonderful & Healthy Summers County is an organization working hard in our community to support safe and affordable housing, strengthen our recreational opportunities, and support the economic development of our local small businesses.

Priority Issue

Inadequate Housing.
Small Business Development.
Recreational Opportunities for Youth.
Community Green Spaces.

While Summers County has a myriad of health issues on which we could focus our work, over the next year the Community Health Improvement (CHI) Committee will focus on a lack of safe and affordable housing for low and moderate-income residents. The lack of safe and affordable housing in the county and city of Hinton and the abandoned and dilapidated structures have a detrimental effect on property values, public safety and health, fire safety, and economic development.

To accomplish this goal, we have defined three measurable objectives that will guide our work and be completed by June 30, 2023: 

Objective #1: Increase the number of safe, affordable, and well-managed houses for low and moderate-income renters by 30 properties. 

Objective #2: Improve community safety and the environment by demolishing 15 blighted buildings.

Objective #3: Ensure that city code and county ordinances promote and sustain safe, affordable, and well-managed housing. 

Read more in-depth about our priority issues and our objectives here.

Accomplishments

Despite delays resulting from the impact of the COVID pandemic, we were able to accomplish
the following:
• Identified over 45 properties for demolition as of October 2020
• Over 20 dilapidated properties demolished as of December 2021
• Identified vacant property for construction of green space that City of Hinton has
purchased. Worked with WVU Extension’s Community Engagement Lab to develop plan
for the space. Raised $43,000 to construct green space.
• Team members selected to serve on the county’s Dilapidated Buildings Committee.
• At the request of the Hinton City Council, agreed to repurpose a small vacant lot as a
green space; which opened in December 2022.
• City has hired a code enforcer to ensure that properties in Hinton are maintained at the
standards required by city ordinances.
• City has contracted to create a list of available rental housing.
• City is addressing housing issue, including absent property owners, in their 5-year plan.

We have much more planned – so stay tuned!

CORE Support Team

A small group of individuals from the partner organizations are responsible for organizing the community health planning process and moving it forward. The current CORE Support Team consists of the following members:

• Melissa Jacobs, WWHSC Coordinator
• Shalom Tazewell – Summers County Huddle
• Patti Crawford – Retired, WV School of Osteopathic Medicine
• Janima Bond – Summit Community Bank
• Steven Jones – Botany Tropicals
• Jordan Casey – Botany Tropicals
• Mike Yancey – REACHH-Family Resource Center/Child Advocacy Center