Optimism in Clinton County

From NPR, here is the story of two young men that are putting skills they learned from the Peace Corps to use in their hometown. You can read or listen to the story on NPR's website. In starting ENERGIZE Clinton County they are trying to put a Peace Corps philosophy to work at home; helping communities help themselves. Following an old proverb: “Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime.”

"We think of development as building homes and putting people to work. But if the home doesn't stand up throughout the years and if the job doesn't stay, then the development wasn't really development because it wasn't sustainable," Stuckert says. "And that was something the Peace Corps really taught, and that it's not about going in and doing these huge projects."

It's more about teaching people, through smaller projects, how to take charge of their own economic fate, and not to be dependent on a single employer.