Policy & Vision

Vision 2020 and Hazard Perry County Community Foundation
Vision 2020 is a three year process in which the people of Hazard and Perry County determine the vision for what we want our community to look like in the year 2020. This initiative focuses on our assets and how to build on them. Over the past year, Community Ministries has led the community through individual

interviews, focus groups, and task forces to develop ideas and common values for Hazard and Perry County. Based on what people have told us in these forums, we have developed four areas of focus:

Physical Infrastructure
Community Infrastructure
Citizenship
Economic Development

Through the Vision 2020 process, the Hazard Perry County Community Foundation was founded in 2006 with a mission to assist various organizations in providing innovative, high-quality programs and services to the residents of Perry County. In October 2007, the Community Foundation made its first grant awards through a competitive process. Over $30,000 was granted to programs and projects offering our citizens the opportunity to improve their lives and their community.

Foundation Board of Directors
Mack Baker
Susan Duff
Bill Engle III
Chris Gooch
Deloris Justice
Danny Maggard
Carolyn May
Frank Medaris, Jr.
Hugh Mitchell
Annie Williams

Rural People, Rural Policy
In April 2006, Community Ministries was selected to participate in a national initiative, Rural People, Rural Policy, funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Rural People, Rural Policy is designed to create a critical mass of rural people bringing about change through policy. Executive Director Gerry Roll and Director of Community Programs Jennifer Weeber have committed to strengthen our reputation as a local voice for positive change within the context of our expertise: early child development, family support, and housing and homelessness. Working with other organizations in the Central Appalachian area and across rural America, we have been able to build our network, further honing our skills in delivering our message and broadening our scope, and in beginning to see real change happen as all policy faces the scrutiny of a rural test with rural people at the table when the policy is made, not after it is imposed.