IMPACT
APPALACHIA
OUR STORY
We are a fiscally sponsored, non-profit organization with years of deep community roots and volunteerism behind our campaigns. Our campaigns are focused on the Appalachian Ohio River Valley. We empower people in Columbiana and Jefferson County, Ohio.
Working in several organizing capacities throughout the last decade, our founders have already built a large base that activates their community from within. We believe civic engagement, racial justice/representation, LGBTQIA+ rights, policy change, and environmental organizing goes together hand in hand to create the home our region deserves. Impact Appalachia was birthed to empower our communities.
Events: Save Your Spot
Impacting
Through
Civic Engage-ment
Impact is dedicated to having civic engagement at the forefront of all our campaigns. We understand to effectively change our culture, we must empower our communities to take action.
Our organization began last year with collective work around Ohio civic engagement
regarding the progressive ballot initiatives Issue 1 (reproductive rights) and Issue 2
(cannabis legalization). We partnered with statewide partners such as Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio and Ohio Voice to deep canvas. Both issues overwhelmingly passed and have been in peril as the Ohio extreme right threatened to limit the voter’s wishes through court and legislative suppression.
Our deep canvassing included voter registration, extensive base building, and civically minded discussions with our communities. In addition to canvassing, we also went to the Statehouse to speak with representatives honoring voter’s rights for Issue 2.
Impact will continue to activate our constituency through civic involvement on local, state, and even national levels. We also partnered with our fiscal sponsor, The Community Resource of East Liverpool, to organize the community through shared volunteerism.
We believe follow through from registration to the voting booth is what makes the difference when organizing around non-partisan voter engagement.
Our Campaigns
BIPOC - Black Voter Engagement
When Impact Appalachia started, we saw a great need to engage Black voters. In Ohio, our State Legislature is infamous for gerrymandering around predominantly Black neighborhoods. Through 2 years of conversations with NAACP events, barbershop visits, and 1-1s, we discovered Black people are not being met where they are...
East Palestine, Ohio
On February 3rd, a Norfolk Southern train derailed in the Ohio-Pennsylvania border town of East Palestine, in the heart of our homes. Several thousand gallons of crude oil, cars of vinyl chloride, and other chemicals were poured into the ground and spread through a raging fire throughout the weekend. Forever chemicals soaked into our soil as Norfolk Southern concealed from the public and the EPA the total contents of the derailed cars…