[upbeat music] ANNOUNCER: 'Our Town, More Stories From Corry" is brought to you in part by Corry Redevelopment Authority, the CAIDC and the CIBA are a full service development team that provides low-interest financing, grant assistance, tax credit preparation, leaseable facilities, and fully infrastructured industrial sites.

More information about these and the CRA's outreach services is available at corryredevelopment.com or by calling 814-664-3884.

LECOM Health Corry Memorial Hospital, offering care to the Corry region for 125 years.

Patient benefits include the services and medical techniques of LECOM Health and our physicians who provide care while still offering small town values.

Located at 965 Shamrock Lane, as well as the Corry Rural Health Clinic, Union City Rural Health Clinic, and Clymer Rural Health Clinic with services including orthopedic surgery, gastroenterology, sports medicine, urology, podiatry, family medicine, oncology, and COVID-19 vaccinations.

Learn more at 814-664-4641, or at lecomhealth.com.

The Painted Finch Gallery offering art from local and regional artists, featuring paintings, drawings, photography, wooden bowls, sculptures, ceramics, glass, and jewelry.

Located in the heart of Downtown Corry and a proud sponsor of WQLN PBS.

Epiphany's Emporium, a gift shop located in Downtown Corry featuring hand thrown pottery, craft sodas, leather journals, handbags, fiber arts, charcuterie boards, frames, art supplies, and stuffed animals.

Proud to support Our Town Corry.

"Our Town, More Stories From Corry" is also brought to you in part by Rossbacher Insurance, Sanders Market, Cobblestone Inn & Suites, and viewers like you.

Thank you.

[acoustic music] [upbeat music] Hi, I'm Chuck Gray.

I'm Executive Director of Impact Corry, and I can't wait to share the work we're doing in Corry, Pennsylvania.

Impact Corry is a rural development hub.

We bring together community members to address issues and to figure out ways to bring prosperity to our community.

It's my job, think about a spoke of an a wheel, we're the hub.

My job is to reach out through all those spokes, and I talk to municipalities, nonprofits, local businesses, find out what challenges them, find out what excites them, find out what's coming next, and basically bring them together, bring everyone to the table, leave no one out, and to find solutions that involve our entire community.

It's an amazing model that lets communities pull themselves up and decide their future.

I came to Corry in June of 2019, and there were many initiatives have been working for over a decade to make Corry a great place to live and they were succeeding, but we had scattered effort.

People doing different things that weren't leveraging the best outcomes we could get.

So we decided to go through a community strategic planning process.

We were fortunate enough, we had great funders who came to the table to pay to go through this process.

We were fortunate to work with CCB, LLC, Charles Buki, and he's an amazing urban planner, Thomas Edington and his entire staff, really enrolled our community to find our answers.

It started with a steering committee of 23 members, a city technical committee of 13 members, a huge regional advisory panel.

All these people weighing in and representing truly hundreds of organizations in our community came to the table to figure out what we were gonna do.

And over about a year during COVID, we set our priorities and we came up with five areas we're gonna be focused for the next 10 years.

All the goals are interrelated and each helps advance the other.

The five goals are ramping up our connectivity, activating our city center, revitalizing our housing and neighborhoods, strengthening our city's balance sheet, and improving and linking our Green Spaces.

Corry already has an active Downtown, but we can make it even better.

We're building the Corry Rails and Trails Park, taking what looks like a Brownfield Rail Yard and making it an oasis to hang out, recreate, connect, and be surrounded by beautiful art.

Throughout the city, we are subsidizing facade renovations, helping business owners get a competitive advantage, creating a virtual docent.

So if there's anything you wanna know about Corry or any place you wanna visit or reserve, you'll be able to do it online.

We're also inventorying all of our assets.

So every square footage of retail space in our Downtown, it will be accessible to people looking to grow their business or establish a business here in Corry.

Corry was said to appear overnight as if by magic where two rail lines crossed.

It grew into a flourishing place attracting entrepreneurs, artists, and it was a beautiful rural community.

But over the years, we became disconnected from the speed of business.

Rail lines were replaced.

Today, those rail lines are fiber optic cables.

So in ramping up our connectivity, what Corry is looking to do is give our rural community every advantage of place.

You can live in Corry and you can connect at blazing speeds.

Just like those rail lines, people flow, energy comes, arts come where there's opportunity.

And those fiber optic lines are where there's opportunity.

And as long as we support people trying to build their businesses, their homes around these lines, we will succeed.

[acoustic music] Hi, I'm Wendy Neckers, and I own Painted Finch Gallery and Epiphany's Emporium, and I am the chairman of the Downtown Corry Business Association.

And this is an organization that started in 2016.

There was five of us that got together or six of us in the back room of one of our shops and we just started brainstorming, what could we do to create a buzz about Corry?

And so we came up with the idea of first Fridays, not a new concept, but were new to us.

And so we decided to start having bands in the Downtown and we brought in some food carts and food trucks, and we decided that you know what, we would put this out to the people of Corry because we realized that a lot of them had never been in our shops before or weren't even really familiar with the Downtown.

And so the first event went pretty well, little low attendance, but it built and we had four events the first year.

And so in 2016 or '17, we became an association, and then we started going for grants and building on the first Friday concept.

So we went from four events the first year to we now have eight.

And we got members from the retail in the historic Downtown and we started out with, I think, five or six, and now we are up to 21 and we added another few more stores this year.

So they have indicated they'd like to be members next year.

So that's who organizes and pulls these events together.

It went from originally just being one band in the Downtown to now we have three blocks and we are able to have individual or duo's performing at each of the blocks to let people know there's something more down the street.

We bring in exciting people like balloon artists and magicians, and we love to have something unique at each of our events.

We've had a wonderful support system.

Corry Community Foundation came in onboard right on the first year.

And they have been amazing in how they have shown support.

ECRA has done a wonderful job for us this year.

In particular, they have just been very gracious and Northwest Savings Bank has really been just over the top wonderful as far as support for the businesses and bringing in financial help.

So we have a lot of other businesses in the community that have also been funding and supporting us and we really appreciate all of their efforts and that they see the value in what's happening in the Downtown.

I think the most exciting thing is to watch the change of perception from being a place where it's just kinda surviving or something you drive through to being a thriving, full fun place to be.

One of the exciting things, one of the something we were actually shooting for was to become on the radar of people in our community and then outside of the community, to let them know that Corry is there and we have some wonderful shops, some really fun, cool creative places.

And one of the exciting things is that the owners often come in and talk about how much the first Fridays have really benefited, how they are seeing people who come in for the first time ever in the Downtown who are actually from Corry or from outside of Corry.

And they've moved away, they come back, and they see the difference, the transformation, but they find that Corry has just a whole range of innovative, beautiful little shops, and it's very rewarding to see that come through.

We have an end goal, which is to see the community really thrive.

So we wanna see our Downtown core just totally come alive.

We've watched empty storefronts be filled, which is so exciting, and we hope to have that continue and spread out.

And we think that what is going to happen, it's gonna continue to grow.

And that the shops that come in will prosper and that we would love to see the Downtown full of people who just really enjoy being out and finding a really unique product in a unique shop.

But we believe it will expand, we believe that the entire city of Corry is gonna see great benefits from the First Fridays as well as the efforts that we have made toward raising the bar, making the town look a little bit more inviting and creating a fun place to be.

[upbeat music] Hi, I'm Bill West, and I'm here to talk about the connectivity project for the Corry Community Strategic Plan.

As we looked at our community, one of the things that we started to notice was a lot of communities had access to high speed internet, ease of connectivity, wireless downtown networks, and our area because of our rural setting had been lacking those resources.

Internet access and high-speed capabilities are almost like another utility, similar to electricity, water, cable, TV, and so in order to move our community forward, we thought being able to access high-speed internet for our community members, our businesses, our families was extremely important.

The opportunity to provide high-speed connectivity in a Corry area will open up a lot of doors.

Everything from business opportunities to students being able to do their schoolwork, opportunities for people to work from home or work remotely.

It will open up an a number of opportunities for those people within our community, not just in the city of Corry, but we're hopeful that it will also impact our surrounding areas.

Our project had three phases.

Our first phase was to install a wireless network in our downtown.

That phase was started last spring and was able to be completed throughout the summer and early fall.

We're moving into phase two, which is to install high speed fiber internet throughout the city of Corry.

At this point, we've been able to acquire the fiber and we're working on installation plan.

And then phase three, the biggest picture is to install that fiber high-speed connectivity throughout the Corry area school district, which is a quite large area.

We go into rural parts of Crawford and Warren County along with a lot of Erie County here on the southeast corner.

Part of phase two, as we started to work on it, one of the things that we started to notice is a lot of people talking about the fiber head as being a commodity, and that if when you install a fiber head or a high-speed network that people wanna be in those areas because their access opens up doors, especially workforce development and business.

So we started to discuss locations throughout our community which might work for that placement of that hub.

Through those discussions, we ended up looking into reactivating the old hospital, which was located in Smith Street here in Corry.

The gentleman and his wife who currently are owning the building have graciously agreed to donate that building to the project.

So we've had some preliminary discussions about getting the fiber installed there and also are working on securing funds to rehab and bring the building up to a place where we'll be able to install businesses, education centers along with that fiber hub.

I see this opening, if we're able to complete our project, I see this not only impacting just individuals, I see this impacting the entire Corry community.

It'll open up opportunities for new businesses, it'll open up opportunities for people to work from home and work remotely.

I may be able to attract some of our talent that has left us to go to other areas to return to the community because they'll be able to complete their jobs here at home or near the tech center or near the fiber hub.

So it's not just an individual day-to-day, but I think overall, it'll be it for the betterment of the entire community.

From my perspective, from working in the Corry area school district, one of our big challenges has always been our students to have internet.

We not only have a diverse population of people that might not buy internet connectivity, we also have areas within our school district that because they're so rural, doesn't even have the opportunity to connect to internet because it's not even available.

So from the perspective of our families and our students, if we're able to accomplish our goals throughout this project, it will allow all of those kids to have that option to work remotely, to be able to engage in their work, not just at the school building, but also at home.

A lot of the things in education and moved, especially because of the pandemic to using Chromebooks, being able to do things on the computer, being able to access assignments or videos and a lot of our kids still don't have that capability, and hopefully, as we work through this project, we'll be able to bring that access to everybody to make it more equitable for all of our students.

The other advantage that we will hopefully have is our students will be able to access things that other students in different communities have.

It'll give our students the tools and preparation to be able to work in any position they want to because honestly, as we move forward into the future, one of the things, a lot of occupations or jobs is gonna entail is being able to use technology.

And if our students aren't able to access that at home and have those experiences, it does put them at a disadvantage.

So hopefully, if we're able to get everything accomplished in our project, then our students will have those same opportunities and also have the same experiences with technology and access to technology that people in the surrounding community does as well.

[acoustic music] Hi, my name is Brody Howard.

I'm the Executive Director of the Corry Higher Education Council.

I'd like to talk through a little bit about what we do in Corry.

Well, for over 30 years, the Corry Higher Education Council has provided education and training for our workforce.

But also as a part of our mission, we hope to include the betterment and improvement of the quality of life, whether that be personal or professionally.

And so we have over a variety of programs that we have offered, not only within workforce training, but personal enrichment offerings that allow a very well rounded balance so that the community can thrive.

We have a wide variety of programs at the higher ed, all across the educational spectrum.

For anyone that may have possibly dropped out of school, we have a GED, a high school equivalency, adult basic education programs through the intermediate unit that are free that we offer and mornings and evenings throughout each week and those run year round.

We have multiple educational partnerships through post-secondary education providers, such as Mercy Hershey University, which have been there for well over 30 years.

Additionally, newer institutions such as the Erie Community College and the Northern Pennsylvania Regional College.

Those programs offer upwards of 12, two years associates programs and many other workforce courses that are offered that are either credit or non-credit bearing.

We have a great relationship with the Corry area school district, in which we provide classes up at the career and technical center.

Anything from welding to blueprint, CNC mill are examples of many hands-on technical courses that we provide for individual courses.

And additionally on that, we provide customized trainings for a lot of our businesses and manufacturers within town.

The Corry Higher Education Council is located in the Smith Education Center, which is on 221 North Center.

We are at the top of Center Street or what we consider the downtown business district, and we're one of the tallest buildings in town in the former Correan Hotel, which will soon to be almost a century old.

Primarily we serve an area as far west as Union City, as far south as Spartansburg out to Bear Lake and a little bit into the Clymer, New York area.

Well, during our recent celebration of our 30th anniversary, we asked several former students to come back and tell their story, share their story about what the Corry Higher Education Council has meant to them and being able to have access to education and training close to home.

One of our former GED instructors actually came back to take and enroll in classes at the higher ed, and not only did she earn her certifications and degrees to be able to teach, but she actually was able to then assume the role in the position of teaching the adult basic education class in which she originally went through.

So it was a very touching if full circle story in exactly what we're here to do, and that is to help individuals better their own circumstances, but being able to have a leg up as far as their advancement in their personal and professional lives.

Well, the future is very important to me because this is my hometown, this is where I grew up.

And we are looking at so many different initiatives to continue to help Corry transform and move forward.

And a few of those and what we are going to be responsible for is helping as a part of impact Corry's Community Strategic Plan.

We will be leading the initiatives for development of an entrepreneurial ecosystem, which we hope to be able to build out and provide supportive policies, culture environment for small businesses and entrepreneurs to thrive.

We hope to lead the charge and support connectivity initiatives so that there is equitable access to the entire school district in the area in which we serve.

And that's very important from many standpoints.

We can't lose out to other communities who have maybe other opportunities or higher paying jobs.

We want to do better than providing just family sustaining jobs.

We want to have higher than a family sustaining jobs and we need to provide the training in order for those individuals to have those opportunities here in town.

So this is very personal to me, but also on a professional level, I am driven by the fact that we are moving forward very rapidly and we have a very high ceiling to do that.

And it's because Corry is a special place and it will continue to be a special place because we're all going to work together in order to get there.

[acoustic music] Well, my name is Sarah Jukes.

I'm a Green Spaces champion as part of the Corry Community Strategic Plan.

And all the champions are volunteers from the Corry community.

We're just working to achieve the goals of the Corry Community Strategic Plan, which is to make Corry a better place to live.

Green Spaces is really about bringing more opportunity to the people of Corry to be able to enjoy the green space in the area.

So over the next 10 years, we'll be building 18.6 miles of trails.

Nine miles of trails will be built in the city of Corry and 9.6 miles of trails will be built to connect the Erie to Pittsburgh trail to Spartansburg.

The Erie to Pittsburgh trail will stretch 270 miles between Erie and Pittsburgh and we will be building 9.6 of those 270 miles.

Two and half miles of the trails within the city of Corry will be an Emerald necklace of connecting trails that will allow people to walk throughout the town.

And there'll be wooded trails of part of that too.

We'll be improving local parks and recreational spaces, including city park, Mead park, pocket parks around town, North Hills Community Golf Course, and the Corry Country Club.

Plus we're building a brand new park within Downtown Corry, the Corry rails plus trails park.

It will be the park that Corry built.

It's also going to be a Downtown trail head for the Erie to Pittsburgh trail.

We will have amenities such as a pollinator garden, water feature and splash pad, places to picnic, places to come together for small concerts and events.

We'll have places to lock up your bicycles, places to eat and to drink.

This park will be used for many events, such as Climax & Corsets Arts & Innovation Festival, where innovation will be celebrated in Corry annually.

The whole Downtown will actually be influenced by the inventive creativity of a steam punk theme.

The whole initiative behind the Green Spaces project is about quality of life.

It's about connecting our neighborhoods and the Downtown.

It's about connecting people to nature and one another.

And it's about wellness.

I decided I wanted to be part of this project because I could see the beautiful possibility of the greater dream this project could produce.

And I really resonate with the idea of helping this town grow.

In closing, I charge others to come be a part of this amazing place called Corry PA. [gentle music] So, I'm Les Utegg, I'm the golf course superintendent at North Hills Golf Course in Corry, PA.

So municipal golf course.

So the city does own that property.

It has been open since the late 60s, 1967, the front nine was open, and the back nine opened in 1971.

So in the late 60s, there was a pro that actually oversaw the clubhouse.

And then through the 80s and 90s, we didn't have that opportunity.

But then five years ago, we hired a pro from Peek n' Peak.

He left Peek n' Peak and came to Corry, and a guy by the name of Ron Graham is our pro, which is an added asset, that facility to have a pro on-staff is a super big benefit to be able to have.

It all designed, North Hills Golf Course, beginning in the mid 60s until its final opening in 1967.

It was actually, I believe it was his 108 design that he did.

He was one of those guys that believed in using the property layout, not moving a whole lot of earth, but using the natural terrain in that to develop golf courses, and he did.

And that's one of the thing that North Hills is renowned for is this layout.

And it sitting out a piece of property, 225 acres.

It used to be a farm years ago.

It was originally some open fields and some timber areas and people marvel at its layout, again, being situated where the clubhouse sits on top of a hill and you can look down and see probably three quarters of the golf course from the hill.

And it's just a beautiful piece of property.

So one of the things that North Hills has been known for over the years is, is a facility that does a lot of outings.

And the outings are those events that take place on Saturdays and Sundays, groups of 80 to 120 to 144 golfers, depending on how big and outing you wanna have.

So it's always been kind of that aspect, is the outing has been a big, crucial part of the revenue generating stream of the golf course.

well, the big thing that has been really kind of neat for city and local people is there's leagues every day of the week.

There's a group of men or women, depending on what the league is that play Monday nights and through Friday nights.

Yeah, so another neat thing with outings, it doesn't have to be just on the weekends, there's other organizations that have used weekday events like our local Corry manufacturing company has done a boy scout outing, it's better than 20 years I'm sure.

And they've utilized it on Thursdays and it's just been really a great way to generate funds for local boy scout troop here in the Corry area.

And it's just been pretty awesome.

And then LEECOM did this last year kind of came alongside with us and did a big event here at the golf course and were able to utilize it for some fundraising for the Corry Memorial Hospital, which is the LEECOM associated facility.

So that's pretty good.

A lot of local churches over the years have been able to use to generate some funds for the churches and events and stuff like that.

So it is, it's one of those things.

That's not just a golf course just to play golf, but it's a way of creating some revenue streams for some local organizations, which is always a benefit.

So as a Corry native, born and raised here in town, it's a piece of property that I've played since I was in my early teenage years.

And it's one of those places that not very many people get to because they think it's just a golf course.

And what we really like to be able to do is promote it to more than just golf, so people can come up in and really what we have here in Corry is really kind of a gem that people don't know much about.

It's one of those places that you can just kind of get away.

And there's some seating areas where you can come and sit and just look over the land.

You don't have to pay anything.

You can just come and sit and watch some golfers and enjoy the view on that piece of property.

So, it's just one of those things, it's a gem, and that's what we really wanna do here in the future is bring it back to what it used to be.

It was always one of the golf courses that was highly talked about in the tri-state region.

We wanna to be able to get back to that and to get people back here.

We're looking at doing some things, maybe incorporating simulators to bring a couple of simulators in so that we can do, not just in seasoned golf on a golf course, but even doing maybe off season things with simulators and things like that on the property too.

So, just to get people there to appreciate what we have here in Corry.

[acoustic music] Hi, I'm Bob Williams.

I'm the current publisher of the Corry Journal and four other sister publications in the area.

Today we're gonna be talking about the importance of a newspaper in a small town or a small city, and the importance to be part of the fabric of that city that we've owned.

Well, the Corry Journal in its form will turn 120 in 2022.

There's been various forms of newspapers that have evolved, but there's probably been four or five in the community.

And then it merged between two papers, 120 years ago.

It's always been an afternoon paper, which is still one of the few in Pennsylvania that is around.

As far as publishers go, I believe I'm the fifth publisher.

I'm the second publisher in the last 75 years, which is kind of unique when you look at that, 'cause I've been at the journal for 31.

So I trained under George Sampa, who is the founder of Sampa News Group, long time publisher from anywhere from the Chicago Sun-Times to The Jerusalem Post.

He worked with American publishing.

So it was kind of unique to work with somebody and be trained in the journalism field of really much a small town icon.

I had no idea I was gonna end up in the journalism field.

I was a marketing major, and graduated with a business administration degree, and I lived behind George's house my entire life.

So I grew up with his eight kids.

So it was kind of unique when he, basically I always say kidnapped me.

He was working at another job and said, "Hey, I have this idea, what do you think?"

And here I'm 31 years later, doing that job and to be the next publisher after him, it's kind of unique.

And it's an honor to meet, to follow an icon like that.

The newspaper in any small town needs to evolve.

And I can remember being with George in the Chicago Sun-Times and meetings about the importance of having a website when you're talking to a person in his 70s at that times, and what is this internet thing?

It's in the beginning of stages and everybody knew we were gonna have to go that way, but he goes, "You cannot put your paper for free on the website.

It must be behind a paywall."

And we've continued to do that.

And unlike larger newspapers that have given away their content, their circulation declined, we've been able to hold our circulation to the same as what it's been for the last 30 years that I've been there.

And it's not really hard because we're unique in its own, right?

That we have a newspaper and there's been so many towns that wish they have a newspaper.

We've started papers in Northeast and Fairview and Gerard since then.

And it gives the readers a voice.

So that's important to the community itself to have almost.

When you really take a look at how journalism, in my opinion, in the last 30 years, it's morphed into telling stories and sitting in the middle and being what your readers say it is.

I think we've been able to do that.

I think we stay in that center lane and if you're a bad politician, I don't care what political party you're from, I'm gonna challenge you to become better.

And unlike the larger publications, if you don't have a newspaper, say a small town like Corry, or the outline areas of union city, which we have a small weekly there, but it's hard to get your message across if you don't have a daily newspaper, because you'd have to go to a larger metropolitan area that maybe doesn't share the same views or the beliefs of a rural America town, which is typically more conservative.

And it leans a little bit more conservative, right?

And whether you're a moderate Democrat or straight down the middle Republican, we tend to have the fringes on the side.

We have those readers that are in the middle.

And I think current elections have really shown that, that that's where you need to be.

So it's important for us to just tell stories, to be a part of that fabric of the community, to give readers a voice and some of our greatest characters in the town, right?

Some of the greatest letters to the editor and it's pretty thick.

They can get salty, and we just let them go because that's a good thing.

I wish we had more, but unfortunately, as your town gets older, these great people pass away and their voices tend to be gone overnight.

And there isn't enough, part of the problem with Corry is we're not getting enough younger kids stain.

And I've been here all my life.

I went away to college for four years and came back and I'm glad I did it raised my family here, but it's important that a town has a newspaper to tell those stories and to tell the stories of the people in that town, because without it, doing a new source, you get this turning on and getting bad news and how bad things are and things of that nature.

Here in Corry, we try to tell the good things that are happening.

And I think that's why we're surviving and thriving.

[acoustic music] Hi, I'm Carl Wassink.

And today I'd like to speak with you about Corry R.A.I.L.S.

Corry R.A.I.L.S.

is a nonprofit 501C3 that we started three or four years ago with the intend of looking for and finding some unique artifacts from Corry's past railroad and industrial and bringing them home, restoring them, displaying them.

And if we can, actually demonstrating them.

Corry R.A.I.L.S.

is actually the short version of Corry Rail and Industrial Legacy Society.

So we're a little bit all inclusive with the industrial end of, and the beginning of the railroad, beginning of Corry.

Early on in Corry's history, Climax was a company that started up about 1868 by Georgia Yost, making agricultural equipment and shipping it all over the United States.

John Deere tried to buy him out and he decided to keep the business here and employ hundreds of people in Corry.

When we first started talking about forming a group, we weren't sure exactly what we were gonna go after, but finally, the decision came down to, let's see if we can find another climax to bring home since there's only 21 of them left in the world.

And in the process of searching, we found one up in Alaska that is kind of the rarest of the rare, A-Climax.

I went to Alaska in 1902 for the gold rush.

And we said, let's go get it.

The Climax-A is kind of like the model T of Fords.

It's the beginning class A, class B, and class C is what they started with in 1888.

And it wasn't a B until '93.

And the Cs came along in '99.

So this is the only complete A left in the world.

So it's rare in its own right.

Very unique because it's a wooden frame and cab.

After we formed our group, the attorneys said, "Well, you don't worry about becoming a 501C3 yet, concentrate on raising funds and negotiating and trying to get it, which we did.

And within about nine, 10 months, the attorney said, "Well, you guys need to start working on becoming a 501C3."

So we had to switch gears on that, took five months just to get ahold of the seller.

Once we did, then it was talking.

And six months later, Tom Van Tassel and I decided to go to Alaska on a two day notice for three days and meet him and get into the container and start looking at it.

And six months after that, we finally had made the decision and come up with a price with the owner and then started raising funds from there, and a couple of more trips up to Alaska.

And we finally were able to get it home a year ago.

We raised funds mostly all locally, starting out with our local VFW and Labor Club and American Legion and the Moose and private donations.

And then going for grants with Ekra or a community foundation, Arlene Smith Foundation, it's been all local funds.

We had had originally planned on being in Alaska in 2019, the end of 2019, but funds weren't there.

The attorneys hadn't completed their stuff, Tom and I managed to get up to Alaska in October of 2019 to start making arrangements for transportation.

And then we planned on being up there in June and along came COVID that shut that down.

You couldn't even get into Alaska.

Finally in August, we were able to get up there.

We took five of us up and other towns joined us and spent 10 days pulling everything out of the container and moving the container onto another chassis, repackaging and tying it all down and getting it shipped on.

Once we got it back here in October of 2020, a week later, the snow came and that was the end of our work.

The building that's been donated to us here in Corry is currently uninsulated.

So we couldn't work during the winter.

Come March, we opened the container up, unloaded it, and then had an open house and slowly but surely, we've been starting to crawl and work on infrastructure in the building and accumulate some tools and so on.

So now we're finally getting to a point to where we have some working drawings that are being finished up now, and we will be ordering some new wood.

And the engine has gone to a machine shop to be worked on.

Some things are starting to happen.

In the process of trying to put together and this being our first project, other than the tools that we each bring from home, the shop is basically a large vacant building, minimal electrical.

This next weekend, we have a work weekend putting in some more electrical.

We are constantly searching for volunteers.

Anybody that has an interest in working with historical stuff has some woodworking backgrounds, machine background, steam background, railroad, modeling.

There's all different sorts of things that can happen.

We'd love to have people come on board and join us.

And part of our goal is Corry R.A.I.L.S.

in accumulating various artifacts, and this one being the first one, is to, at some point in time, start having annual events, to bring people to Corry, to see the unique items that we bring back and celebrate them as part of Corry's history.

And so we're hoping that within three years, we'll have this running.

Most of these projects end up taking longer than what people guess, but I think that because of the uniqueness of this engine being mostly wood, it's not a big steel and iron piece, it'll happen a lot faster than some of these other projects.

[soft music] Hello, my name is Julia Savco Fedders.

I'm here to talk about the Corry Alumni Association, in particular, the class of '65, and our trip from graduation until a 15 year reunion.

Well, the Corry Alumni Association has been happening for almost 150 years, and it's the case where we have a fabulous alumni association that pulls together a feature event on Saturday night that brings all the classes every weekend, the same time every year to Corry.

It's usually the weekend after graduation and the classes in their anniversary years fill out the rest of the weekend with special events for their own year.

And I'm going to talk about the class of '65 and what's happened to us over the years.

The first year I like to talk about is our senior year, 'cause it was unique.

It started out like every other senior year.

And then in late November, just before Thanksgiving, there was a tremendous fire at the high school and our world turned upside down.

We ended up going to school from one o'clock in the afternoon until late in the afternoon, and instead of taking lunches to school, we took our dinners.

We would sit on the floor and we would eat our dinners and do our homework.

And then we would the basketball games or the musicals or wherever the extra curricular activities were.

We didn't get home till that 10 o'clock at night.

And that's how we spent our here.

Up until our prom, when we came together as a bunch of kids do, and in the gym, we made our prom and the boys did a chandelier that rivaled the Phantom of the opera and that beautiful chandelier was used by other classes after us and in a lot of plays through the years, that was our senior year.

Well, we're lucky to have a fantastic committee.

And by that, I mean 20 to 30 people show up for these committee meetings and you don't want to miss it 'cause you're afraid you're gonna miss something.

And everybody has been very good in saying, I'll do that.

And when they say I'll do it, they do.

So, we have formed a committee that works like clockwork now.

And the next important year that we had was our 20th reunion year.

And our 20th reunion year, we were pretty excited, 'cause a 20th reunion year is usually a huge turnout.

And we had lots of numbers coming.

Two weeks before the reunion weekend, the tornadoes hit, Albion and Climber, and we are within seven miles of Climber.

So a lot of people in the Corry area have family and relatives there and we went to help, et cetera.

But for our reunion weekend, two weeks later, lots of people showed up to lend support and caring to the people who'd been affected so badly by that tornado, it's unforgettable.

The 45th anniversary, we decided to throw a little bit of fun into our weekend.

Like I said, there is a big dinner at the high school, but the classes break up and go to the different clubs around town afterwards.

Our evening was to be at the moose club.

So we had a school bus arrive at the moose club.

The classmates arrived at the moose club, and we all rode a school bus to the high school like we did so many years ago, we went through town yelling, "We're the class of '65 and no one could be prouder.

And if you cannot hear us, we'll yell a little louder."

There were laughs.

There was applause and it started evening off to a great hilarious weekend.

The 50th was a signature year, very important to us.

That year, and it had most years, our weekends are three days long.

On Friday night, we meet casually for a picnic chicken dinner.

And one of the things we wanted to do was to recognize all of the classmates that we had lost.

So we did a special event where we had a lantern for every person we lost.

And we asked our classmates that were there to take the lantern that went with the person that they were closest to.

It was like herding cats.

When we tried to go into a big field and form a circle, we lift the lanterns.

We'd let them go.

And one of our classmates saying, we will remember you, well, other classmates had guitars and accordion and other instruments, there we were singing.

The lanterns went up and we had a drone photographing all of it.

When we looked at the drone footage, we did not have a circle.

We had a heart and we were sure that our classmates from above were looking down.

There wasn't a dry high in the house.

And then we went on to our Saturday event and our gathering that night.

And then Sunday, we sent off with a sendoff, we have two ministers and a deacon, and we had a sendoff Sunday morning, had lunch at the VFW.

And we all went our way.

Every time we have a reunion, we have a memory book and the memory book this year, we saluted 11 couples that were classmates that got married out of high school and lived there till death do us part.

And though some of them are gone, they were classmates that lived out that vow.

They were celebrated in there, as well as we had pictures from every elementary school that any of us had attended.

And there were several inquiries at that time.

So that no matter who was in our class, at what time, they were part of our memory book, it was precious.

We have kept in touch every month for the past 35 years, and the strength of the people and the bonds that we formed as children have continued all this time.

And when we get together on our weekends, we are all 18.

The whole town is 18 on a reunion weekend, no matter when you're graduated.

And my Corry friends are forever friends.

My best friend has been a friend since first grade.

And that's not unusual.

I have a lot of friends from my first grade class.

And though I said the word, I, I bet I can say that most of my people in my class have friends that have been lifelong forever friends.

[soft music] Working in a small town has some incredible benefits.

I'm Shannon Wohlford, Engagement Lead with Blue Zones Project, Corry, and our project came into Corry in February of 2019.

So we've been here almost three years and it's been such an incredible pleasure getting to work in this community and getting to meet so many of the residents here.

The Blue Zones Project, when we came into the community, our goal was really simple.

It's about helping to make healthy choices easier for everyone.

So we work in areas of people, places, and policy.

So the Blue Zones Project was originally founded by a gentleman named Dan Buettner.

And the project is based on a community model that really takes the research that he found from those five original Blue Zones.

And those were areas around the globe where people were living longer with a really good quality of life.

And so those commonalities that we found amongst centenarians living in the five original Blue Zones are things that we refer to as the power nine lifestyle principles.

So Blue Zones Project takes those nine commonalities, those power nine lifestyle principles.

And we're able to weave those into a community and essentially help people to make healthy choices easier.

And that's how over time, we're able to have a significant impact on community health and wellbeing.

So the Blue Zones power nine lifestyle principles really focus on kind of four categories.

We talk about moving naturally, having a right outlook in life, eating wisely, and connecting.

So within those four categories, we work in a community setting to provide resources and engagement opportunities for people to learn how to add more activity into their daily routine.

So maybe they're joining a walking MOAI, and MOAI is simply an Okinawan term, that means a group of people who come together under a common purpose regularly.

So for our reason, it's walking groups.

We also offer free cooking classes, and we do a lot of food education and nutrition education.

We want to help people learn to make and prepare healthier meals at home for their family, and especially learn to do that on a budget.

We focus on having a purpose in life and how you can downshift and manage stress.

And Blue Zones work is really immersed in connection.

So we understand that faith, family, and friends is really important.

You have to have that support network around you where people can support your healthy habits.

So whether we are working with individuals or a group of people, remember we do our work in people, places, and policy.

So we have had opportunities to see dramatic changes in individual lives, whether it's a person who has lost a significant amount of weight, because they're learning to eat healthier, they're moving more by joining our walking groups.

We have seen people who have lowered their cholesterol numbers, because again, eating healthier and moving more.

And we've had the pleasure and the honor of working with some students here in the Corry area school district and helping them to find their purpose in life.

So they are graduating and have a direction in their life, knowing that what their strengths are, what they're passionate about, and how they can use that and service to others, we have over 1000 people engaged with the project.

So that means that they have taken their personal pledge to do their own part in helping create a healthier community, or they have come out to a free cooking class or they're participating in a walking group, or they've attended a purpose workshop, any one of those number of things that we're doing out in the community, but it's not just the individuals.

We work in places as I mentioned.

So we really concentrate our energy on what we refer to as the life radius.

So that's where people are spending the majority of their time.

So where you work, where you play, where you go to school, where you socialize and recreate.

So work sites is one of the big areas that we're focused on.

So whether you're a fan or supporter of Blue Zones Project, you will most definitely be impacted by the work that we're doing in the community.

And that really holds true in the area of policy.

So the policy work that we do is concentrated in three areas, which are the built environment, which is the bikeability and walkability of a community.

We are concerned with food policy.

So we wanna make sure everyone has access to fresh and local produce, and third, tobacco policy.

We wanna make sure that people have access to cessation programs and that policies throughout the community support, clean and fresh air for everyone.

So although Blue Zones Project has only been here close to three years, we've already seen some significant short term success.

We've seen an 8% increase in overall well-being.

We have seen tobacco use drop from 21.4% to 10.6% of tobacco use.

And 53% of Corry respondents said that they are eating five or more servings of fruits and vegetables at least four times a week.

So although that may seem small, we know that those small changes in the right direction have a huge impact on community wellbeing.

And again, we want to see a community that's thriving.

When we have a community that's thriving and you have a healthy individuals living there, that's what really draws in new businesses, that's what draws in families that wanna move there.

They wanna recreate there.

And it goes right along with the community's vision for this city.

They want to see Corry become this destination place.

Corry has a rich history, and it's an exciting history, but really, Corry's story is just now being written.

And we are excited to kind of know the plot.

We've gotten to know so many of the characters, but this story here in Corry is gonna be one that you're gonna wanna reread time and time again.

ANNOUNCER: "Our Town, More Stories From Corry" is brought to you in part by Corry Redevelopment Authority, the CAIDC, and the CIBA are a full service development team that provides low-interest financing, grant assistance, tax credit preparation, leaseable facilities, and fully infrastructured industrial sites.

More information about these and the CRA's outreach services is available at coryredevelopment.com, or by calling 814-664-3884.

LECOM Health Corry Memorial Hospital, offering care to the Corry region for 125 years.

Patient benefits include the services and medical techniques of LECOM Health, and our physicians who provide care while still offering small town values.

Located at 965 Shamrock Lane, as well as the Corry Rural Health Clinic, Union City Rural Health Clinic, and Clymer Rural Health Clinic with services including orthopedic surgery, gastroenterology, sports medicine, urology, podiatry, family medicine, oncology, and COVID-19 vaccinations.

Learn more at 814-664-4641, or at lecomhealth.com.

The painted Finch Gallery offering art from local and regional artists, featuring paintings, drawings, photography, wooden bowls, sculptures, ceramics, glass, and jewelry.

Located in the heart of Downtown Corry and a proud sponsor of WQLN PBS.

Epiphany's Emporium, a gift shop located in Downtown Corry featuring hand thrown pottery, craft sodas, leather journals, handbags, fiber arts, charcuterie boards, frames, art supplies, and stuffed animals.

Proud to support Our Town Corry.

"Our Town, More Stories From Corry" is also brought to you in part by Rossbacher Insurance, Sanders Market, Cobblestone Inn & Suites, and viewers like you.

Thank you.

[acoustic music] [upbeat music]