Does Thrive’s model apply to other rural low-income communities around the country?
Absolutely. This could be a model for small towns everywhere. In big cities there are more avenues than there are here, but we’re trying to show young adults that there are options. We’ve just opened, and I’m already getting letters from people asking if Thrive is going to be in other counties and towns! It took about six months from conception to Thrive’s first open afternoon. Why did you open so quickly, and how did that initial start-up process work? It is an unexplored concept to help rural young adults across this spectrum. When I started getting excited about the idea, I couldn’t find anything nationally that had the same angle. In order to get funding and to get people excited about the idea, we really had to open fast because there wasn’t a model to point to. We had literally a few thousand dollars in the bank, found this very cheap space and decided to rent it for the next four months. Last April I got a board together made up of people I knew from education and the arts – peo
