What Story Are You Telling?

 Every community has a story.  Every community goes through its ups and downs.  There are times when things are booming and times when the economy is tough.  It’s the nature of things.  Things go up and then come down.   But with hard work and perseverance…things can go back up again. For many years, Coshocton County had it’s share of downs.  A community that had an embarrassment of riches in manufacturing, saw several plants close down or leave.  People who wanted to work were forced into different jobs and sometimes had to look for jobs outside of the community.  For sure, that was part of the down. The challenge I think, for a community (or even an organization), is when they start to identify with the downs.  They make that become a part of their identity.  They start to think “that is who we are…and what we deserve.”  I think that is what has happened (with a group) in Coshocton County.  This group  spends a lot of time and energy “celebrating” the negative.  They continually look for the challenges and the injustices and hold them up.   “See I told you so.  This place sucks.” But over the past couple of years, things have been slowly working back up.  There is an enthusiastic group in leadership that is working together.  If you were looking, you could see the positive shifts happening.  There is an improvement to a park here.  The streets get paved there.  These are subtle, but foundational, changes that improve the community.  Now the signs are starting to become more obvious.   This week the Mayor of Coshocton announced a healthy investment in the community.  A company focusing on digital currency is going to be investing up to $100 million and creating up to 100 jobs on the site of a factory that was closed.   In addition, the cry that “there are no jobs” is officially silly.  Each and every day there are more and more jobs posted to the OhioMeansJobs site for Coshocton County.  Oh…and there are even more just outside of the county.  As a matter of fact, most companies are struggling to hire fast enough. And if you are worried that our workforce does not have the training for these new jobs, I give you…COTC.  Central Ohio Technical College recently announced a program where they are offering free college for anyone in Coshocton County coming from a household where the income is less than $60,000 per year.  It’s free college my friends…check it out. These are just a few obvious (and amazingly positive) signs that things are moving back up in Coshocton County.  But as with any organization, the members of the community are the best and most powerful pieces of the marketing team.   So what story are you telling?   Make sure you never miss an update!  Sign up for our VIP newsletter here.  Each week we send out one email to keep you up on the content!