Tina Wei Smith and Amy Chalmers
LONDON, KY - In the latter half of 2021, Prosper Appalachia welcomed both Tina Wei Smith and Amy Chalmers to the Prosper Appalachia team. Smith currently serves as the inaugural Director of Operations and Chalmers as the Service Corp and Next Gen Programs Director. In addition to launching a successful summer internship cohort, Prosper Appalachia also collaborated on the launch of the PeerForward Mentorship Program at Hazard, Big Sandy, and Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical Colleges starting the Fall 2021 terms.
Prosper Appalachia exists as a consortium of core stakeholders and place-based partners, including Partners for Education at Berea College, Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program, Inc., Brushy Fork Leadership Institute, FAHE, Inc., and Save the Children. Through its core partners, Prosper Appalachia’s vision is to build a strong education-to-workforce pipeline that allows young people to live and thrive in Eastern Kentucky, and to provide a centralized “no wrong door” approach to connecting young people to the many resources available to equip them for the workplace.
Its flagship program is a 10-week Summer Internship Program for 16 to 24 year-olds in the 10 county region that Prosper Appalachia currently serves. At the completion of the 2021 Summer Internship Program, Prosper Appalachia saw a 95% completion rate amongst the 94 interns placed with 21 employer partners. These partnerships included deeply embedded nonprofits such as Cowan Community Center (Letcher County), Pine Mountain Settlement School (Harlan County), Red Bird Mission (Clay County), and Pineville Main Street (Bell County). It also included private businesses in construction, retail, and healthcare.
Prosper Appalachia interns worked a combined 26,720 hours at their respective worksite, attended three in-person training sessions from July through August, and at $10 an hour and up to 40 hours of work each week, $262,700 were invested in youths and the local economies. A total of 1,300 hours of professional development & skill building curriculum was also completed during this 10-week period. Of the interns that completed this program, 46% had never had a job and 45% had a high school diploma. Also, 96% said the internship program helped them feel a part of their community, while 85% indicated they learned more about career opportunities in their home community.
“As Prosper Appalachia and our core partners seek to inspire and equip our next generation with the capacity to live, work, and thrive in Eastern Kentucky we need passionate, thought driven leaders”, says Delaney Stephens, Founding Director of Prosper
Appalachia, “Tina and Amy clearly were a natural fit, and we are fortunate to have them both as part of our team. Their experiences with youth leadership development as well as the foundational desire to see our young people gain economic mobility in the region are just two of the many reasons I’m grateful to have them helping lead our work”.
In mid-August, Prosper Appalachia welcomed Tina Smith as the Director of Operations. Smith is responsible for the internal operations and processes of the organization, oversight of staff as well as media communications. She is currently focused on establishing employer partnerships and formalizing the Youth Advisory Council program for 2022. Prior to joining Prosper Appalachia, Smith spent more than a decade in federal public service and higher education. From 2019-2021, Smith was appointed as the eighth Executive Director of the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, where she focused on workforce and economic development in the U.S. Department of Commerce. After leaving federal service, Smith has continued to work with a non-profit to grow the pipeline of minority students into federal internships, Congressional offices, and think tanks. Previously, Smith spent over five years at Asbury University as their founding director of the Global Engagement Office. In this capacity, she created new international education initiatives and curriculum to increase cross-cultural learning and better prepare students for an increasingly global economy. In 2014, Smith, alongside her husband Kevin Smith and Grant Mills, launched Rural Up, Inc., a nonprofit focused on providing coding education to middle and high school students throughout Eastern Kentucky. Prosper Appalachia is partnering with Rural Up, Inc. and Awesome Inc. to relaunch high school summer coding camps throughout Prosper’s ten county region for the summer of 2022.
In early September, Prosper Appalachia welcomed Amy Chalmers as its first Service Corp and Next Gen Programs Director. As the Service Corp and Next Gen Program Director, Chalmers is responsible for providing direct support and oversight for Prosper Appalachia’s 16-24 year-old participants. Chalmers is responsible for working with partners, employers, community action agencies, public K-12 schools, local colleges and universities, and community partners to develop an entry point for any youth in Eastern Kentucky seeking a pathway to a career. Chalmers also oversees Prosper Appalachia’s PeerForward Mentor Program with Hazard and Southeast Kentucky Community & Technical Colleges. Prior to joining Prosper Appalachia, Chalmers spent 6 years teaching Spanish at Prestonsburg High School. Chalmers, a Connecticut native, found her way to Prestonsburg through Teach For America Appalachia. While teaching, Chalmers expanded the World Language curriculum, implemented programs for social-emotional learning, and facilitated international service trips for Prestonsburg students to visit Honduras and Puerto Rico. Chalmers also served as the head coach of Prestonsburg High School’s Track and Field and Cross Country teams.
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Prosper Appalachia is on a mission to employ and connect our next generation of young people with opportunities to work and thrive in Eastern Kentucky by providing a solutions-based approach to the region’s most persistent problems and barriers to success. Through our flagship program, the Summer Internship Program, we aim to build a strong education-to-workforce pipeline that allows young people ages 16-24 year old to live and thrive in Eastern Kentucky. Prosper Appalachia exists as a consortium of core stakeholders and place-based partners, including Partners for Education at Berea College, Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment
Program, Inc., Brushy Fork Leadership Institute, FAHE, Inc., and Save the Children. We currently service the Eastern Kentucky counties of Bell, Clay, Harlan, Jackson, Leslie, Letcher, Knott, Knox, Perry, and Whitley. For more information, please visit our website: www.prosperappalachia.org. You can also find us on FaceBook (@ProsperAppalachia), Instagram (@prosper_appalachia), and LinkedIn (@prosper-appalachia)
