Faculty members help shape the future of a town that refuses to disappear

Amonate is easy to miss on a map — and, like plenty of places in Virginia, easy to mispronounce on the first try.

The small former coal town — pronounced Am-uh-NAWT-uh — is tucked into the hills of Tazewell County near the West Virginia border. Today, about 55 people live there, holding on to a generations-old community while imagining what comes next.

With help from Virginia Tech faculty, residents are working to shape that future, one rooted in the town’s history, responsive to its present needs, and defined by the people who still call it home.

“The people of Amonate have an intense pride and connection to the town and don’t want to see it disappear,” said Jenn Thomas, assistant professor of landscape architecture in the College of Architecture, Arts, and Design. “It’s a very close-knit community.”

Listening first

With a small Vibrant Virginia seed grant, Thomas and other faculty members and staff began working alongside Amonate residents — not with a set plan, but with a commitment to listen.

Vibrant Virginia, a Center for Economic and Community Engagement initiative in Outreach and International Affairs, supports faculty and students as they work with communities on place-based challenges across the commonwealth.

In Amonate, team members brought together expertise in architecture, landscape architecture, community design, and cinema. Together, they took a layered approach to understanding the town, documenting its physical structures, tracing its history, and spending time with the people who live there.

Elizabeth Gilboy, director of the Community Design Assistance Center, said the work begins by helping communities translate ideas into something they can act on.

“We help them get their verbal thoughts, their ideas in graphic form so they can leverage funding for next steps,” Gilboy said.

That process, she said, only works when the direction comes from the community itself.

“If it doesn’t come from them, they’re not going to see it through — they’re the ones who have to make it happen,” she said.

Michaelle Gravley, an Amonate resident who leads the nonprofit Amonate Always, said that before the partnership with Virginia Tech, many conversations about the community’s future centered on abandoned properties, deterioration, and a feeling that revitalization was out of reach.

“People cared deeply, but a lot of the discussion was about challenges rather than possibilities,” Gravley said. “What feels different now is that those conversations have started moving from what’s wrong to what could be. There is a growing sense that something positive can happen here.”

The partnership has shaped the university team, too. What began as a request for help became a process of mutual discovery, with faculty members learning alongside residents as ideas took shape on the ground.

“They had no idea what we could provide, and we had no idea what they needed,” Gilboy said.

Being in Amonate — walking around the community, listening to residents, seeing possibilities emerge in real time — shifted the team’s perspective. In that way, the work has not only supported the community’s vision, but also deepened the university’s understanding of what meaningful, community-driven engagement requires.

From conversation to plan

A series of community workshops gave residents a chance to talk openly about what they want for Amonate’s future. The ideas that emerged were practical and close to home.

Residents talked about the need for a community center — a place to gather for events, but also somewhere safe to shelter during power outages. They talked about basic infrastructure, including improving cell service in areas where reception is unreliable. They talked about honoring their past, with ideas for a memorial to Amonate’s coal miners. And they talked about small but meaningful improvements: cleaning up a creek that runs through town, building a playground, and creating spaces where families can spend time together.

The team is now developing a schematic design for renovating a former Methodist church into a community center, along with a phased master plan for the town. Team members are also working with residents to identify funding opportunities and develop grant applications that can help bring those ideas to life.

For Gravley, the moment the church came into reach changed something.

“When we were able to buy the church, that’s when I really felt like this was making a difference,” she said. “It was abandoned, faded, worn down, and broken — and it kind of represented what Amonate had become. But seeing the community rally around preserving it made me feel like we were making a real difference. This work isn’t just about improving a place, it’s about rebuilding hope and identity.”

Stories shaping the future

Alongside the planning work, another layer of the project unfolded — capturing the stories of Amonate itself.

With support from the Virginia Tech’s Center for Oral History, Laura Iancu, assistant professor of cinema in the School of Performing Arts, produced a 24-minute documentary, “Oral Histories of Amonate,” drawn from interviews with residents. The film was screened during a community workshop, turning storytelling into a shared experience. Watch a preview online.

“Amonate offers a fascinating understanding of what life in a small coal town in Appalachia was like,” Iancu said. “Blending these stories into a film gave them warmth, highlighted areas of connection, and made the narrative accessible to a wider audience.”

As she spoke with residents, a common thread emerged.

“There was this sense of community closeness and reciprocity,” Iancu said. “People remembered feeling safe, cared for, and content — growing up in a place where kids could roam freely and where everyone looked out for each other.”

Growing up in rural Romania, Iancu said she felt a personal pull toward those stories. For her, sharing them, both within Amonate and beyond, has been one of the most meaningful parts of the project.

“The storytellers may live apart now, but their message and hopes are remarkably similar.”

The film won the Testament to Appalachia Award at the Mid-Ohio Valley Film Festival in April in Parkersburg, West Virginia, and will be shown at the Fredericksburg Film Festival on June 25-28.

For Thomas, the film does something the blueprints can’t. The stories residents shared on camera help ground the planning work in lived experience, ensuring that what comes next reflects not just what the town was, but what its people want it to be.

“Talking to and meeting people has been my favorite part of this project,” she said. “Amonate people have such interesting stories to share, and we feel very fortunate to be a small part of that.”

Engagement that builds lasting change

The impact of the Community Design Assistance Center’s work goes beyond revitalizing a place. It also has helped build capacity among the people who live there.

Early on, Gilboy said, the team worked alongside community members in real time, walking them through grant applications step by step.

Over time, that hands-on support has helped Amonate residents build confidence and momentum — not just securing funding but seeing themselves differently.

“It gave them confidence to do it,” Gilboy said, “and helped funders look at them a little differently — like, ‘Yeah, this community is serious.’”

Susan E. Short, associate vice president for outreach and international affairs, said the Amonate project reflects the kind of reciprocal partnership that is central to the university’s land-grant mission.

“The most successful community engagement doesn’t start with the university bringing answers — it starts with listening and building trust,” Short said. “What’s happening in Amonate shows how that patience pays off: a community defining its own future, with Virginia Tech as a partner in making it real.”

For Gravley, what she’s learned through the process is as meaningful as anything built or funded.

“They have taught me so much about planning and community work that I hope to carry with me and maybe use someday to help others,” she said. “To me, that impact lasts beyond any one project.”