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Reinventing Rural recently came to visit the Applegate Valley. The group is “focused on helping rural communities in the Pacific Northwest embrace their rugged culture of innovation and entrepreneurship.” The founder Brad Attig wrote this very positive article about meeting up with local business people:
Way back in February of 2022, Andrea Letham sent us an email. Andrea is a force of nature in Harney County. She works for the TVCC SBDC and is the BizHarney Coordinator for High Desert Partnership. She works hand-in-hand with the area’s small businesses and has her fingers in everything. Andrea facilitated one of the first CO.STARTERS Core programs in Oregon and is launching their 4th cohort in Burns/Hines next week.
 “In November 2022 we held a community gathering called “Getting Real in Rural – Energizing Small Business Entrepreneurship” at Red Lily Vineyards. Over 25 people attended and it was a blast.”-Brad Attig Back to the story. Andrea emailed, “I met with Seth Kaplan, Executive Director for A Greater Applegate yesterday and chatted with him a little about CO.STARTERS. He is creating a food and farm resource guide for the Applegate Valley and was looking for a business guide on how to start a business.” One thing led to another and fast forward to March of 2022. Emails and Zoom meetings have occurred and magically Alison Hensley Sexauer and Ashley Bradfield are the two newest CO.STARTERS Facilitators in Oregon.
In September 2022, we were invited to participate in the Applegate Valley Business Networking event at Valley View Winery. It was love at first sight and we met many wonderful people all interested in making this region a better place to live and do business.
 We were so taken by the beauty of the location we failed big on getting team pictures but this was a powerful visit and we couldn’t wait to go back and we have. In November 2022 we held a community gathering called “Getting Real in Rural – Energizing Small Business Entrepreneurship” at Red Lily Vineyards. Over 25 people attended and it was a blast. Brad Attig, founder of Reinventing Rural We visited Applegate Valley last week for a special occasion. We were invited to participate in the launching of Applegate Valley’s first CO.STARTERS Core program. Applegate is breaking new ground because this cohort is entirely food and farm based. With hard work, great curriculum, and awesome facilitators, this group will be bringing you tasty things and launching creative food businesses. Just look at all these happy rural small business entrepreneurs.
 The work being done in the region is led by A Greater Applegate, a community-building organization serving (where else?) the Applegate Valley. Their work is guided by local residents to ensure that community values, community vision, and community voices lead to community action.
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