Gov. Joe Manchin is scheduled to announce the initiative at 10:30 a.m. March 12 in the upper rotunda of the Capitol building, said Neil Cotiaux, spokesman for the Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh. During the event, Manchin will announce the 10 communities and introduce the leaders who will take part in the program.

"(The communities) will have eight-member teams," Cotiaux said. "They will receive free training for most of this year. ... They will have access to community development people, bankers and others all under one roof."

The Blueprint Communities program is designed to promote stronger local leadership that will serve as a catalyst for long-term growth and to encourage coordinated investment efforts in targeted areas of each community.

New Resources

This year, Blueprint Community teams will have three workshops, he said. From those meetings, the teams will develop plans for their communities.

"At the end of September, they will show us a custom blueprint for each community," Cotiaux said. "When that's in shape, we'll start opening doors for them."

Blueprint Community training provides a process that will guide teams as they develop their comprehensive plans. Such a strategy should be holistic and account for physical, economic and social needs, according to Cotiaux. They should address all aspects of development, including housing, infrastructure, economic stimulation and safe surroundings.

The Pittsburgh FHLBANK will make available $300,000 that can be used for business startups, home ownership and other programs across the state, he said. Each team will receive training and other services worth about $20,000.

Other lenders also participate in the program, making an untold amount of money available to each community, he said.

The Blueprint program does much more than simply make money available to communities, Cotiaux said. Perhaps more importantly, he said, the workshops provide the community teams opportunities for networking with experts in community planning, private lenders and leaders from other communities that have completed successful community development programs.

FHLBANK considered 26 communities in the state for participation in this year's program, Cotiaux said. Selections were made based on their capacities to plan and implement community revitalization projects and to assemble leadership teams representing diverse interests.

Good Track Record

This is the second wave of Blueprint Communities for the FHLBANK of Pittsburgh, Cotiaux said. Two years ago, the bank started the program with 22 Pennsylvania communities, including Tamaqua in the eastern part of the state.

That post-coal mining town, which has a population of 7,000 and a regional population of 17,000, has benefited from the Blueprint program in countless ways, said Micah Gursky, Tamaqua Borough counselor.

"(The development projects) have run the whole gamut," he said. "We've done projects for kids, elderly housing, economic development ... There is money out there. It is dispersed to groups, and we all work on the problems together."

In December, the city broke ground on a $3.3 million affordable housing project, under which a 131-year-old building will be renovated, said Serge Chrush of Sovereign Bank, one of the city's Blueprint partners.

"This is not a funding program where we just throw money at our problems," he said. "The people on our team were doing that kind of work already. This brought them together, and we were able to fill in the gaps."

Being a Blueprint Community has meant access to invaluable resources, Gursky said. Pennsylvania colleges and universities are partners in the project.

"To know that we can pick up the phone and have somebody at the University of Pittsburgh or (the University of) Pennsylvania working on a problem for us is a great tool," he said. "A lot of state agencies are involved,too. ... We have a lot of local partners."

Working on common problems with other communities around the state is invaluable, too, Chrush said.

"In the training sessions, we were able to brainstorm with people from other areas," he said.

"Training with people from other communities opened a lot of doors. We got a lot of ideas from them. A lot of it's about sharing ideas, not just within our community but with people from others."

West Virginia's Blueprint teams must be diligent to be successful in the program, Gursky said. The Pennsylvania experience was a "resounding success," Cotiaux said.

Capitol Event

That kind of progress is what the FHLBANK wants to see in West Virginia, he said. The Pittsburgh bank is one of 12 federally chartered banks in the U.S. The institution's mission is to help create and maintain affordable housing and provide money for business startups and expansions.

The FHLBANK does not receive taxpayer money, Cotiaux said. Instead, the bank raises its funds on the open market.

During the March 12 event at the Capitol, Manchin will announce which Mountain State communities will receive some of those funds. More than 100 people are expected to attend the ceremony, including Secretary of Commerce Kelly Goes, Joe Hatfield, executive director of the West Virginia Housing Development Fund, Jean Ambrose, executive director of the West Virginia Commission for National and Community Service, and William G. Batz, chief operating officer of FHLBANKank Pittsburgh.

The theme for the event will be "West Virginia Rising." FHLBANK commissioned a new song to commemorate the event, which will be performed by Larry Groce, host of "Mountain Stage."

More information about the Blueprint Communities program is available on the Internet at www.blueprintcommunities.com.