By Stacy Davis, Sumner County Economic Development Commission – I was raised on porches—literal ones where neighbors could see who was coming up the walk and figurative ones where community life unfolded in plain view. Those porches taught me that pride isn’t a banner we wave once a year; it’s a habit we practice together. Lately, as I listen to parents, teachers, and business owners around Sumner County, I keep coming back to a simple question: How do we instill that habit in our kids? How do we teach civic engagement—real, rolling-up-your-sleeves citizenship—in a rural community that’s changing faster than we can repaint the porch swing?

When I talk with our elders, they describe their youth during and after World War II with a kind of steady clarity. Teenagers weren’t sheltered from hard truths then. They grew up with ration books in kitchen drawers, victory gardens in backyards, and scrap metal drives that brought farm trucks down gravel roads piled high. Everyone had a role, and those roles were visible. You knew who organized the dance in the gym, who ran the USO cookie table, and who took the early shift at the elevator to move grain for soldiers overseas.

The language of the day—duty, sacrifice, service—wasn’t abstract. It was printed on posters and stitched into daily routines. Communities like Wellington and our smaller towns were powered by hands-on participation. Young people learned to belong by doing: serving on committees, singing in choirs, sweeping floors after events, and writing letters to neighbors who had gone to war. The civic muscles formed by those habits—cooperation, accountability, resourcefulness—were exercised every week.

Our kids are growing up in a different world. We have abundance in some places—more technology, more information, more extracurricular options—and absence in others: fewer neighbors of the same age, fewer local employers, fewer shared spaces that bring everyone together at the same time. A middle schooler today can collaborate with a robotics team on a Saturday morning and, by Saturday afternoon, feel completely alone scrolling through a feed that shows everything and anchors almost nothing.

In rural communities, the stakes are real. When one classroom loses two students, a program can disappear. When one business closes, the tax base shifts. When a local newspaper reduces its page count, we lose a mirror that helps us see ourselves. Civic life thins out not because we don’t care, but because the structures that once braided us together—4-H meetings, town parades planned in church basements, block-by-block phone trees—have frayed or moved online.

The WWII generation didn’t wait for perfect conditions. They used what they had. That’s still our path. The tools have changed, but the principles haven’t: purpose, participation, and place.

Purpose. Kids need a why that’s bigger than grades or scholarships. In the 1940s, the purpose was obvious. Today we have to say it out loud: rural communities matter. Sumner County matters. We are stewards of local history, farmland, main streets, and a culture of neighborliness that the nation sorely needs. When our youth understand that their talents can strengthen the place they call home—whether they leave and return or build a life here from the start—their choices gain direction.

Participation. Our young people need structured opportunities to engage in real work with visible outcomes. Not another photo-op, but projects with results you can point to: a repaired playground, a digitized archive at the library, a student-led survey that informs a County Commission decision, a high school pop-up market that sells local goods and tracks revenue for a civic cause. Responsibility is the best teacher.

Place. We can use the internet, but we can’t forget the porch. Civic identity forms in shared spaces—gyms, fire halls, band rooms, fairgrounds, shops on main street, and, yes, kitchen tables. If we don’t gather in person, it becomes too easy to talk about our community instead of with our community.

If we want a generation of citizens who can rebuild rural America, we must put civic engagement at the heart of education—from elementary social studies to senior capstones. Imagine every student graduating with a portfolio that includes:

• A community problem statement they helped identify (childcare availability, housing, broadband gaps, downtown revitalization).
• A data set they helped gather and interpret (attendance counts at a community event, survey results, simple cost–benefit analysis for a park improvement).
• A service project with tracked outcomes (hours volunteered, funds raised, families served, acres cleaned, code written, archive boxes cataloged).
• A reflection on what they learned about leadership, compromise, and perseverance.

This is not extra; it is the curriculum. Our workforce needs critical thinkers, communicators, and doers. Civic projects produce all three, and they do so in partnership with local government, businesses, and nonprofits—the same partnerships that make a community resilient.

Our kids can’t learn civic engagement if we adults outsource it. They need to see us wrestling with real decisions—about budgets, land use, childcare zones, and the future of our main streets. They need to hear our disagreements handled with respect and our gratitude spoken in public. They need invitations into the room where choices are made, and they need mentors who will step back at the right moment and let them try.

Invite a student to sit in on a board meeting. Ask a teen to manage sign-ups for the fall festival and then give them the authority to make a call when the weather turns. Pair FFA students with local producers to analyze cost per acre or plot a small pivot to value-added products. Let debate club students moderate a town hall. Real responsibilities teach real citizenship.

When I picture our community at its best, I see something you can feel from the sidewalk: kids repainting a mural, a robotics team explaining their prototype to the VFW, a retired teacher coaching a group of young entrepreneurs, a County Commissioner stopping to listen to a student’s presentation on safe routes to school. That’s the texture of pride—layered, noisy, and shared.

The WWII generation handed us a blueprint: clear purpose, steady participation, and love of place. Our job is to adapt that blueprint with the tools of today, and to trust our youth with the keys to the front door. If we do, the next time someone asks me what makes Sumner County special, I’ll point to a porch where three generations are shelling beans, arguing cheerfully about policy, and planning their next project together.

That’s not nostalgia. That’s a strategy. And it’s how we rebuild rural communities—one engaged kid, one generous adult, and one sturdy porch at a time.