The council of the southern mountains (CSM), an I.R.S. Designated 501 c (3) non-profit west virginia corporation, is a community action agency established in 1964

The Council of the Southern Mountains, Inc. was awarded $414,829 under the AmeriCorps Seniors Retired and Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) 94.002, administered by the Corporation for National and Community Service Office of Grants Management. The award will support 300 volunteers ages 55 and older serving in McDowell, Wyoming, Mingo, and Raleigh counties in West Virginia through March 2024. Key services include telephone reassurance calls, home visits to seniors and individuals in need of support, food pantry assistance, neighborhood watch programs, and recovery coaching for individuals with opioid or substance abuse issues. Tracking and assessment tools will measure outcomes such as volunteer recruitment, management capacity, and impact on the healthy futures, hospice, and veterans communities. The federal investment of $96,147 will be supplemented with $41,206 in non-federal resources to address critical community needs.

A volunteer tripartite board of directors governs the agency, with members from three areas: 1) low-income and minority, 2) elected officials and 3) community representatives. This board serves as the advisory council for this rsvp proposal, which CSM has successfully operated for over a decade in mcdowell, mingo, raleigh and wyoming counties in southern west virginia, an economically distressed area. The mission statement of the agency is, the council of the southern mountains strives to provide quality services and opportunities to help people achieve the dignity of self-sufficiency. Three-hundred (300) rsvp volunteers will serve in the counties of mcdowell, wyoming, mingo and raleigh. Two-hundred, seventy (270) rsvp volunteers will be placed in outcome assignments. The cncs federal investment of $96,147 will be supplemented by $41,206 of non-federal resources. Some of the service activities include telephone reassurance calls; home visits to the sick, elderly and shut-INS; food pantry; neighborhood watch programs and recovery coaches for individuals with opioid or other substance abuse problems with healthy futures being the primary focus area. The community needs this project will address, as derived from the agency community needs assessment, as certified by the west virginia development office are: training volunteers; managing volunteers; healthy futures; hospice and veterans. To determine outcomes, tracking sheets, already developed, will be distributed and tabulated by rsvp staff with reports to stakeholders. Pre and post organizational assessment tools will be distributed to stations managing volunteers to measure the capacity in the area of volunteer management