Words by Jenny Lynn Davis | Images by Al Blanton
The Walker Area Community Foundation celebrated another year of giving, growth, and community impact during its 2026 annual luncheon, bringing together nonprofit leaders, educators, business owners, volunteers, donors, and community partners from across the area.
Throughout the program, one message surfaced again and again: Strong communities do not simply happen. They are built by people willing to invest their time, resources, talents, and care in one another.
That idea served as the foundation for a program highlighting the people and organizations creating hope, strengthening a sense of place, and expanding opportunity throughout the Walker County area.
The luncheon also looked back on the first year of Walker Wednesday, the Foundation’s weekly storytelling series featuring nonprofits, local organizations, and destinations throughout the area.
WACF Vice President of Development and Marketing Jim Trotter and Emmy-nominated television journalist Nicole Allshouse have spent the past year introducing viewers to what they describe as the “goodness” happening throughout Walker County – from community organizations meeting basic needs to historical attractions and local initiatives that residents themselves may not know exist.
Allshouse said thoughtful storytelling has helped reshape the way people both inside and outside Walker County see the area.
“What’s beautiful and organic about Walker Wednesday is we’re not selling anything,” she said. “We are simply saying, pay attention to the people and the community that matters.”
The series is broadcast across 21 counties in central Alabama, reaching an estimated audience of about 1 million people before accounting for additional views and shares through social media.
Allshouse shared stories of former Walker County residents who have approached her outside the area to say the series has helped them reconnect with their hometown.
One told her he was happy “to see my hometown represented properly.” Another, who had moved away years earlier, said watching Walker Wednesday had reminded her how good the community was and that she now records the segment each week so she does not miss it.
The Foundation then turned the spotlight to three ways it believes communities are built: through hope, place, and opportunity.
Community builds hope
The first focused on the Recovery Den, where individuals navigating substance use recovery can find peer support, recovery meetings, transportation, clothing, toiletries, meals and, perhaps most importantly, people who understand what they are experiencing.
In a video shown during the luncheon, participants and staff described the organization as a safe place and a family.
One participant spoke about regaining her self-worth, rebuilding her relationship with her children, and finding purpose helping others. Another, who said she had battled addiction for more than 18 years, celebrated being 15 months sober and emphasized the importance of showing others they can recover in Walker County.
“What you just saw is what hope can look like when a community chooses to help,” Foundation President Paul Kennedy said following the video.
Community builds place
Mike Putman, executive director of Jasper Main Street, shared both the story of the Jasper Welcome Center and his own unexpected journey to calling Jasper home.
Putman said he never envisioned living permanently in Jasper. A Birmingham native, he continued commuting from Birmingham after becoming involved with Jasper Main Street.
His perspective changed as his wife, Pat, battled glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer. With the support of family and friends, the couple navigated her illness until her death in 2023.
It was during those years, Putman said, that he realized Jasper had become home.
“I was surrounded by family and friends who certainly loved Pat … but who also loved me enough to carry me through a very long seven years,” he said.
That experience now shapes how he sees the Jasper Welcome Center, which officially opened in March. The center combines traditional tourism resources with interactive touchscreen kiosks, video boards, historic artifacts, retail space, and a children’s interactive gaming table.
Putman described it as a gateway to Jasper and Walker County. It is the only welcome center between Birmingham and the Mississippi state line. Through July 31, the center welcomed 3,720 visitors from 29 states and one visitor from England.
But Putman said some of his favorite guests are Walker County residents who walk through the doors and realize there is more to rediscover in their own community.
The project also represents years of investment and growth for Jasper Main Street. Putman credited the Walker Area Community Foundation with providing early support to the then-fledgling nonprofit in 2015.
Today, he said, Jasper Main Street has expanded beyond downtown revitalization to play an increasing role in tourism.
“When I welcome visitors to Jasper, I do so with a perspective I could not have had years ago,” Putman said. “I’m not just welcoming them to a destination. I am welcoming them home.”
Community builds opportunity
The luncheon’s third focus looked toward Walker County’s future workforce through the Heman Drummond Center of Innovation (HDCI).
Health sciences teacher Wendy Davenport spoke about what the new center will mean for students and teachers across career and technical education programs.
“HDCI is more than a new building,” Davenport said. “It represents an investment in our students, our teachers, our community and, most importantly, our workforce.”
She said instructors across electrical, automotive, welding, collision repair, and other programs see the center as an opportunity to give students a more professional, industry-oriented learning environment.
For health sciences, Davenport sees an opportunity to strengthen the pipeline into the local health care workforce. The program already offers an Alabama Department of Public Health-approved nurse aide training program, and the new facility will provide students with an environment that better reflects the careers they are preparing to enter.
“I want them to see more than classrooms and equipment,” Davenport said. “I want them to see possibilities. I want them to see a career. And I want them to see their future.”
The goal, she said, is to prepare students who are skilled, confident, and ready to enter the workforce in their own community.
“We aren’t just raising the bar,” Davenport said. “We’re building the future of our workforce.”
While much of the luncheon centered on individual stories, Kennedy also highlighted the numbers behind the Foundation’s work.
Last year alone, the Walker Area Community Foundation invested nearly $8 million in the community.
Kennedy said WACF began with an initial $6 million gift and has grown to nearly $200 million in assets. Through the Foundation’s endowment, gifts made years ago continue supporting people today, while gifts made now can continue making an impact for generations.
“We can meet those needs now while also preparing for needs we can’t see yet,” he said.
Allshouse closed the program with the afternoon’s most personal story.
In July 1981, when she was 4 years old, a 19-year-old drunk driver who was also under the influence of drugs lost control of his vehicle and crashed through her family’s home and into her bed.
Her injuries included broken hips and legs, shattered kneecaps and growth plates, and internal bleeding. Doctors initially warned her parents that she might not survive. If she did, they said, she might never walk or have children. What followed was roughly 15 years of surgeries, hospital stays and rehabilitation.
Looking back, Allshouse said what carried her family through was not one doctor, surgery, or treatment alone. It was “time and energy, love and community.”
She remembered an orthopedic surgeon who made homemade pizzas for children in the pediatric unit every Friday night; nurses and physical therapists who missed events with their own families to care for their patients; teachers who prepared classmates for her return to school; neighbors who quietly left groceries on her family’s porch; and family friends who cared for her brother so her parents could make the two-hour drive to the hospital.
“That is how we all survived,” she said.
She also recalled a moment during physical therapy after a lengthy surgery when, overwhelmed by pain, she refused to continue her leg exercises. Her grandfather, a World War II veteran, strapped the weight back onto her ankle and told her she had two choices: Do the exercises if she wanted to walk, or “drown in a pool of pity.”
“And I’ll be damned if you’re going to drown in a pool of pity on my watch,” he told her.
“That was community,” Allshouse said.
One doctor ultimately refused to accept that amputation was the only option for the 4-year-old girl. Drawing from his experience treating injuries during the Vietnam War, he used an unconventional approach to save her legs.
More than three decades later, Allshouse named her middle son after him.
“That’s how community extends from generation to generation,” she said.
At 49, Allshouse walked onto the luncheon stage with what she described as a slight limp and scars stretching from hip to toe, but also as a mother of three children and someone who learned early that no one makes it through life entirely on their own.
That, she said, is also the power of the Walker Area Community Foundation.
“None of us can erase every hardship,” Allshouse said. “None of us can be the ultimate solution. None of us can heal every sick child. But every one of us in this room can make the choice to become part of somebody else’s story.”
Because ultimately, she said, community is more than geography.
“Community is not a place. It’s a decision.”
The luncheon concluded with a video reminder that the future of Walker County will be shaped by people who continue making that decision.
“Every time we choose to show up for one another, we strengthen our community,” Trotter said in his closing remarks. “And together, we build tomorrow.” WL
