Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
For the Love of Here is a podcast about Dalton, Georgia and life across Northwest Georgia—from local businesses and entrepreneurship to community leadership and hometown pride.
Hosts Erika Mosteller and Lauren Sneary sit down with founders, civic leaders, creatives, and neighbors from Dalton, Chatsworth, Ringgold, and Calhoun to talk about the ideas, challenges, and opportunities shaping our region.
If you care about small-town business, local culture, economic growth, and building a life where you live, this podcast is for you.
Because you don’t need a bigger city. You just need a better lens.
Produced by Here Local Media.
Ep10
===
---
[00:00:00]
Lauren Sneary: Hello, everyone, and welcome back to our latest episode of the Love of Here podcast.
I am Lauren Sneary and I'm here with my co-host, Erika Mosteller. Erika, how's it going today?
Erika Mosteller: It's great. We're excited that all the celebrations for the... I always get this word wrong, sesquicentennial.
Lauren Sneary: What? Ex-
Erika Mosteller: The 200 and-
Lauren Sneary: come again?
Erika Mosteller: The 250th anniversary of our country.
Lauren Sneary: I guess I've only seen it written down.
Erika Mosteller: Oh. Well, I might have said it wrong too.
Lauren Sneary: I bet our guest actually knows how to say it correctly. So let's just jump right in-
Erika Mosteller: Oh, I love it. Yeah ...
Lauren Sneary: and, and talk about who we have here [00:01:00] today.
Meet David Aft
---
Lauren Sneary: So Erika, do you wanna introduce our guest for today?
Erika Mosteller: Sure. So today we have someone who I would say is one of the most sustained efforts at just really showcasing all that Northwest Georgia has to offer.
He believes in loving where you live, creating quality of life initiatives, and living and giving charitably. My friend and one of our advertising partners, David Aft, with the Community Foundation of Northwest Georgia. David, welcome.
David Aft: Oh, that's great. what a wonderful uh, windup. I don't know if I'll be able to live up to that.
I probably have a better chance of saying sequ- sequicentennial. Yeah.
Lauren Sneary: Oh, no, he can't do it either.
David Aft: I know. I had to think-
Lauren Sneary: We're gonna have to edit in some kind of audio of like-
Erika Mosteller: Or, or- ...
Lauren Sneary: AI saying it ... yeah.
David Aft: No, no. I, I think you need, what you need to do is have people call in.
Lauren Sneary: Ah, yes.
David Aft: Or, or, or- text in or, or send in a recording.
Lauren Sneary: Oh, no, that's a good idea.
David Aft: And whoever can say that with the most flair.
Erika Mosteller: There we go.
Lauren Sneary: Send your voice memos to Be Here on Instagram. We wanna hear how you pronounce this word. Thank you, David for the idea.
David Aft: Oh, there you go.
Erika Mosteller: I love it. [00:02:00]
David Aft: Never stop promoting.
Erika Mosteller: Yeah, right.
Moving to Dalton
---
Erika Mosteller: so we love to kick it off with what brought you to Northwest Georgia in the first place.
Lauren Sneary: Yeah. How long have you been here,
David Aft: Absolutely. I, I moved here actually in 1996, and moved here to work for the United Way.
It was an opportunity to come back here at the time. I grew up in Metro Atlanta. I am a graduate of Peachtree High School of all things. And it just happened to be the year that the Olympics were here. And what a great time to bring at that time my very young family. I had a a six-year-old and a two-year-old.
So we moved back to Dalton really for the job. And, and I think a lot of people moved to Dalton, Georgia to work here, either work in the industry or work in the supportive or ancillary organizations and businesses, which is certainly what I did. And you know, we, we think we're gonna be here for just a few years, and then we fall in love with the community for so many different reasons.
I remember it was typical when you would go to a, a new job that your colleagues [00:03:00] in the field, in the United Way field in this case, would kinda call and, and chirp uh, there's a little bit of hazing going on. You know, they ask you if the, you know, I, I, I don't think it was anything, do you have Sir Walter Raleigh in a can or anything like that?
But we, we would always start talking about the communities in which we lived. And, you know, I told them that commute was an issue because I'd lived in other communities on my way back to Georgia, and the commute was always something that you had to consider when you, you opted for a new community.
Dalton Differences
---
David Aft: And, you know, my people from northern Virginia or Boston or Washington or these types of places Denver, Chicago, would always go, "Hey, you know, what's the commute like?" And I'd say, "Literally, if the clock at my office is five minutes fast and the clock at my house is five minutes slow, I can leave the office and get home before I left."
And then there'd be this blank open pause on the other end of the phone, they go, "I wonder what that's like." And I'll tell you, it is one of many Dalton differences. Short commutes, even if you live in Highland Forest [00:04:00] and some of these other places, if you compare to almost any other metro area, we have the best commutes.
I live right behind Dalton High School, and my commute to the office is literally a mile and a half. And I believe beyond preserving my sanity, it has given me thousands of hours over the last 30 years to be with my family.
Erika Mosteller: Yeah. When we moved here, that was a big thing for us too. We moved from Atlanta, and I remember people telling me that, you know, "Oh, I don't go to the Aldi 'cause it takes 20 minutes to get there."
And I'm like, that's nothing, 20 minutes. And because it is true, everything is within 15 or 20 minutes regardless of where you're going, and it does give you time.
David Aft: Oh, it, it, it, like I said, one of the Dalton differences. I was able to participate more actively as a young parent- things like parent-teacher conferences that my dad, when we were growing up in Atlanta, very difficult for him to get out to the suburbs and then come back downtown.
It would almost be a day's commitment to do that, let alone anything having to do with coaching youth athletics or anything like that. And I, it, it contributed to a very rich [00:05:00] life.
Career in Community
---
Lauren Sneary: So your entry into the community was in kind of the context of charitable giving and community building, and so how has that path kind of taken you in your career in Dalton?
'Cause obviously you found the Dalton differences and stayed, so what has that looked like for you?
David Aft: For me, immediately I was in a job where I had to go meet people, I had to talk to people, I had to go to big meetings, small meetings. I probably made speeches in front of half the working population in town.
And what that did was kind of jump jumpstart my social involvement in Dalton. Over time, I mean, I still meet people 30 years later that said, "Do you remember way back when?" And it's, it's just such a wonderful thing, but that, that gave me an entree into the social fabric of Dalton that perhaps some people who, when they move here, don't get to do.
But I was very lucky and, and blessed to be able to do that. It gave me a lot of connectivity. Immediately I felt a part of the [00:06:00] community. I had moved from Little Rock, Arkansas, where somebody had kinda pulled me aside and said, "You're doing really great here, young man. You know, in 15 or 20 years it'll be like you were from Little Rock, Arkansas."
And I thought to myself- that's terrible. I grew up in Metro Atlanta where everybody was from somewhere else. When I moved to Dalton, I found that so many people had come here through the carpet industry and through other things and had you know, for one reason or another, stayed. And that ended up becoming my story.
When I came here, I thought I was gonna be a, a corporate soldier and be here for five or six or eight years and move on, and, you know, that was you know, 30 years ago. So I'm still
Erika Mosteller: Dalton has a way of doing that.
Lauren Sneary: It really-
Erika Mosteller: To a lot of people.
Lauren Sneary: That's been a very recurrent theme in this podcast.
Yeah.
David Aft: We've, we've collected a lot of people here because, you know, my mom in her office has a, has a sign that says, "Bloom where you're planted." And I think there's a lot of merit in that. You can always live your life in the future tense or in the, "God, I hope it turns out this way", or you can actually take your foot out of a [00:07:00] suitcase and be where you are planted and try and find a life there.
And, the more I did that, the more I realized that that was the journey of life. It wasn't about living out of a suitcase and always working on your resume for the next job. It also gave my kids a hometown. I grew up kinda as a corporate brat. We moved every four or five years, and that had its advantages, but you know, my kids actually have a hometown.
Erika Mosteller: That's cool.
Civic Engagement Mindset
---
Erika Mosteller: So one thing that I appreciate since I've known you for, gosh, what, three years-ish now is that I have never heard anyone speak about being civic-minded like I've heard you speak about it. So I'd love for you to just kinda talk about your philosophy of being civically engaged and why that matters.
David Aft: That's a great question. Civics you know, in the nonprofit world, people tend to see it through the lens of a humanitarian effort. Are you feeding the hungry or housing the homeless or working with at the battered women's shelter? And it's more a humanitarian thing. But some of the greatest gifts we can give one another is our [00:08:00] involvement in things like youth athletics or being a volunteer at, with their church family or so forth.
So being civic to me just means being engaged in the things that are shaping us. And, you know, people often ask, you know, "How do I do that?" Well, you don't start at the top of the pyramid. Nobody's gonna elect you chairman of the chamber of commerce or anything like that, but just start showing up. There's a lot of opportunity here.
Now, it's not always easy to take that first step, but if you like the parks, you like outdoor things, volunteering at the community garden, volunteering at the Humane Society, going to the community center, all of these ways that you can just show up. It's also really neat because then you meet other people.
Going back to the word civic, it's a, it's a commitment that you make to the place in which you live. It's not necessarily reaching out to those that are less fortunate or what have you, but it's being part of the fabric of community, and I, I always say that that has enriched my life, [00:09:00] and for many others it's enriched theirs as they go on that journey of engagement and then finding footing and then really bonding with place.
Lauren Sneary: So that really sounds like the through line to how you came to your current role at the Community Foundation. So could we talk a little bit about how you got there and how you see the importance of the Community Foundation in, in shaping the philanthropic opportunities in, Dalton.
Community Foundation Origins
---
David Aft: So I moved here roughly in the mid-'90s, in 1996.
At the time, industry was consolidating. The larger mills were buying smaller family-owned mills. They were creating some giving opportunities that were driven not just by humanitarian or civic interest, but also by tax planning. And so, Gordon Morehouse, John Neal, Jim Bethel, a number of other people whose, whose names are kind of household words among many here they were doing a lot of work with people who were selling carpet businesses, and they were, you know, helping people do the tax planning associated with that, but they [00:10:00] were sending money out of town.
They were sending money to the community foundation in Chattanooga or Metro Atlanta or Birmingham or Nashville because we didn't have that entity. So those gentlemen, you know, with the help of many others, decided that a community foundation would be a great tool to add to Dalton's toolbox. It will also be a way of preserving some of the wealth that was generated in the carpet industry.
So they created the community foundation. It just so happened that a lot of the people who were very active in the community foundation were extremely active with United Way, and they knew that I was getting kinda towards the the, the place where I told them, you know, "Five to seven years, I'm gonna be looking for another job," because that was the career progression.
Well, you know, they came to me one day, it was Norris Little, actually, and you know, and he asked me, he said, "Well, what do you know about community foundations?" And I said, "Not a whole lot. All I know is that they work in a complementary fashion with other charitable organizations, but they're not competitors.
They're a different entity." And they said, "Well, how would you like to [00:11:00] join the team?" Little did I know that the team was one person- ... and I had to step into the men's room and look in the mirror to delegate anything. But like many other things, one of Dalton's greatest characteristics is its entrepreneurial Flair.
This town is full of people who the rule book sat on the dusty shelf, and they said, "How can we?" And so the community foundation was no different. It was an entrepreneurial effort. That was very attractive to me. I'd worked a lot in the charitable space. I was fascinated by the manner in which people get involved, and so this was a very logical step that happened, and well, today, I actually begin year 24-
Erika Mosteller: Wow. Congratulations ...
David Aft: at the community foundation.
And no better way to celebrate than to hang out with the uh, you know, folks from Here Media- the new conglomerate-
you know, driving change throughout our community. So, you know, but anyway, they the folks that were familiar with my work at United Way said you know, "While this is different it's, it's gonna involve a lot of the same people, and [00:12:00] you've, you know, proven over time that you, you can be effective in the environment where you talk to people about money and charitable enterprise and their civic involvement and all these type things."
So I had the vocabulary, and I had the drive and the interest, and I'd never thought in a million years that I would end up staying- and that you know, nearly 25 years of my life would be dedicated to helping build what is now a, a very substantial organization that does lots of cool stuff.
Grants and Growth
---
David Aft: You know, among many things that we do, we're a grant maker, and last year we made 1,000 grants. Every one of those grants is tied to some kinda cool story about you know, helping the Humane Society do its work or spay and neuter cats and dogs or the work that we've done in building parks and, you know, we're actually working on a, on a project right now where we're, partnering with many others.
We're a supporting player, but the Dalton State College Initiative to you know, the, build a, a traditional [00:13:00] school, their learning academy. Very exciting. But the community foundation is a supporting player in many initiatives like that. It's very rewarding.
Erika Mosteller: And you've taken it from what, I don't know what the original amount was, the seed money, but now it's over $100 million.
David Aft: It is. When I- It is ... when I got to the job, we had $7 million on our books, and then another couple of million that was promised. But community foundations, people often give through them, so accumulating the assets is, is one part of it, but as people use the community foundation to fulfill their charitable interests and make grants and those type of things, it's a moving target.
Lauren Sneary: Yeah, as it should be.
David Aft: As it should be. You know, it's not a static, it's not just a big pile of money. So, you know, when I signed my first three-year contract, they looked me in the eyes and they said, "Now you know by committing to this, you've actually committed to building the foundation to a place where financially we can afford to pay you in that third year."
So I, you know, I, we did that.
Erika Mosteller: No pressure.
David Aft: No, but you know, I, I look back over the last 20-something years [00:14:00] and you know, the concept, the idea was very solid. It's proven itself. The community foundation has made over $100 million in aggregate grants over the last 20-something years, or nearly 30 years.
And we have still managed to build a, a fund balance, if you will, a corpus that's well over $100 million, including many endowments, which are permanent sources of funding for things like grants or supporting people's favorite causes. You know, some of the most satisfying work that I've been able to be part of is helping people create scholarship programs
because that's kinda like paying it forward in, in a lot of different ways. So, uh, you know, we've done a lot of neat stuff and, you know, I'm excited by what's around the corner 'cause I, I get up really every Monday morning, I go to the office and I say, "You know, what's gonna happen this week that surprises me?"
And you know, it was uh, I, I'm talking to I got a call a couple of days ago from somebody who works with a fairly substantial training [00:15:00] program that works with developing uh, technical skills, and they are looking at creating an endowment so they can provide scholarships to their students.
Well, that wasn't on my radar a week ago, and hopefully after next Wednesday, we'll create a new fund, and we'll help somebody achieve the kind of charitable interest result that they wanna do.
Erika Mosteller: That's what I think is really cool. Like, I know, Lauren, you've been involved some with the Community Foundation as well, and, you know, it's not, it's not just you and the Community Foundation.
There's, what, over 70 volunteer leaders who are involved in their communities across northwest Georgia, and these are people who know the nonprofits and the ideas and the people who are making transformational change happen across these communities. And I love, I have been honored to sit in on some of those conversations and hear about this transformational change, that they come to the Community Foundation, they ask for, you know, maybe they apply for grants, or maybe they talk to you just even about ideas, who to connect with, and then it's like you have [00:16:00] this incredible project happen that's changing our entire community.
Lauren Sneary: Yeah, you see all those dots connect over time.
David Aft: That's a blast. It, it's really much fun to watch that aspect of this work because, you know, one thing I've come to learn over time is almost everything we do in a community, and this is the same no mater where you go, whether it's here or a big city like Atlanta or beyond, that charitable giving civic engagement, volunteerism, they coalesce around the things that are most important in a community, and we get to kinda be, you know, the glue that brings a lot of those pieces together, or in some cases we just play a supportive role.
But the energy that you describe, which is we see the world one way and we wanna make it better, and the work through the Community Foundation, unlike some other charities which are very focused on particular aspects, we get to play on nearly the entire waterfront. So one day a conversation may involve building a park, the next day it may involve expanding the capacity [00:17:00] of our, uh, and neuter, animal, work with little furry friends.
So y- you know, all points in between. Helping families develop scholarships. We've actually had some very active conversations with a group in Dade County, in severe, severe northwest Georgia that's actually created its own community foundation, and we'll be working in support of, of their efforts. So it's, it, it inspires me to see people, you know, look at what is and then say, "Well, this can be better.
This can be different." And connecting those dots is, you say, Lauren, is part of the role of the Community Foundation.
Lauren Sneary: Yeah.
Burr Park Story
---
Lauren Sneary: So I, I wanna kind of pull a couple pieces of this conversation together. We talked about a lot of the projects that the Community Foundation is able to support through philanthropy of the community, and all the dots that get connected between community members who maybe raise their hand and say, "Here's something that needs attention."
And there is a project that the Community Foundation helps support that is coming up on its 10-year anniversary, right? And that's the- ... Burr Park Summer Series. So I was hoping you could, as an example of kinda the [00:18:00] work for our audience that the Community Foundation participates in, that they maybe have a direct experience with, how did that summer series come about, and what did the Burr Park project mean to you?
David Aft: Well, I d- first of all, I, I never dreamed in a million years that I'd get to build a park. And, and was part of the energy that did that. It's been a transformational, to borrow, you know, one of, one of your words. But uh, a number of us civic folks, Deanna Mathis, uh, at the time Rob Bradam, who's the president of the chamber, Amanda Brown had just become the Creative Arts Guild director, and we were invited to participate in something that was championed by an organization that was born in Chattanooga called Thrive 2055.
And, and Thrive went through many iterations as it was doing, but in the simplest form, it imagined the Chattanooga metropolitan statistical area as a area of a million people. And in order to do that, it had to bring volunteers from Cleveland, Tennessee, and, and Scottsboro, Alabama, all the way up past Soddy Daisy in northern Chattanooga, and down to Dalton.
So we [00:19:00] had this really neat kinda framework. Well, the Lyndhurst Foundation decided that it wanted to encourage these different communities within the Thrive area to, uh, get involved or more involved in their community. So they, they created this Thriving Communities process, and we were one of the first cohorts of that.
And they sat down and said, "Imagine what would happen if you used arts and culture to drive community and economic development." And so we went through this entire rapid prototyping process, and we looked at civic engagement, and we looked at what could be and what should be and what was impossible but not unlikely because, you know, in Dalton, one of the characteristics is we see the impossible as just one more step towards getting what we want or what we need here.
So, you know, we envisioned this thing. The, the carrot on the other end of the, the stick there was that they would provide $20,000 worth of funding. We sat down and we chose to look at the time, the Lee Printing [00:20:00] property, which was about a one acre square of undeveloped you know, a reclaimed area right in the middle of downtown Dalton.
And then personally, and I, I've said this before, I said "We should look at Dalton Green. It's already established. It's already a park. We already understand it to be..." And Deanna Mathis at the time she said, "Well, let's color outside the lines. Let's look at that piece of property." And in, in my estimation, I knew the city would sell it immediately for commercial purposes and so forth, but you know, I, I decided at that time to, you know, follow Deanna's and we, we strategized around making some semi-permanent improvements to a piece of land we knew would be impermanent.
That the city would ultimately move on and sell it, and we'd create something, downtown housing or what have you down there. Well We went through this process. About two weeks later, Jean Burr, who had longtime Dalton resident had come into my office. She'd been a longtime client of the community foundation, and she said, "Dave, I'm not getting any older."
At the time, and she was looking at her [00:21:00] 90th birthday, and she said, "I have a little money and I wanna make a difference." And, you know, that as history has told, I gave her about seven or eight really bad ideas- ... that involved taking her pile of money and putting it in our pile of money and these types of things.
But because I'd been involved in this Thriving Communities process, I understood the dynamics of building a park. So on an offhand thing, I said, "Jean, what would you think about building a park?" She said, "Could it be a performing arts park?" And I said, "I, I suppose it could. I mean, we're, we're talking hypothetical here."
I said, "If you committed to give the resources to build it, perhaps the city would commit to running it as a park." And she said, "I like that idea." So I stepped out of the room, and I called, at the time, Dennis Mock, who was our mayor, and I said, "Dennis, here's the deal. If the community foundation and one of its wonderful donors could commit to building a park there, would the city in essence run it as a park and add it to their portfolio [00:22:00] of, of local parks?"
And he said, "That sounds like a great idea." And immediately I went back to Jean and, and said, " They'll do it if you'll do it." She goes, "Well, let me think on it." And three or four days later she called me up and she said, "Dave, I wanna build a park."
Erika Mosteller: Aw. That's awesome.
David Aft: And walked into our office and handed us a million dollar check.
Erika Mosteller: Wow.
David Aft: Half that money went into building the park. The other half went into an endowment that would, you know, hopefully forever support the use of the park and some of the ancillary type pieces of, of making that happen. Well, 10 years go by, we've had over 100,000 people, maybe even more than that, attend events there.
If the weather holds on Friday, we'll have thousands of people in downtown Dalton for the Creative Arts Guild's Popton Park. And, and this is a, a game changer because Zach Adamson, who is a g- great community volunteer, you know, was announcing one night from that stage, and he looked out there and he made an observation that really stuck with me, which is, "A few years ago, [00:23:00] every one of these people," and he was speaking to an audience of 2,000 people, "every one of you would've been somewhere else."
Most people in this community understood that we would go to Chattanooga five or six times a month to eat out, to go to Coolidge Park, to see music, to do all these other types of things. Now we had that alternative, and I know personally I was one of those people going five or six times. Now I go maybe once every other month because not only do we have that here, but we've got an abundant amount of restaurants.
We're starting to get some great diversity, but we also know 65 places where you can get a really great taco. So, you know, Dalton's difference is that, you know, we've built within the framework of Burr Park and a, a thriving downtown, a set of opportunities that we all used to seek elsewhere.
So, you know, when you guys started publishing your magazine here, that's exactly what it is. We've invested in here. So on a Friday night or any other [00:24:00] time when we look out at Burr Park and see all those faces, we know that they could've been someplace else.
Erika Mosteller: Yeah. I was at the World Football Celebration Saturday, and Around 5:30, there was probably only like, I don't know, 100 people there, and I was like, "Oh," you know, but it was so hot.
Well, by 7:00 PM, there were over 1,000 people there, and it was incredible, and we were all watching on the big screen. And so it really is kind of like the center of gravity for Dalton, and I think it's just so beautiful that Jean Burr had that vision, and she wanted to make a difference with the arts, and you were able to help connect that plan.
David Aft: She did and that comes back to where the, the community foundation framework is, is we can help people put wheels under those type of ideas. Yeah. And we can help in an exploration. I think a lot of people hear the word nonprofit and they kinda grab their wallet or their purse, and they- They're already prepared for the ask.
And, and philanthropy and the giving of money, giving of time, volunteerism is all part of it, but it all starts with the idea, you know?
Depot Revival and Stories
---
David Aft: Another similar [00:25:00] conversation is we just finished partnering with Barrett Properties to renovate the old Dalton Depot, which is, you know, the oldest intact commercial building in Whitfield County.
It was built in the 1850's
way back when. And it's been an amazing thing because people come in there and they tell us their stories about that place.
Lauren Sneary: Everybody has one.
David Aft: That's right. Well, everybody has three. What I've found, especially the folks who grew up here in Dalton and where the depot was kinda that, they've got the story they tell everybody.
The story they only tell with their friends, and the one that never gets told.
Lauren Sneary: Right. A little too seen right now. I probably have three or four. I know,
David Aft: That's great. But, but that's been a wonderful thing. And you know, I hear these stories, not just stories of the Depot Restaurant, because that was a, a very critical piece of Dalton social fabric, but, you know, there are people said, "You know, I, I came through this train station and met my dad when he came back from a, a trip or a military deployment," or what have you.
Now, there was a passenger depot that's no longer [00:26:00] there, but the train station was Dalton's gateway to everywhere else. It was the place from which Kathryn Evans Whitner left to go sell, you know, bedspreads all throughout the northeast and into Chicago, and so forth. So, you know, the train station was the gateway.
It had served so many different functions over time, and to hear people come back and tell those stories is really amazing. And to learn more about it, to know that being in a historic place. But again, we are using the idea of revitalizing to reignite our, our curiosity and our passion for the story.
You know, Dalton's story is an amazing one, and I love to go all over the country and, and talk about it.
Unexpected Dalton Moments
---
David Aft: You know, one of the, you know, preparatory questions you guys ask me is what, what strange or weird or marvelous things have happened. And I remember being in the Toronto airport, and you know how you talk to people in the airport 'cause what else is there to do when you're waiting to go through this?
And I, this guy asked me, and we're having a conversation, he goes, "Where are you from?" I said, "Dalton, Georgia." And he goes, "Dalton, Georgia? I go there every year." [00:27:00] And I'm like, "Oh, you're in the flooring industry." And he goes, "Flooring industry?" He kinda scrunches up his, he said, "No, men's senior softball."
Lauren Sneary: Oh.
David Aft: And I said "Wow, men's senior softball in Dalton, Georgia." He goes, "You guys got the best, your parks and rec set up." at Heritage Point and beyond is fantastic. We love coming to Dalton, Georgia. And here I was having a conversation, you know, 1,500 miles from here with a guy, and it didn't involve talking about flooring.
It involved talking about something that he was passionate for. So I always love, you know, hearing the stories of people who come through Dalton. You know, m- my wife and I, you know, a number of years ago, we decided, what change do we wanna see? And we actually opened up an art gallery, 'cause she and I both, you know, will paint a little bit.
I play music. We needed a place to do all of our stuff so I could move it out of my living room which has been wonderful. but, you know, Dave and Paulie's Art Emporium's been open for almost 15 years now. And on a Saturday afternoon, you know, we would always, much [00:28:00] like the community foundation job, ask, "What cool thing is gonna happen today?"
because we always had something that we didn't expect to happen. One day about 4:00, this is probably a Saturday afternoon, this couple walks into the, the art gallery, and we start chatting with them, and they're from Chicago. He was a diamond merchant. She was a federal judge, and they were on their way to their house in Miami.
But, you know, we always ask people, you know, what's on their mind, what are they reading, what are they looking at? Well, this guy, the diamond merchant, was a collector of historic science fiction toys. Well, anybody like me who grew up in the '60s and '70s, you know, all the 1950s kind of sci-fi cool and then the space program and the moon shot and all these other type of things coalesced around creating this wonderful science fiction appetite among many, and I'd done a series of paintings.
Well, he fell in love with those. Well, I turn around and, and Paulie, who is a, a [00:29:00] voracious reader, was talking to his wife, retired federal judge, fascinating lady, prosecuting organized criminals and that type of stuff, so it was a really neat couple. And she turned us onto this book, which became the book we raved about to every one of our friends.
And, you know, you just never know what's gonna happen in Dalton, Georgia.
Erika Mosteller: I love... I don't think I've ever heard you say that before, but I love the idea of starting every week thinking, "Wonder what cool things are gonna happen this week?"
Lauren Sneary: I know.
Erika Mosteller: Like, what a paradigm to enter into.
Lauren Sneary: It's a great shift, and we talk all the time about new
you know, looking at things with new lenses, and I, My lens on Monday morning is quite different. I'll say that.
David Aft: You know, I think, I think you guys have younger children, so, but, you know, Dalton, again, offers you something. If, if nothing else than the pace and the rat race is different than if you were having to do exactly what you're doing but living in a Metro Atlanta or in Chicago-
or Washington or, or even Columbus, Georgia. Macon, places like that, are starting to get far busier than, than they ever were before. So I, you know, I, [00:30:00] I do that. And I also, you know, I'm a big believer that if you know, if you, if you approach the world with love, you know, and openness of spirit in your heart, it's amazing what'll happen if you let it.
And you know, that's been my Dalton experience. When there's been opportunities for fun stuff you know, the, I've, I've taken a step towards it. And I guess that energy, a lot of great things have come my way. But the other thing is, is I get to watch other people's stories too. I'm getting to a point now, I'll be 64 years old in October, and I'm watching the sons and daughters of the people I kinda came up with.
When you're in the civic world like I've been, you get to do a lot of neat stuff, oftentimes including lots of people. You know, lots of meetings and, and social functions and these types of things. So that's been really neat. But as, as I've done that the people that I kinda came up with, my cohort in this community, the other folks who got marooned here 30 [00:31:00] years ago-
have had kids. And you know, one of the wonderful things is I can remember, you know, meeting Lauren's father 25 or 30 years ago, and he was this, this guy who worked with a very difficult population. He, one of the many things he did is he provided support group for the batterers, people who were, you know, dealing with a, you know, a, a violence issue in the home oftentimes.
And you know, I- my background's in social work as well. Mine is a community orientation. His was more therapeutic. But he worked with the Northwest Georgia Family Crisis Center, and he helped these people learn a new way.
Lauren Sneary: Break the cycle.
David Aft: To break the cycle. And I was always inspired by the work that Jim did, and then over time, through a variety of different things, we came to know each other as fathers, and we came to know each other as musicians.
And all the different ways that you get when you relax into a community you begin to understand the dimensions. Well, at the time, we all had little ones like [00:32:00] your kids are now. And Lauren was one of those little ones. But, but to see folks grow into this community- and bond with it as well, so many of the, the kids that we raise here, they go off somewhere else, but then they remember, "Oh my goodness," you know, "now that I've tried the rest, I'm gonna come back to the best."
Yeah. And you know, my oldest son works for Shaw Industries. He has for 13 years. I got him back.
Erika Mosteller: Yeah.
David Aft: He, he lives, uh, over on Valley Drive. He's been successful in his career, but he loves disc golf. He also loves calling trivia at the Dalton Brewing Company. And so it's been amazing to watch him find his own connectivity
to this community. But it's also watching people like Lauren and others who are, you know, those type of things. I think my wife worked with your father-in-law way back when. And, and these stories are not just David Aft stories. So many people are part [00:33:00] of this fabric, of this community for multiple generations, and it's wonderful.
I've said, and you go back to the Burr Park thing, we wanna build a community that is unrecognizable to the kids that grew up here.
I want them to say, "Oh my God, there are 40 restaurants in downtown. I can make an evening of it. It's a safe place. The buildings aren't boarded up. There's a pulse."
You know, one of the things I love to do is sit down at Dave and Paulie's Art Emporium and just watch people. And so what we're seeing are young couples. We're seeing teenagers. My version was go get a milkshake and some fries 'cause that's what a, a kid can afford on a date, you know, when you're 15 and you're walking around, you don't have a car or anything like that.
But I'm seeing kids now go have a taco or go to Scoops Ice Cream down there, which is a wonderful addition to that. But to enjoy downtown in an interactive way, 'cause what they're doing is creating memories. When I watch a kid slide down the hill at Burr Park or a, you know, a teenager go out [00:34:00] and play a round of disc golf or hike on our amazing trail system, you know, these are memories that when you ask them about their hometown, they will give you an answer that is different.
Lauren Sneary: Yeah, and create a pull.
Favorite Dalton Things
---
Erika Mosteller: So what's your favorite Dalton thing? We ask everybody this question.
Lauren Sneary: Yeah, I was gonna say, we gotta, we gotta, we're moving toward wrap up, and we always wanna know. And it's hard to pick, and you've said a lot of nice things about Dalton.
David Aft: It is. Well, you know, I love living here.
It's a, it's a great thing. But you know, I love the trail systems. I'm, you know, I'm a runner and a hiker, and you know, that's something I came to very late in my life. It m- certainly if people had known me 20 years ago, uh, they would've gone, "Oh, that guy." You know, "He's not, he's not gonna be hiking anywhere."
But I was always very active. And, uh, you know, in the last 15 years or so, we've watched Dalton put online probably 25 miles of really amazing trails, whether it's you know, the hidden gems like Mount Rachel or the ones that everybody gets on in the Mill Line. the trails behind Dalton State are amazing.
But we have this integrated trail [00:35:00] system, and you hook it up with the Disney trail and the Pinhoti and all these. This is really an outdoor community. And so that's the one that excites me. I remember thinking there the other thing was to see downtown grow. When I'm down here on a Friday night and people are everywhere, not just at Burr Park, but at the Dalton Brewing Company watching a soccer game or wandering around or visiting Hamilton's or all these great places, these are people engaging the subject matter, but they're also creating the memories and the, the stickiness that the marketeers talk about.
How do we make that product valuable to the people who use it? And this community has become, over the last 25 or 30 years in the time that I've been here, a very interesting place with an engaged and committed population and people who are interacting with our community. And in the past, they'd all been somewhere else.
Erika Mosteller: Yeah. Yeah, that's powerful.
Lauren Sneary: Really nice.
Erika Mosteller: And we've been able to watch some of that too, just since we've, since I've moved here. I live, I moved here 12 years [00:36:00] ago, and I know you came back-
Lauren Sneary: Yeah ...
Erika Mosteller: somewhere along there.
Lauren Sneary: I always tell people the only place to hang out was the Walgreens parking lot when I was growing up.
And so everything you've just described is, is unrecognizable in that sense when it's through that lens. But the, there's the, the core of Dalton and the, and the human connection and the way people show up for each other, I think has stood the test of time and-
David Aft: It has. And, and we also say that we wanna create memories for y'all's kids that my kids didn't have.
And I think we're well on the way to doing that. You know, the, addition of the Latino population to Dalton has been a wonderful diversifier, and I think if there was ever anything that would future-proof us, it's the fact that we brought in a population that sees the American experience differently than perhaps some of the predecessors did here.
And so it's exciting to see all of that. But you know, I'll, I guess I'll end where I began. Uh, You know, I get up every day in Dalton, Georgia, and I know I'll be surprised by [00:37:00] something.
Erika Mosteller: Yeah.
Something
cool. I love it.
Lauren Sneary: Well, David, thank you so much for joining us today. This has truly been a pleasure, and thank you for all the work that you do for this community.
David Aft: Oh, it's a pleasure, and thanks for having me.
Erika Mosteller: Yeah.