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The stories of entrepreneurs, leaders, coaches, and interesting people.
Olivia Bailey: [00:00:00] Find a way.
Matt Lavinder: Olivia Bailey, it is a pleasure to have you here.
Olivia Bailey: Yes, thank you so much for asking our organization to be a part of this today. We're so excited to share our story.
Matt Lavinder: It is it is a really cool story, but it's such an important it's such an important story and I wanna really get into the work you guys are doing to recover from the hurricane and the All-star team that you've put together to tackle such a massive event.
Olivia Bailey: I'm telling you guys it, this is an amazing team. I may be the one here representing us, but there are tons and tons of people who are part of this initiative and this nonprofit that we
Matt Lavinder: built. Oh, it is literally a herculean effort. And, this podcast is the pod, the podcast was a designed to be about leaders doing.
Really important and extraordinary things in this little town of Bristol. And what better example of that than the work you guys [00:01:00] have done to recover from such a massive. Massive event. So I can't wait to get into that.
Olivia Bailey: Absolutely.
Matt Lavinder: But first I wanna, you're a pretty interesting story yourself.
Olivia Bailey: Oh my
Matt Lavinder: gosh.
So I wanna slow down a bit before we get to the Hurricane Recovery Project, and I wanna talk about Olivia Bailey.
Olivia Bailey: Sure. Not really all that interesting, but we'll talk about whatever you wanna talk about that. I'm happy to do it. Happy to be here.
Matt Lavinder: Yeah. So at television you got into, at your work for WCYB as a television personality, and that has morphed into other opportunities.
Take me back. You graduated from Emory and Henry, are you from the, are you from the area?
Olivia Bailey: Yeah, I grew up in chill Howie, and then I spent four years at Emory and Henry and before, moving into my professional career, so yeah. Local girl.
Matt Lavinder: So when you were growing up in Chill, Howie, were you thinking about being on TV or did that just happen?
Olivia Bailey: People ask me that question all the time [00:02:00] and I'll tell you that I don't really recall a time. That I thought that was gonna be my future. But I just remember someone asking me once I got into high school what do you think you're gonna do? And my natural response was, I guess I'm just gonna be a reporter.
And I can't tell you really where that ever came from, other than the fact of, and I still laugh about this to this day when I was in fifth grade I created this newspaper that I distributed within my elementary school, and it was called The Funky Monkey. I hope this never, exists anywhere else.
But I would write this newspaper and I would put it out with like boxes so people could contribute to it. And so I think that's really my first. Step into the journalism world that, 20 years later here we were and I was on tv, but that early writing career, I guess got me.
Matt Lavinder: That is crazy.
You're not the only person in this room who started a newspaper in elementary school.
Olivia Bailey: I love this. I love this. I didn't even know this.
Matt Lavinder: This is, I don't know that I've ever told anybody this, but we, there was a sanctioned newspaper in our [00:03:00] elementary school. I was like fourth or fifth grade, and Michael Jackson was the celebrity.
And so that was pop culture in the eighties, but they wouldn't do anything that was interesting or edgy. So I took it up on myself. Me and my friend Justin Henry actually started a underground newspaper at Indian Springs Elementary School. I got in big trouble over it, but that was,
Olivia Bailey: I love this. So we're destined to be partners one day, Matt, I guess on some random newspaper.
Matt Lavinder: Yeah. Yeah. Someday that newspaper, one of those newspapers is gonna show up in a box somewhere and I'm gonna be have some answering to do. But so you so you go to Emory and Henry no idea what you wanted to do at that point in your life?
Olivia Bailey: So yeah, once I got to Emory and I really never thought I would end up at Emory and Henry, I just thought, I'm gonna end up at one big SEC Division one school.
And and the puzzle pieces fell into place. I'm a community person. And [00:04:00] as soon as I took my first visit on the campus, there, they were. Canceling their classes just to talk to me about the culture and what I would learn and how everything would be on campus. And professors were walking me to different classes in the snow.
And from that moment that I stepped on the campus, I knew that's where I was gonna attend. Luckily, everything fell into place. I ended up running cross country there studying mass communications. And at the time it was public policy and community service. And I call it my miracle, but I didn't know Emory's a private institution if I would be able to afford the tuition there.
And it so happened I just said, I'm gonna try the first semester here. If I can afford it, I can if I can't. That's gonna be okay too. And the Bonner Scholarship, which is a community service based scholarship, one person didn't show up and I was the first alternate, which covered my tuition for the rest of my time at Emory and Henry.
And so that's really what led to internships at CNN, at CBS Evening News in New York. And all of that was from my [00:05:00] advisors and the community support Wow. That I had there. That eventually yeah, early internships led me to WCYB, which it ended up being a 10 year career for me.
Matt Lavinder: So tell me about the internships.
'cause I think. Kids in college. I call them kids. But
Olivia Bailey: I do too.
Matt Lavinder: They are. I don't think they put enough importance on internships, like they're life changing.
Olivia Bailey: I was just having this conversation the other day with two university presidents at a meeting that I was in, and I said that internships were the most important thing to me because I learned what I did love and what I was good at, but then also learned what I didn't like.
And where I did wanna live and didn't wanna live. And, I interned at CNN in the News source department gosh, that was 2013, probably.
And I have a mentor Jason Chu that I still have today. He still checks in on me when I'm changes.
Matt Lavinder: And
Olivia Bailey: this is this
Matt Lavinder: is CNN
Olivia Bailey: cnn. Yep.
That in
Atlanta
Olivia Bailey: and Atlanta.
Matt Lavinder: Yeah.
Olivia Bailey: Went down there. I worked with over 900 affiliates for news stations across the country. I really got ingrained in the culture, learned what they were doing, and loved it. [00:06:00] But then I wanted to come back to local news. I still had some time to finish at Emory, and then I earned a fellowship in New York City with CBS Evening News and the International Radio and Television Society.
Loved it, got that experience, but I always thought, I wanna live in a city, I wanna work in big media. And then once I got up there and had that experience, I realized I can make so much more of a difference at home, working in local news and becoming, a part of that community. And I think that's why I was so passionate to come back to Southwest Virginia and northeast Tennessee and serve this community as opposed to, being in the national news cycle.
And you do make a difference there, but it's not at the same level at least for me to get to know my neighbors and make that difference.
Matt Lavinder: Yeah it's counterintuitive because most people that, that get into that world think that the bigger the audience, the more impact they're making, but.
You felt differently?
Olivia Bailey: I did. And I have a college advisor, Dr. Tell Stanley, that, we had fights back and forth. Uhhuh, I wanna go to the city. Olivia we [00:07:00] had a lot of studies on place and what place means to a person and it took me moving away to a big city to recognize that.
But as soon as I got home, I just dove right in. And you're right, in the television world, in the broadcast world, everybody's looking at market sizes, trying to move up, trying to increase salary. None of that was really ever important to me. Obviously you have to have a livelihood and be able to support yourself and your family.
But when I saw the difference that I could make going into the coal fields and telling the stories of the coal fields, or, it, today in the work that I do, it still impacts me of, helping Hurricane Alene or helping organizations that. Might not have the notoriety or the public attention that they need.
And I just saw every day the difference that I was able to make.
Matt Lavinder: Yeah, that's the, your, the word you use, your sense of, a sense of place, I think is under, is often underestimated. We're so mobile, we think about ambition and being able to move and follow our dreams and [00:08:00] spread our wings. But place is a human.
It's an important part of being a human.
Olivia Bailey: It completely wrecked my sense of success. I, the world and society tells us that, your, the larger your salary is or the more accomplishments that you have, that's what makes you successful. But when I, in my experience, it's all been about.
Am I a person in this community who is making a difference and making this a better place for other people to live for future generations, to succeed for the people who live in this community to have a better life. And that that's what success has become to me. And, as I continue to move forward in my career, sometimes that's some hard decisions and what that looks like.
But, it's been the most rewarding of any, whether that's, professional life or personal life or what I volunteer on. It's made all the difference.
Matt Lavinder: So you made that conscious choice, like there was probably a fork in the road at some [00:09:00] point where you could stay in the Atlantas or you could go to the New Yorks and you made that conscious choice.
It did. When did you learn that about yourself? That's where you. That's where your sense of meaning is. 'cause that's a lot of, that's a lot of self-awareness. That's swimming against the current
Olivia Bailey: interesting. And was a, and I can specifically outline that for you, Matt, because I was supposed to take a job right out of that c CBS internship in the Boston market, which is number seven in the country.
And I was down to the wire day of, that they have to have my answer on this, on whether or not gonna move to this new station. It was startup station, I had known this person from a previous job. Networking was amazing. But there was something about my heart and prayerfully considering this option that I just couldn't make it work.
It just didn't feel right. And I was still interviewing for other jobs all across, different media markets. WCYB was definitely in the mix. And [00:10:00] at one point, this news director, when I call him to tell him, my heart's just not in this. And his response to me was you can move to a smaller market and make less money.
And I just said, okay, I guess that's what I'm gonna do. And it, at that point, it was never about a paycheck. It was never about, seeing myself on the tv. That's never been my motivation for anything. It was about am I gonna make a difference in the community that I'm in?
And so from that moment on, I was like, I guess I'm moving home. Yeah. It wasn't a question to me at that point. And from that day forward, as soon as I went back on the air, it's never, it's I am proud to represent all of the entities that I've represented.
I've been proud to work for the places, but it's never been about me.
It's about these, the communities that I serve, the people who are part of these communities, because as you well know, people from Southwest Virginia and Northeastern Tennessee are some of the most hardworking, resilient people that I've ever met.
Yeah. And so just to be a part of that Yeah. And to be recognized with that. I'm so proud of that.
Matt Lavinder: Yeah. I think it's also, I think it's also [00:11:00] fair that those are all true. The hard, the hardworking the proud Appalachian character. I think there's also an inferiority complex that comes with it, and you sought out an opportunity in Atlanta and New York and Boston.
Can you take me back to that process? Like those opportunities don't just fall in your lap. You seek them out. So you must have really done some grind and seeking out those opportunities.
Olivia Bailey: Yeah. And I recall all of these times, I'm so glad that you're allowing us to reflect on these times in my life.
And just looking back, those were some hard years in my life. My high school to early college years. I was in a situation that if I didn't fight for myself, I didn't feel like anybody else was going to. And so that really motivated me to, become a high achiever, become valedictorian of my class to [00:12:00] overachieve in ways.
And that's always been my personality, but it's because I wanna be a good representative of the people who have invested in me and the opportunities that I've been given. I never wanna take those for granted in any capacity. But I remember applying for CNN and I did it off a whim, when you're in college you're just looking for those big break moments too, and I applied. Some
Matt Lavinder: people are,
Olivia Bailey: yeah. Not
Matt Lavinder: everybody is
Olivia Bailey: backtrack but that was at that time I was like where do I go next? And
Matt Lavinder: yeah.
Olivia Bailey: Now how do I build this? And I'd applied to CNN and honestly, I didn't think anything was gonna happen.
I, this was, we were getting into the months of May and June. I had already set up two volunteer opportunities, so what I was gonna do, because I hadn't heard back from them, I was gonna go work for a nonprofit right outside of Nashville and volunteer there, live with a college friend. And then I was gonna go to New York also in unpaid, I don't know how I thought I was gonna do all of this and volunteer for another agency.
And then as I was getting those things aligned, CNN called and that would soon [00:13:00] become my lifelong mentor, Jason Mucci. And it's funny 'cause I hope he sees this, I'm gonna send this to him, but he told me, he was like, I don't even know where Emory and Henry is. And taking a chance on you.
Yeah. But I think it's gonna be good. And by the end of the time, we have a joke now that I had gotten Emory and Henry to send me some cups and now every time I talk to Jason in a call, he's got that cup right there. And he was like, I know where Emory and Henry is now. Yeah. But. But that was an opportunity that I saw and once it was presented to me, I was able to take it and learn so much.
But also that was really the first time that I'd had that type of mentorship where somebody invested in me and wanted the best for me and looked out for opportunities for me. Of course, I'd had that many other ways, but in my professional life, that was really that first example of that. Yeah.
Which only built over time.
Matt Lavinder: Yeah. You're from Chill Howie. For people that are not from here, chill, Howie is as big as it sounds like it is.
Olivia Bailey: Correct.
Matt Lavinder: So you're in your, you're in your what, 20 at that point when you [00:14:00] go to Atlanta, and
Olivia Bailey: that
Matt Lavinder: sounds
Olivia Bailey: about
Matt Lavinder: Do you remember? Do you remember? I think it's so important.
I don't think we have enough female mentors for, we don't have enough, we don't have enough good male mentors for young men. I don't think we have enough. Female mentors for young women who are trying to figure, they're coming from Appalachia, they're trying to figure their own selves out, they're trying to spread their wings.
Can you take us back to the day you walked into the CNN building, what kind of self-doubt and what kind, like what was going through your mind when you walked through those doors?
Olivia Bailey: Just the legacy media, everybody recognizes those call letters, CNN.
Everybody knows what that means. And so for me, it was just overwhelming gratitude to be able to be in that position. But also, I'm not gonna waste one second of it. I'm gonna get every ounce of knowledge of experience. I'm gonna talk to everyone that I can. I [00:15:00] did a lot of just like interviewing people and talking to them about their own lives and I had come from one of the CNN affiliates, which you most TV stations across the country are. So I had already done an inter internship at WCYB through the Virginia Association of Broadcasters, which was an amazing program. And so I had the backend knowledge of what an affiliate looks like, but I hadn't gotten that experience from the network style.
Just being able to get in there and have every experience that I could. 'Cause it was, a limited internship for the summer and then be able to come back and talk about that. But. To really answer your question and to the point is mentorship, has become one of the greatest assets in my own life.
And so I'm constantly looking for people that I can mentor or give advice to. And it's not because I think I know better than anybody. Yeah. Or I've just had different experiences and those were a lot of self-induced. I wanted those experiences. I saw those out. You saw them out?
Out.
Matt Lavinder: Yeah.
Olivia Bailey: And I want everyone to know just because you come from a small town or a place that doesn't [00:16:00] have a historical person who's gone to do this work, that it's not possible.
And, I looked up to so many people at the station, Tara Kesteren, Tara Taylor at WCYB. Had gone to Emory. She was, I watched her on the news all the time. I had several other people at Emory who had done these fellowships that I had done, Sonny Blevins, who was at Emory at the time. So I had looked up to these people, so I knew it was possible. Yeah. And I think for some people, that's all they've gotta know.
They've just gotta know what's possible.
And that, they can do it. And I think, with enough hard work and just the willingness to put in the effort, sometimes I think we limit ourselves is that we just. Think it's out of reach. And oftentimes if we have the de dedication showing up is 90% of the work.
Matt Lavinder: Yeah.
Olivia Bailey: And just, and being willing to do it. That's how
Matt Lavinder: you got the scholarship.
Olivia Bailey: That's how I got the scholarship,
Matt Lavinder: yeah.
Olivia Bailey: And I've been very lucky, but I've also tried to never take any of those opportunities for granted when they have been given to me.
Matt Lavinder: Yeah. The the work that goes in behind the scenes I think everybody that grows up in this area and [00:17:00] leaves their first experience, they question their own, they question themselves like, can I be successful outside of Bristol or Chel, Howie or Em and Henry, and then you realize like you, these people aren't any smarter than we are.
Olivia Bailey: Correct.
Matt Lavinder: But, so it transfers into to belief, but the belief. You have to work, like you have to do the work. And I had recently I had Casey White on who is doing commentary for MLS, the Major League Soccer now as a female in the, yeah. In one of the, and she's just got a contract and talking about her broadcasting career.
And I think with you guys in that career, we see game day, right? We see you speaking into a microphone and we think, wow, she makes it look easy. But it's the work, it's the preparation that goes in behind the scenes. Yeah.
Olivia Bailey: And a lot of hours and just like I said, showing up for that, it takes, I oftentimes tell people [00:18:00] now about my television career that it took 10 to 15 years to build those relationships. It's not, you just show up on day one and everyone's gonna call you back as a source or give you the information that you need. It takes years and years of trust and development of those relationships to really make them successful.
Matt Lavinder: Tell me more about that. Because that's, that is like every episode I do with successful people, the theme of relationship, the centrality of relationships to their success almost always comes up. You look at their story and it's about relation. You can always trace their success back to relationships.
So tell me about, tell me, because that's not something that we think about with journalists.
Olivia Bailey: Yeah. For me it's the core, it to my principles as being a journalist, because what tends to happen in the broadcast industry and I, this is probably a gross generalization, take it in stride.
But a lot of those relationships, different reporters are moving from different markets. Just [00:19:00] how the businesses, you get experience at a smaller market, you move to a bigger market. That's just naturally, technically that's not what I did. But that's typically what happens.
So a lot of the relationships become transactional of you give me this information, I'm gonna ask you these questions, but. I had prided myself and really made an intentional effort to, I'm gonna ask about this person's day. These are investigators that have been working murders and robberies and all kinds of difficult stuff.
You don't know what they've been through that day. And then, a lot of cases you're showing up on the worst day of people's lives, and asking them to tell you everything on a camera, that's not easy. Yeah. And a little bit of just conversation and real connection goes a long way.
And so I got to a point where I would ask about people's families and try and just understand who they were and where they were coming from. And a little bit of trust here and there is if they tell you something off the record, it's off the record. And a lot of times. Journalists [00:20:00] get a bad name because they'll burn a bridge or not follow through with something. And I don't mean to say this, journalists are great people. They work so hard. That's not what I'm trying to say. Yeah, sure. Because it's a hard career. But sometimes if you're not from a community, you don't understand the nuances of how important these relationships are.
So a burnt bridge, may be difficult for a little while. And then you move on to a different market. But. If you're gonna be working with those same people for 10 years, you've really gotta maintain this level of trust and understand who they are and you know what they do, but also understand that they also have professional responsibilities that sometimes they can't tell you stuff or you can't get stuff from a court system or, things like that.
So you're gonna have to give and take a little bit. And just small things like that. Yeah. Just having those conversations, getting to know people making it less transactional. And I feel like as a community reporter, that's who you're supposed to be. You're supposed to be a member of that community.
So a lot of times and I still go talk at Acade and stuff for graduates who are, graduating as a law [00:21:00] enforcement officer or a dispatcher that, a lot of times those people are, first line of defense, you're a member of that community too. I've worked a lot of law enforcement.
Officers are involved shootings where I'm a member of that community too. I'm grieving too, on the scene.
Matt Lavinder: Oh, on a personal level.
Olivia Bailey: On a personal level. And so you're experiencing all that while you're on the scene as well. So you're not trying to always be intrusive or gather information, you're really just trying to communicate that to the rest of the community.
And so it's just understanding those dynamics and respecting those Yeah. And knowing when it's time to, reach out and when it's time to probably step back a little bit. But, it's all about being a member of that community as well.
Matt Lavinder: You were quite young when you were doing this work, right?
Were you in your twenties?
Olivia Bailey: Yes, I was. And sometimes I say ignorance is bliss because sometimes I just didn't know. The impact of some of the stories that I was covering at the time.
Matt Lavinder: Did you understand the power that you had? Like it there's a power imbalance when, you were in the, you were in the chair, the [00:22:00] nightly the nightly news.
That's a lot of, that's a lot of power. Were you aware.
Olivia Bailey: I don't think to the extent now I hear as I'm traveling in my career now, I hear people come up all the time. We miss you. We miss seeing you. You made such a difference. We loved seeing you on TV every day. And it's, it's humbled to me in a lot of ways.
But, I was just proud to be a member of the community and be representative of my community. A girl from Chill, Howie Uhhuh know it's not just like somebody coming in and reporting on all these communities. I know these communities and I love these communities, so I was honored Yeah.
To be able to have that.
Matt Lavinder: Yeah. But it's gotta like, it he's talking about developing trust, like people that are, you are interviewing, if it's a police chief. Or a mayor, like they are keenly aware of the imbalance of power in this.
Olivia Bailey: And that's why I say ignorance is bliss sometimes because you just ask some questions and you're like, wow, I should not have had the capability of even having access to this person.
And now I'm like questioning them about this whole thing. I've interviewed [00:23:00] governors, senators, now working in my office, and I think honestly that did prepare me for, the rest of my career because I was able to come in and know that, just because I have an age difference or just because, I, I may not have this degree as this person or, yeah.
May come from a different life background, but we can still connect on a lot of issues. I always say that I know a little bit about a lot of things. I can be in any room and talk to anybody about anything. And I know just enough to be dangerous probably. But but it gave me confidence to, to be able to walk in any room and talk to people.
Matt Lavinder: Yeah. Yeah. That's a super, that's a superpower.
Olivia Bailey: I love it. I love it. And now sometimes it, that conversation might maybe 30 seconds or less buthuh, it's given me a confidence that I don't think I would've had otherwise.
Matt Lavinder: Yeah. Very cool. I do have to ask you, you did an internship in New York.
Olivia Bailey: Yes.
Matt Lavinder: You've, you don't have a distinctive accent, but I'm guessing when you were 20 you still had a chill Howie accent.
Olivia Bailey: Oh my, yes. Actually
Matt Lavinder: tell me how that, tell me how that flew in the city.
Olivia Bailey: It's funny because when I was still in Atlanta, even, jason's probably gonna laugh at [00:24:00] this as he's listening, but I did have an accent and I thought I didn't, I was like, oh, okay.
I'm like adapted from this. But he would, he set up calls for me with a well-known reporter out of New York to talk to each other, to offset our accents. So somebody from New York was calling me here in, Southwest Virginia talking to me. I was talking to them, but the advice they gave me, they were like, read everything out loud.
When you read the toilet paper, the back of the toilet paper out loud, read magazines, read anything that you can get, read it out loud and correct yourself. And I laugh now, just
Matt Lavinder: Self-correct. Like
Olivia Bailey: Yeah.
Matt Lavinder: Recognizing you're recognizing the accent. Yes.
Olivia Bailey: And then I did at one point at WCYB, I was sent to the Barter Theater to do vocal training with Zacchaeus actually, who's still one of the resident actors there at the barter.
And it was funny because he was like. I don't really see anything wrong. What are your troubled words? And I still have some troubled words.
Matt Lavinder: Yep.
Olivia Bailey: That every time I say them, I'm like, oh yeah, I'm from southwest Virginia. It
Matt Lavinder: comes out,
Olivia Bailey: it comes out and I [00:25:00] can tell if I've been in a community for a little bit of time, they know.
I just start to get acclimated back into that. But thank you. Because sometimes I'm like, I, do I have an accent or am I just like talking myself out of this?
Matt Lavinder: Yeah. I went to graduate school at Duke, which is, it's in North Carolina. It's not New York City. And they gave me speech therapy on my accent.
I literally went to, I literally went to somebody who helped me. Oh,
Olivia Bailey: this is funny. And I, but you know what? I'm proud that I still have a little bit of that. Yeah. Sometimes it still comes out. 'cause I'm like, I want them to know that I'm not from here.
Matt Lavinder: Oh. All so you the television career, you spend 10 years, you spend 10 years on W-H-H-L-W-C-Y-B, so sorry.
WCYB.
Olivia Bailey: That's okay. We still love our people at WHL. That
Matt Lavinder: was a big mistake. Yes. Do you remember wa, was there a particular story or stories that you covered during that 10 years that when you think back and [00:26:00] think, wow, that really made a difference?
Olivia Bailey: I think there are a lot. And I have people come up to me because when you're, when you're working at that magnitude, you're covering multiple stories a day, and just trying to balance.
And for a period of time there, I was really the only one focused on Southwest Virginia. So that there was a lot of time there where I just covered everything. But, the ones that I think the most back of, and I guess it's probably because of my career now, is I covered a lot of officer involved shootings and officers who died in the line of duty.
And, those are tough. Those are tough because, you have these public servants who are out in the community just trying to protect, their residents and then. To sacrifice their life. As a result of that, it's hard. And we went through a period of time in 2021 where we had multiple.
And I had a classmate from Chill, Howie Lucas Dow, who was with Virginia State Police, who was killed up near Appomattox. And that was in 2019. And that [00:27:00] just. was surreal, just standing there and being a part of that. And, but in those moments, and any time that I did a hard story like that, you're honoring someone's legacy.
You're covering the historical death. This is an event that has happened, but how can I honor what this person offered to this community? And, I had multiple of those. And one even chief Lane who was, who survived his shooting he was still our Norton Police chief today, and I talked to him almost weekly. Just the bravery and the courage that came out of just that survival. And, those were really hard things. And like I said, I work closely with law enforcement now, so those still stick up in the back of my mind.
But, those are events that the whole community comes out for that are all impacted by, and so those are the ones that stick out to me probably the most.
Matt Lavinder: Yeah. It's also gotta be tricky because all of those events are not. There's usually controversy in those and you're in the middle of it.
Like you have empathy in the middle of that. You're a part of the community and then you've also [00:28:00] gotta be objective.
Olivia Bailey: Yes.
Matt Lavinder: And an investigative reporter.
Olivia Bailey: Yes. And that's what I, that's what I say. Now I work for the attorney general's office, and I always describe my time at WCYB as you're able to educate and advocate and raise awareness of, but there's an ethical line
Too, that you present the facts as they are and let the viewers make up their mind. And I'm very big on that. And allow, presenting the facts and letting somebody make up their own mind on that. So yeah, there is a little bit of difficulty with that and it is hard. But I really prided myself on trying to do that because I didn't want my views to influence anyone else's.
Matt Lavinder: Yeah. Especially difficult being so young, like that's gotta be.
Olivia Bailey: Yeah,
Matt Lavinder: it's, those are just really diff That's a difficult job.
Olivia Bailey: Yes.
Matt Lavinder: Super difficult job.
Olivia Bailey: And I don't know that I always did it right. I did my best, but,
Matt Lavinder: and not everybody does their job on
Olivia Bailey: Yeah.
Matt Lavinder: And publicly on the
Olivia Bailey: screen where everyone can see it.
Yes.
Matt Lavinder: Like learning the craft, [00:29:00] especially learning it as young as you were, like learning the craft on the screen. Like
Olivia Bailey: Yeah. Everyone gets a windows that, there are lots of bloopers and, mistakes I'm sure and things that I got wrong, but, you can't always judge a successful career off the intention, but the intention was there.
Matt Lavinder: Yeah. Very cool. So you 10 years, 10 years in that profession. 10 years. 10 years in that profession. And then tell me about what, what led you to something new?
Olivia Bailey: Yeah, lots of two 30 wake up. Oh. Working that morning show. And I loved it when I did it. I still, love local journalism.
I think there's a need for it. There's a lot of. Divides in our country right now and a lot of concerns, the media gets caught up in a lot of that, but local journalism is so important in our local reporters. But I then took a job in I was director of marketing for Southwest Virginia for friends of Southwest Virginia, where I just promoted this region.
It's natural assets and the beauty that's here, but also the culture, the music and all of [00:30:00] the arts that we have here and all of that. And I loved it. And I always knew that if I was gonna leave, I was gonna leave for something that I was super passionate about. And so I did that for about a year and a half, loved it, and got to go out hiking and fishing.
And listening to bluegrass music. It was like my dream job. And that's just happened to be in Richmond. For an event and the attorney general's office called me and asked if I would come up and I actually took them Southwest Virginia gear. And that was from a relationship at the time.
Chuck SLE was the Chief Deputy Attorney General. He used to be a Wise County Commonwealth attorney. So we had worked together for almost a decade and closed this door and he's we've got a job and we think you might be good for it. And so it just by shock. And of course we did a full interview process.
There were, multiple candidates. But those relationships that I had built in television, 5, 6, 7, 10 years prior had now proven that, I had a lot of those existing relationships and got hired in this community liaison officer position. And that's really focused on protecting public safety and making that [00:31:00] available for all of our communities through programs and resources and financial obligations.
And then also just, a assisting communities connecting them to Richmond, yeah. Down here, a lot of times people have the fear that, the state stops at Roanoke and that resources aren't given down here. And so it was really my goal to make sure that every. Resource that we had every program that we could implement, everything that this, these communities needed, that they were able to get that equally.
And really pushed for that. And this has been a year and a half at this. Obviously our term is ending in the coming year. But we've done a lot of good work, expanded a lot of programs, worked with our senior citizens, our youth our law enforcement, just to create these programs.
And it was a natural fit because it was building off of everything that I developed in Southwest Virginia as a reporter. But, I could. I could tell the stories and I could advocate on them, but I couldn't really do anything about it. Yeah. And then I stepped into a position where now we have these issues, what can we make?
And what can I do from a state level position? Which, often our jurisdiction is limited, [00:32:00] but you can, I worked a lot on capacity building of what are the questions that we need to ask to build these agencies up, and how can we get them the resources that they need right now so they know they can be successful?
And so that's been an honor.
Matt Lavinder: That's a new word. I don't think I've ever heard that word. Capacity building.
Olivia Bailey: Yes.
Matt Lavinder: Tell me where
Olivia Bailey: that
Matt Lavinder: comes
Olivia Bailey: from. So what I see or what I've experienced over the last year and a half is that, a lot of times in southwest Virginia we have. We have great partners, in our law enforcement and our community agencies, all trying to serve victims of violent crime or, be the law enforcement, the public safety officers on the streets, or, whether it was working on the opioid crisis or trying to educate people on fentanyl or tell our senior citizens about scams.
There's only so much an organization can do, or an agency has, there's limited time, there's limited resources, there's limited money. And so I had a lot of flexibility to be able to go to each of those agencies and say, how best can we [00:33:00] implement this program? Who are the people that need to be involved so we can split the responsibility so it doesn't feel like a heavy lift?
Where are we gonna find this money and let's build our schedule so we know what our expectations are for the next year. And I was able to do that all across the region. And, little by little we just chipped away and we offered new programs. We got these agencies in a position where they felt like they could see the light at the end of the tunnel, and they could also incorporate community policing, crime prevention programs for, everyone in their communities.
And so that, that was an honor just to be able to do that. And that's what I saw was my job. We were never just a state agency coming in and taking over something. We were just creating enough space that these agencies could see how they could build their programs and help their communities.
And it was really their faces on the front of those. And that's what we wanted ultimately.
Matt Lavinder: Wow. Wow. It sounds like really meaningful work.
Olivia Bailey: It has been amazing. Just watching it and be seeing these communities [00:34:00] change, seeing them increase their resources, being able to get police on the streets.
It's been amazing.
Matt Lavinder: Wow. I'm sure you've learned, you've, I'm sure you've learned a lot about government that you didn't you probably didn't understand from your, you
Olivia Bailey: could say that again
Matt Lavinder: from previous perspective. What have you what has surprised you?
Olivia Bailey: When you're the reporter asking questions of a lot of these agencies, you're expecting answers immediately.
Like you want those answers pretty quickly. And I know everyone's heard this saying, government doesn't work that quickly. But I always try to speed it up just a little bit. I'm like, how fast can we get this answer? So really just learning the government process of especially when you're working in an office like ours, there are a lot of checks and balances of, is this legal?
How will this affect other entities? How will this affect this program or this agency? And so just really learning the process of it all that's important. But in the office of [00:35:00] the Attorney General. Our jurisdiction is so limited sometimes that we can't do a lot of stuff.
We represent state agencies, we have programs, but a lot of things is, things are done or decided by the general assembly or
By the government agency themselves, and we represent those. So there's a lot of, checks and balances in there, but, it's just been incredible just to be a part of that and be able to have partners in the govern, governor's office and government agencies and just understand what they do.
Matt Lavinder: Yeah.
Olivia Bailey: There's so much good work that's happening, and I just wanted to make that as efficient and as available and accessible to everyone as possible.
Matt Lavinder: It sounds like you were pleasantly surprised that it sounds like the people involved that you're working with you, you feel, are it they see it as their community, like it's good human beings that are trying, really trying.
Olivia Bailey: Yeah. I and I don't say that as a political thing, yeah. I think the people, at least in our office that we had around me, they were the hardest working, most committed team that I've ever [00:36:00] worked with.
And we all believed in the mission of what we were doing.
And so that made all the difference.
Matt Lavinder: Yeah. That's good to hear.
Olivia Bailey: Yes.
Matt Lavinder: There's so much
Olivia Bailey: you can trust your government.
Matt Lavinder: There's so much cynicism and there's just so much cynicism and toxicity in the world right now. And it's but when you get inside, when you get inside of an organization, like people are usually working hard and trying to do the right thing.
Olivia Bailey: Yeah. And I think that's really relation where relationships come into play. And that's what I loved about. Our office is that we had regional liaison. I think it would be very difficult for me in some ways, to go to Northern Virginia and try and, yeah. Work in the same way.
And
Matt Lavinder: yeah.
Olivia Bailey: Our Northern Virginia, we had two liaisons up there. They were great and were able to work in those communities, but how intimately I knew these communities and, their specific issues there, yeah. The dynamics are at play are different here in Southwest than they are in Hampton Roads or Northern Virginia or Central Virginia for that matter or south side. And so when, and build those relationships and are able to communicate some of those you start to [00:37:00] problem, it's problem solving. Yeah.
Matt Lavinder: Yeah. Yeah.
Olivia Bailey: At its, foundational level.
Matt Lavinder: Yeah. And it's a unique, you're in a unique position.
It's not, you're not in the middle of a massive bureaucracy. It sounds like you. You're, you have some freedom to improvise and really make an impact.
Olivia Bailey: Yeah. And I think that comes just, from the top. Yeah. Our boss he really wanted us to have a little bit of autonomy to do that.
Obviously, we're working consistently with our teams in Richmond. Yeah. And all across the state. But, able to, and a lot of times what I couldn't do in things, it was con connecting partners together of how can we solve this in another way? This isn't our jurisdiction, but this person might be able to help you.
Or this community's had the same issue. How did they solve it? Or I know this, we don't provide this grant or money for this, but I know this agency does, so I'm gonna connect you with them so you can get the resources that you need. And so really it's just a community builder and just like being that central point.
And people would come to me when they needed something. Sometimes I couldn't get that. I just responded to a request from months ago because I just found a funder for this specific thing.
And sometimes [00:38:00] it takes some patience a little bit. Just knowing having a network of people and knowing what resources are available, I think that's what's, that was what was able to make us successful.
Matt Lavinder: The the relation, the relationships. It all, it keeps going back to the
Olivia Bailey: Yes.
Matt Lavinder: Relationships, right?
Olivia Bailey: Oh, absolutely.
Matt Lavinder: When you you've got you've got insight on so many things. We haven't even got to the thing we want to talk, but I really want, I really wanna know more about you.
You've got this unique perspective on our community. You have. Worked in this community, your whole professional life in these really interesting ways. And so you've got a unique perspective on this area. What do you identify as, what do you identify as the biggest challenges that people might not fully appreciate Southwest Virginia is facing right now, or just [00:39:00] Southwest Virginia?
In general?
Olivia Bailey: Yeah. And I can tell you some of the solutions to those, our organization that we created is gonna be one of those. But, I think if I could boil it all down to one thing, there and this is all stemming from multiple avenues, but. This is at one point Southwest Virginia was bustling with people with money, with resources from coal.
From coal. And our tobacco industries are, all of these industries. We had furniture, we had clothing, we had textiles, all of that stuff. And we started to lose all of that eventually. And when we lost a lot of our industry
Matt Lavinder: started. When did that start?
When did that start waning?
Olivia Bailey: Yeah. I would say, the 1980s, nineties, yeah. Really early two thousands is where we started to see the impact of that. And, working in the tourism world a lot of these entities were created out of a need. So the crooked road to focus on the music heritage around the mountain Friends of Southwest Virginia, all of those were, [00:40:00] created to replace and bring in additional visitors, but tax revenues and fund some of these opportunities.
And so as we started losing population, a lot of government formulas are based upon how many people live there, how many people are receiving these services. And so when you lose population and you start losing some of that, you become dependent upon the government, upon grants.
But you have this group, it's, it is counterintuitive because you have this group of really proud people who love what they do and who, work hard every day. Some of the hard, hardest working people, so they don't wanna ask for anything either. And so it's this conundrum of this experience of, being dependent upon.
But, so really, I want to see a southwest Virginia and I love Southwest Virginia. I think it's the greatest place to live. I think it's the greatest place to work and raise a family and all of the things that you always hear. But I think we have an opportunity to be the thriving [00:41:00] region that we once were.
I I think we've, made strides towards that. I think we have wonderful communities with great downtowns, great experiences and and lots of things to do in activities. And I think people don't often realize what all we have. But I think we can be the thriving communities that a lot of, our parents, grandparents, great grandparents knew too.
I think I wanna see us get back to that. So to where people are proud
Matt Lavinder: to be
Olivia Bailey: from here.
Matt Lavinder: Yeah. The coal money in those resources is difficult to replace.
Olivia Bailey: It is high paying jobs, a lot of, it, being able to ship that out and having those commodities Yes.
Matt Lavinder: In a really simplified way.
Do you see this point in history of Southwest Virginia as being in that phase of trying to replace the. Centrality of coal in the economy with other things.
Olivia Bailey: Yes. And I think it's gonna have to be a multifaceted approach.
Matt Lavinder: It's not one, there's not one magic, one magic industry that's gonna replace [00:42:00] coal.
Olivia Bailey: I, I don't foresee that happening. I think just with our economy now, it's completely different than it was in the eighties, nineties and early two thousands even. But yes, I do think, I think bringing back in and having small business and, looking at some of these larger opportunities, do we bring in data centers?
Do we look at technology? And building this workforce around this. That's one thing that I ha think we have been good at when we do get an industry in Southwest Virginia, being able, the partnerships and the collaboration among workforce development among our higher education institutions, among our K 12 schools, even being able to train people for these jobs and get them ready.
So I think we've got the infrastructure. We just need the investment. And the capital,
Matt Lavinder: I, I hear you saying that there's an intentionality about that. In terms of the workforce development, because that's critical, right? Like
Olivia Bailey: Absolutely,
Matt Lavinder: and it's a word we throw around a lot, but it's the answer is very like raw.
It's schools.
Olivia Bailey: Yes.
Matt Lavinder: What else is involved in [00:43:00] retooling it? It's such a tangible, like you're literally retooling a labor force that was coal mining in the last generation. Almost I don't know what the percentage of the economy coal was to Southwest Virginia. But it was
Olivia Bailey: high.
Matt Lavinder: But you're retooling that entire workforce to try to create value in other places.
Olivia Bailey: Correct. And I think that's why you've seen a lot of the, heavy mechanical stuff and the megatronics and a lot of easily transferable skills to a lot of these industries, and I think that's gonna be a big part of that. But yeah, just basically getting these the workforce ready for what they're gonna be doing and training in that.
And, I serve on the Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center board where we are looking at the whole health profession and where we have gaps there, and that we've got these. World renowned labs here in southwest Virginia to train on how to be in the healthcare industry. And so it's things like [00:44:00] that, getting these students involved and interested early and committing them to that and allowing them to, investigate that a little bit while they're in K through 12 education.
So when they go, whether it's a community college or a trade, or a, higher education institution of four years or more, that they're ready and that they feel confident in that and that's what they wanna do. And I, I think Southwest Virginia has been amazing at that. I think we're gonna continue to excel in that, and it's all gonna be just dependent upon which industries decide to settle here in this region,
Matt Lavinder: That's a heavy, that's a heavy lift.
It sounds like there's a lot of, there's a lot of players that are being intentional to make that happen. It's state resources, local resources, school systems, private, is it. Do you, is it that kind, that level of collaboration?
Olivia Bailey: Absolutely. And I hear our legislators talk all the time. It that we have to, if we wanna succeed and thrive, we don't often have [00:45:00] the ability to succeed without the help of our partners or our localities or our neighbors.
And so a lot, some of it's out of necessity, but I think that's who we are as a people. I don't think, we're territorial necessarily. And the fact of if that's why we see revenue sharing agreements, that's why we see some of these organizations and coalitions being formed, that, you may have the workforce, I have the land to build this building and this other person might have, the resources or tools we need to bring in there.
And so we're all gonna have to work together if we want that, because we're not just gonna find a lot of times in southwest Virginia a hundred acres that's. Contiguous that you can also build upon. You're working around mountains here. Yeah. And so I think some of those things, are just required and we've grown up in that spirit of collaboration.
And so it's not a hard ask of your neighbor to do that.
Matt Lavinder: Yeah. I think that we don't have the resources obviously, that metro areas have, but when you don't have the resources, and I've [00:46:00] heard a lot of people in private company, private leaders of private companies talking about like they were sometimes at their best when they lacked the resources and they had to be creative and they had to lean on relationships and they had to work lean.
Olivia Bailey: Yes.
Matt Lavinder: And I think our area, if there's, if maybe that's a competitive advantage that we have because we've never had the luxury of having resources showered upon us.
Olivia Bailey: Yeah. But the innovation has been amazing. So I love that you say that, and, those private public partnerships Yeah.
Are some of those most successful. And I think that comes from leaders who have also, been in those trenches with us. Walking those lines and trying to figure it out together. Yeah. And knowing that, they can, rising ship,
Matt Lavinder: brings
Olivia Bailey: everybody,
Matt Lavinder: And the leaders the leaders in this area typically grew up with nothing.
They didn't grow up with a silver spoon in their mouth. That's another interesting part of our culture.
Olivia Bailey: Yes. And I'm so proud of it.
Matt Lavinder: Yeah. Yeah. We get a bad rap about a lot of things, but man. [00:47:00] All right. So that if there was ever an example of what is extraordinary about Appalachia and this part of Appalachia, it is the response to Hurricane Aileen.
Yeah.
Olivia Bailey: It's been amazing.
Matt Lavinder: It was like, I wanna start with this story and then I wanna get into yours. But I had the speed the Speedway became kind of ground zero for the recovery effort and resources coming in and what they did at the Speedway. In such a short time, transforming that into a recovery, I don't know, a resource center.
And it was a logistical lift that was so incredible. And they had so much there that the challenges, they couldn't give it all away. That was the response from this community. And to hear the stories of what people contributed, that didn't have anything to start with. It's just so inspiring in the face of that.
[00:48:00] But I don't wanna, I don't wanna romanticize it 'cause this was a catastrophic event. Can you walk us through that, your, that day from your own perspective?
Olivia Bailey: Oh yeah. I'll never forget it. And I was actually supposed to be off of work from this day, just randomly off of work. It was a Friday.
I was at home and it had rained several days before this, but the rain had stopped on this Friday. It was bright and sunny outside. The wind was blowing, there was quite a bit of wind. And I start getting texts from friends in Damascus about it being underwater. And I was like, I look out the window.
I'm like, how? And it's not even raining here. And then I I talked to Blake Es, who's the Washington County Sheriff, and he's Olivia, we need the National Guard here. We can't do this. We need them. We can't get in touch with them. And so instantly I was like, okay I'm coming. And I threw on, some rain boots and got on the road.
[00:49:00] And what I saw as I traveled to Damascus was unlike anything that I thought I'd ever seen at that time, the water had already started to recede. But I got over there probably, one or two in the afternoon. This event really started happening around 11 o'clock, probably that day or so. But the Black Hawk helicopters rescuing people from the town of Damascus in Taylors Valley.
And we, we had people stranded in Taylors Valley for two days that we could not get to. 'cause the roads had washed out, bridges had washed out, creeper Trail was gone.
And I stayed there throughout the night, just at that command post watching deputies and, swift water rescue teams come in and out bringing people from all around town.
And I just couldn't, it was hard to watch, hard to believe this was actually happening because, when you hear a hurricane, we often think of, in Virginia we are a coastal state. So you think of that part of the state getting hit by this. Never in a million years would I have thought that we were gonna receive this [00:50:00] impact from a hurricane. In our office we were getting reports and they were, the governor was staging resources and I was like, oh, that feels like really dramatic. And, but thank God that they had the insight and the foresight to do that because I think had we just had tried to call those resources down, we wouldn't have ever made it in time.
There are a lot of things that I think, as difficult as this was, but if this would've happened at night for us in southwest Virginia we had a couple of fatalities, none of those in Washington County. But if this would've happened at night, if we wouldn't have had resources already in place, we would've been looking at a different scenario.
And so that, I do say that we were very lucky on, although, the property damage and destruction was really detrimental to a lot of families, but we were able to respond pretty quickly to that.
Matt Lavinder: The it's such a unique situation when a rural area like this gets flooded. It's not co it's not population density where you see in the [00:51:00] movies a flood happens.
It's not, it's really in the scheme of things, it's not that many people. But where it happened was so deep inconsequential, and the infrastructure, like you're like Damascus people who don't understand what we're talking about, like there just aren't that many ways in and out of Damascus.
Olivia Bailey: Correct.
Matt Lavinder: Or Taylor's Valley, like there's a couple of ways in and out and those roads are destroyed. It's the infras, the infrastructure, and the same thing. The same thing in North Carolina and in Tennessee.
Olivia Bailey: Yeah. And I will say, this was so unique 'cause I had covered floods in Buchanan County before, with Hurley, with Whitewood with some of these, 200 year historical floods.
But this scenario was unique in the fact of we had every locality that I serve from Montgomery County South in my current role was impacted by this. So we're dealing with widespread dozens of localities, not to mention, northeast Tennessee and Western North Carolina, who arguably.[00:52:00]
Saw loss of life, who saw infrastructure damage that was much, much more severe than us. Yeah. When you're working with agencies like FEMA and trying to get all of these resources coordinated, they're pulled in a lot of different directions as well,
Matt Lavinder: geo geographically, right? Yes.
You've got small pockets of people in such wide footprint, which is unique.
Olivia Bailey: Yes. And one that isn't typically, doesn't typically see this kind of destruction from, weren't a hurricane like this.
Matt Lavinder: Right.
Olivia Bailey: Inland.
Matt Lavinder: Yeah. So tell me about the, like the damage you saw, the damage on that day is, had to have been overwhelming with the, just the water.
Olivia Bailey: Yeah. I know, and I focused a lot on Washington County because it was our hardest hit locality. And a lot of what I'm gonna talk about today is at Virginia specific, I know we had this destruction in Tennessee and North Carolina as well, but I, my knowledge is mainly for Virginia.
But a lot of time in Washington County. But, places like Clater Lake and Pulaski and where we just had homes [00:53:00] that were floating down the river just gone. Just it's, yeah. Hard to even imagine. And just so many localities, but. We had stories of sheriff's deputies tying sheets together and rescuing people out of their homes.
And while they were watching the other part float away, Carl and Linda McMurray, who became national news and were one of our homeowner recipients, they weren't found for over a day. It was 24 hours before we even knew if they were alive, and we couldn't get rescue crews up there.
Luckily, we had the support of, Chesterfield County who had come down and were flying for us, and, all of the National Guard that were flying. Just the number of resources too that we were able to bring in because of our state of emergency also helped us with that. But it's just catastrophic really.
When you just have full buildings washed away or
Matt Lavinder: Yeah.
Olivia Bailey: Chunks of houses taken away down the river. It's just unbelievable.
Matt Lavinder: And the water recedes in, in, the, I remember looking [00:54:00] at, I remember looking at Damascus and thinking, what, how does, like, how does it's overwhelming.
Like what's first? And that's what always gets me about these catastrophes. It's so overwhelming. What do you do first?
Olivia Bailey: Yeah.
Matt Lavinder: And what do you do? Do you just one limb at a time?
Olivia Bailey: And I think that for me is the remarkable thing sitting here almost a year and a half later looking at what we've been able to do in that amount of time.
Because I remember, standing there that day and being like, this is going to be years and years of recovery. Which it is. Yeah. It is, we're still, we're gonna be years down the line still working on some of these things and protecting it from future events, but. Just the ability to, start navigating.
And I think and I might be getting ahead of us, the organization and nonprofit that we are able to build and focus on residential recovery. Because I know every single family that we assisted we're having that same thought, but they didn't have the resources at their [00:55:00] disposal. They're seeing their whole livelihood float down the river.
Matt Lavinder: Yeah.
Olivia Bailey: And not knowing where I'm gonna live, what I'm gonna do, where my property doesn't even exist anymore because the river's taken it over.
And so every time that I work on this project, that's who I think about is, what they had to have been feeling in that moment. It's a lot of time, a lot of energy, and a lot of effort.
But I was one of the lucky ones. My house was not impacted. I was able, so then I was able to give my time to somebody else who was impacted.
Matt Lavinder: Tell me what that looks like.
Olivia Bailey: Yeah. It was really funny because I got calls about this. Organization that we ended up forming Trail to Recovery, and we ended up being mainly a residential recovery nonprofit to help those in Washington County who had, who were recovering from Hurricane Helene. We also do have some, commercial assistance as well. And then some work on the Creeper Trail, but some other entities have taken over responsibility for that. So we had other partners and other outlets who were able to take that on.
So we [00:56:00] really put our focus on residential recovery and rebuilding and renovating homes for people who were damaged. And when they first approached me, I was like, I know nothing about construction and I don't know how to do this. And so my initial thought was, I don't have the time. And I don't know this, but there was just something that I was like, I was very lucky.
This is a community that needs us. If we don't start working now, we're gonna lose residence. They're gonna move.
Matt Lavinder: Yeah.
Olivia Bailey: And they're gonna have to leave home. And that's not fair.
And and they won't
Matt Lavinder: come back.
Olivia Bailey: And they won't come back. And, what's for them here now?
Matt Lavinder: Yeah.
Olivia Bailey: A year and a half later.
We have one of the most vibrant downtowns. We've done nothing but grown in Damascus and it's amazing. But we pulled a team together, I had media background to handle some of the events and external communications because, at, and now we are getting a lot of outreach from agencies all over the world on what we did.
So that was, at first I was like, oh does my position really matter? But it became very important. But we had [00:57:00] pulled a team together from the faith community, from the banking and financial institutions who had construction experience, who had community organizing experience, our small business owners.
And we all sat around a table, not much larger than the one that we're sitting at. And we all just had to commit and say, okay, what do we, what needs to be done and who's gonna do it? And we knew if we waited. On state or federal assistance that it could be years later. And really that's what we saw is, money's just now starting to be distributed from some of these agencies.
'cause there is a process in it and trying to figure that out. We got to work and we started, we partnered with a couple of faith-based organizations impact missions from the Baptist General Assembly of Virginia. We partnered with Mennonite Disaster Service in the in the Amish there to assist with that.
And we rebuilt over a hundred homes in a year. A
Matt Lavinder: hundred homes in a year.
Olivia Bailey: In a year. Eight of those were complete rebuilds that we had either [00:58:00] lost the full home or it was too damaged to restore it in any kind of way. But we were able to do 90 houses. We were able to get in there, whether it was a roof or the siding, or whether it was drywall or mucking gut.
Whatever it was, minor to moderate damage, we were able to restore 90 of those and rebuild eight complete houses.
Matt Lavinder: My, my business does that sort of thing. So I appreciate the volume and the philosophy that happens. That is no small feat for an organization that is established and mature and built to do that sort of thing.
But thi this organization did not exist on the day of the flood.
Olivia Bailey: It did not, it was formed immediately after the flood.
Matt Lavinder: So was it a Friday
Olivia Bailey: that the flood, the Friday happened on the Friday of Saturday is really when we started to establish and assess the damages.
Matt Lavinder: So the flood happens on, it happens on Friday.
It starts tell me about the genesis of this. Like it's gotta be some, [00:59:00] it's a small group of leaders. Is it?
Olivia Bailey: Yeah. And that's the crazy thing is I knew some of the people in this group knew of them. But didn't really know anyone deeply. And our leader of that organization ended up being Tony Miller.
He had just recently retired from Appalachian Power and was gonna start his fly fishing business. That was his retirement plan. We called him out of retirement to pay him $0 to run this organization. And technically, I think the way this worked was the county hired him at $0 in salary and partnered with a co-chair Alan, Jesse of Highlands Fellowship.
So we had a faith leader there as well, and we just pulled teams together. Jeff Kender, who ran our construction, has worked with impact missions who does recovery work all over Virginia and the nation really restoring homes. Shelly Tizer was our caseworker. She was instrumental for
Our goal was that no family had to walk this [01:00:00] alone.
They had already just lost their house. And so that's a tough, trying to make decisions in the middle of a tragedy, in the middle of trauma is so hard. Shelly and her team, we pulled people from each of the communities that were impacted. So they had a familiar face that was coming to knock at their door, coming to where they were staying.
They worked with them on, whether it was building house the blueprints and trying to figure out the agreements and the contracts for their houses. Shelly and her team sit, sat down and did that. And we wanted to do it with dignity. We didn't wanna just cookie cutter replace everything.
And so our teams, we pulled some people from the banking industry who helped run our finances. And we just, everybody just did what they were good at and we were able to move right along.
Matt Lavinder: So was it did you pull together government funding and private funding? Was it all private?
Like where did the resources?
Olivia Bailey: So it's a little bit of a mixture, but most, I would say is from we, United Way at that point had started [01:01:00] to become the central location for donations of Hurricane Helene. And this, the way that this organization worked was we were able, they then divided all of the money amongst the localities that were impacted in southwest Virginia and gave it to each of the counties.
We were able to make an agreement with Washington County that we would be the recipient of those disaster recovery funds. And we were able to distribute those that way. So people like United Way, we had private foundations that gave corporate foundations, individual donors. We were able to pull all of those funds together and, that was the thing that we've learned the most is there was a long-term recovery group that existed in Washington County with a her 2011 tornadoes.
But for whatever reason, we weren't able to pull that group back together. That team wasn't still in existence, so we had to form this organization on the fly and then also had a fundraise. And today we've been able to raise over 1.8 million in actual [01:02:00] dollars, and I would say in supplies and all of the equipment.
Probably, we're probably well over 2 million, two and a half million dollars in what we were able to raise in that amount of time,
Matt Lavinder: in such a short amount of time. Like the clock is ticking on these people.
Olivia Bailey: Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. And we knew that we had just had to get in there because we wanted everybody to be back in a safe home and
Matt Lavinder: Yeah.
Olivia Bailey: And not have to worry about this. And the great thing about the way that the Amish work was storm made and Mennonite Disaster Services is that the homes that we were able to rebuild are supposed to be that were are, structured in a way that they can sustain a category for a hurricane.
And so with all the building plans and how those are structured, the materials that we used on those, hopefully these families never have to face the same thing again, even if we have a natural disaster very similar to this. So
Matt Lavinder: tell me about those structures and who. So are you building most of them from, there's gotta be a lot of that.
A hundred that's from scratch.
Olivia Bailey: So eight of those completely rebuilt. [01:03:00] 90 were minor to moderate damage. So we're utilizing Butch Meredith and impact missions largely on, on those rebuilds. They have a lot of experience. They travel all over the country, but we are also using volunteers who came in from all over the country.
So we'd put them in teams and set the situation, those with Butch's teams. And
Matt Lavinder: are those skilled people?
Olivia Bailey: Some, mostly that's what we were trying to do to be as efficient as possible, but we weren't gonna turn down, volunteer support if we can help it. Yeah. So mostly skilled workers.
Now I will tell you the storm made teams that came in and rebuilt eight of our homes, phenomenal. They do this all over the country. Storm made travels there. The Amish arm of Mennonite disaster service. And the way that they work is they have a couple of blueprints on homes of, 1, 2, 3 bedroom, what that looks like, one, two bath.
We sat down with the families and had intentional conversations about what we wanted, the, what they wanted out of their home, what they wanted it to look like, pick out colors. Like I said, there, we [01:04:00] wanted some dignity to be a part of the process. We didn't, we knew that we weren't gonna be able to replace the memories of the homes or, the specifics of what they had before, but we wanted to get as close as possible and make this a place where people could make new memories and be comfortable and safe.
And so we sat down with them. We broke ground, I believe, on the first house on January 27th or 28th of the complete rebuild. And we had the first one done by April. And then I think we finished up probably let's say midsummer. And so we, it was six months. It was wild. Tony, and it would send me a picture in the day of, a house that, we were laying the foundation and by the end of the day he'd send me another picture and we would have it framed.
And he's like how does this happen? But, they would send down teams who mainly would stay for a week at a time. They had specialties, whether it was framing house or laying the foundation or masonry or whatever that looked like. And those teams would work for that week.
We put them [01:05:00] up at a camp of Hist over in Laurel Bloomery, and they would just go work. And, it was amazing. And we are so indebted to them. They in integrated themselves in our community too. They had a, every night on Wednesdays they would meet or people would tell their stories about what happened to them, share a meal and just talk through, what we were doing there at their house and how we were trying to assist them.
And, for them it was all about giving glory to God and like the skills that they had been given and being able to put those back to use. And it's just amazing to see what they were able to do.
Matt Lavinder: Wow. What, in retrospect, what was the hardest, what was the hardest thing?
Olivia Bailey: Wow. Be, this venture was just such, it was such a life giving experience.
That, there were lots of days. I think we were all exhausted. 'cause I think we all went for about a year straight of answering the phone and making plans and trying to get these families where they needed to [01:06:00] be. Just, I would say just. The pressure and weight of knowing that these families, livelihoods were in our hands for that period of time.
It was just a lot of pressure, I think to do it right and to make sure that they were helping because the work itself, everybody who was doing something was doing what they were skilled in. I told them, I said, do not ask me to pick up a hammer because this is just gonna get you further behind than it is ahead.
But can I talk to the media? Can I schedule events? Can I meet with stakeholders? Can I invite these people? I was able to do that. Can David manage the finances? Give us our profit and loss? How many donations have we had? All of these things, and because we were all just working. We weren't working in silos, but we were just working on those parts of the, nonprofit or the business that we needed to, and we were able to get a lot of help. I will say, I know Tony and Jeff met multiple times with other communities that had been through this before. So I think white Sulfur Springs, West Virginia had gone through this before, so they were able to give us assistance with creating our [01:07:00] bylaws and, anytime we had a problem or ran into an experience that we weren't sure of, we could call them.
So it was having, trusted sources also to call. And I will say we couldn't have done this without. Governor Youngin and his administration, he sent teams down from his secretariat who was able to cut through a lot of the red tape of government of this would typically take these permits and this would typically take this long a time to run it through this process.
Can we just expedite that for one reason or another? And so working with our local state and federal officials to, work on all of that, we saw great success.
Matt Lavinder: Were you impressed with the, with that's a lot of I, I wouldn't think that's a lot of cooks in the kitchen. A lot of territorialism, a lot of politics were, did you walk me into, did, was, did you overcome i'm just curious. Yeah, just take me behind the curtain. Was it,
Olivia Bailey: that's something that comes up a lot for us. And I've heard Tto Quinn say this on multiple occasions. He, we had a lot of support from our state [01:08:00] legislators all across the board. Yeah. But I've heard him say multiple times, that we didn't run into that.
That we, that you know and this is something that I say is that it's amazing what you can accomplish when no one cares about who gets the credit.
None of us wanted our name on this. None of us were seeking awards or recognition, or this was about protecting our community and creating safe spaces for our families and providing them with a life better than they had it before.
And so whatever we had to do to make that happen, it was putting ourselves aside and just doing that. And, I'm sure there were some hard days of trying to figure this out or getting the code or the building inspectors there, or, water, sewer, there are a lot of things that come in.
Into that and, HVAC and Yeah. Septic systems, a lot of those things we ended up having real issues with because, everyone was dealing with this and try and trying to get this replaced into the backlog and all of that. Yeah. But at the end of the day, it was just about serving these citizens and so none of us really cared about any of the credit [01:09:00] or recognition.
So yeah. I wasn't ever in a meeting where there was
Matt Lavinder: Yeah to, to achieve it with such speed. There couldn't have been much there couldn't have been much politics involved.
Olivia Bailey: Yeah.
Matt Lavinder: It's in inspire. It's so inspiring. I never in a million years thought that it would be put back together to this degree in a year.
That's crazy. Yeah. I thought it would, I thought it would be, I didn't know how many years. Like I said, I was over, it was just overwhelmed. Like, where does it start?
Olivia Bailey: Yeah.
Matt Lavinder: And the infrastructure, like the roads were gone.
Olivia Bailey: Yep.
Matt Lavinder: Like literally the roads were gone. I didn't even know how you got resources to these places, let alone fix them.
Olivia Bailey: Yeah. And I'll say that's the value of living in a small community. I was in Taylor's Valley, which for those who aren't familiar is near the Virginia, Tennessee border. Back, you actually have to cross into Tennessee and back into Virginia and go up a mountain and they're [01:10:00] tucked away.
But once you get on the top of the mountain, you're in the valley, which is why it's called Taylor's Valley. And but they were organizing their community. They had community meetings at the community center. They got the mail distributed. They found ba like mobile bathrooms that they had set out.
Just
Matt Lavinder: normal, just normal people coming together. And
Olivia Bailey: yeah, no mayor
Matt Lavinder: figuring it out,
Olivia Bailey: no government system there. And they were just doing the work and helping their neighbors. And it was incredible to watch. And I think it's built that community so much. And we've gone back there for a couple of things where we've rebuilt and sewn grass and built a little library and replaced their garden and done a lot of work to help support them in that.
But but what they were able to do and organize in the middle of crisis, it has been amazing. I have been so inspired by that community time and time again of what they've been able to do. And they were one of the hardest hit in probably the entire region.
Matt Lavinder: Wow. Wow.
Olivia Bailey: Yeah.
Matt Lavinder: You already had a you already had strong [01:11:00] opinions on.
Appalachian people. What surprise, what did you, what else did you learn about us and our people,
Olivia Bailey: That in the time of a crisis that there's no hesitation? There was, we never had to wait on a response if we asked for something that was there. If it wasn't there, we'll find it.
And
And we tell stories a time and time again and, we're very faith-based organization. A lot of us have backgrounds of faith and there was a lot of prayerful consideration that went into a lot of this, but. There were a lot of days that we were like, I remember sitting down at the table with Tony a couple of times and there was a period of time where we thought we were gonna have to slow down 'cause the money was just gonna run out.
We just sat and we were like, okay, we're just gonna pray about this and see which projects we're gonna slow down on. How are we gonna communicate with them? And then by the end of the day, Tony would call me and he was like, we've got $150,000 donation and [01:12:00] we don't have to stop. And it was just like that every time Tony tells a story about needing box fans at one point and he just randomly checked his phone and he had a voicemail for 39 box fans or, whatever it was.
And so things just kept showing up. But, people kept showing up whatever we needed, they had, they were willing to support. They had a neighbor who had it or they knew somebody and that, that was the thing is people who were impacted were out there helping other people. Their house is destroyed and they're out there helping someone else.
It was amazing. It was amazing to, to just watch community come together and I think that's what we all. Envision what community should be all the time. And I hope that's something that we strive for and I hope we don't lose that. I think this was a community, an event that brought all of our communities together, and I just hope we don't lose that.
Matt Lavinder: Wow. You look online today and such division and cynicism and jaded, and then you look at events like this where humans are actually [01:13:00] humans and not online. And it's man, it's in there.
Olivia Bailey: It's there. I think, yeah I, anytime that, I'm feeling down or that it's divisive.
I, I just have to remember these moments that I'm like, you know what? We are better than this. And we have neighbors all around that will help at a moment's notice. And that's, I have to believe that's the people that we are all the time.
Matt Lavinder: You've spent you've spent a career, like you said earlier, seeing people on their, the worst day of their lives, reporting on it, seeing the world from a really unique perspective.
I, I sense from you that you when you think about humanity it's good
Olivia Bailey: yes and yes. And that, I don't wanna just talk about it. I wanna be there in the middle of it with people. It's one thing to, cover things and to shed light on [01:14:00] it. But it's one thing when you know there's a problem to step in and do something about it.
I've always tried to balance my career like that, even when I was in my early days of working at WCYB. I was also volunteering at the regional jail I wasn't just reporting on mugshots and charges that I also was trying to help, critical issues at the core of what was causing this.
And there are, ways that we can step in and be a part of the solution. We just have to be committed to that cause. And I try and be as humble as I can in that, and so that I never, get above any of that. And that I never put myself at a level that I'm different from anyone else.
Yeah. You never know when that day's gonna be your hardest day too. Yeah.
Matt Lavinder: Yeah. It's inspiring to hear you say that because some people would say it's important to keep boundaries and to keep an arm's length and for to hear you say that your meaning is in getting your hands dirty.
And being there with people in the, their worst moment. It's ins it's inspiring stuff.
Olivia Bailey: Thank you. [01:15:00] Thank you. I ju I, I believe we can't just watch from outside the windows and watch everything happen. It's if we wanna see real change and we have resources or connections or networks or, skills that we can do, even the smallest things, I wouldn't think that being able to talk to people I always joke that's my only skill, but that came, I think that's one of the reasons why we were able to raise so much money and to get our story out there and to let people know that we existed for trails to recovery.
Just some of that communication and we were posting about it and showing that our donors where their dollars were going. We didn't take a cent for overhead. It all went to all of our families. And and, those things matter. And even if it's just a small way that you can assist or volunteer, never wanna put myself, above the situation that I'm like reporting or trying to solve.
I wanna be a part of it. And so that's what's always driven me and motivated me to be involved. Yeah.
Matt Lavinder: Very cool. Like the story that you knew that about yourself when you left [01:16:00] Chill Howie, when you made some career decisions.
Olivia Bailey: Yeah,
Matt Lavinder: It's just so cool to see people who like, are aware of themselves and then they find the thing that fits who they are.
Olivia Bailey: I think I, and some days I think I'm still trying to find that.
Matt Lavinder: Yeah.
Olivia Bailey: But the thing is it does mold and transition. Yeah. You get new skills or, grow in some ways. And so still today, yeah. I'm always thinking, I'm like what's the next thing?
Yeah. What am what are we gonna do next? How are we gonna serve?
Matt Lavinder: Lemme get a breath lemme done, lemme get some
Olivia Bailey: sleep after Hurricane Alene.
Matt Lavinder: Yeah. But,
Olivia Bailey: What is that next,
Matt Lavinder: what have you learned about yourself? This is pretty, pretty deep chapter.
Olivia Bailey: I now sitting here, analyzing all of it.
I am I'm just so grateful, I, I've just been put in rooms where I probably didn't deserve to be. And just because I was allowed to be there and to exist and to learn, and for people to trust me to do things that, at some point I probably would've been too younger, too inexperienced.
Or that [01:17:00] now. I get to be a part of those conversations and get to be a part of those tables and then, pull other people into that. And so I think that's what has taught me is that, being a champion for others too, and bringing people into this fold and letting them see their skills.
And, I've had so many people do that for me that now I'm able to I exist and see that in other people, but,
I'm just, I, and it's taught me to push myself a little bit. We have a tendency to. Wanna work in that comfortable, and I've done this, so I'm comfortable doing this, but I've never done that before.
I've never started a nonprofit before. I've never, worked in construction before. What how, but, every situation that I've been in I was always getting prepared for the next thing. I worked in tourism. When you're doing marketing and tourism, you're building itineraries and you're planning people's trips.
And I was like, when am I ever gonna use this in another job? And now I plan trips for the Attorney General all the time. And I'm building itineraries and I'm using all of the skills that I never thought I would use. I laugh, but that's my advice to people [01:18:00] often is that the things that you're in your jobs doing now that seem mundane and that, sometimes are time consuming and that you don't really enjoy that.
A lot of times that's just building you for something else and something greater and something in a new light. And i've tried to, maybe that's how I talk myself into doing all the work that I don't wanna do. But but it's taught me that, nothing is so insignificant that it won't matter in the future.
Just trying to take those things in stride and that everything is a learning skill and that, sometimes I have to challenge myself and push myself and get out of the comfort zone a little bit to grow.
Matt Lavinder: You have done a lot of that, your whole story, it seems, from my perspective.
Thank you.
Olivia Bailey: Thank you. I appreciate that. I really
Matt Lavinder: do. Is stepping out, stepping outside your comfort zone, but it's unique because you're stepping outside, your consistently stepped out your comfort zone, but you've stayed rooted in your place.
Olivia Bailey: Yeah.
Matt Lavinder: It's a very unique thing and it's very inspiring.
So thank you.
Olivia Bailey: Thank you for having me. That's also a big thank you to everyone else who has contributed to make me the person that I am, so I'm [01:19:00] very grateful to them. Yeah.
Matt Lavinder: Very cool. And again, like that's effort you your team. Amazing stuff thanks for here today.
Olivia Bailey: Yeah. Thank you so for us