I was lucky enough to be a Tadler Fellow this summer and intern with Coalfield Development. Going into the internship, I had never even heard of social entrepreneurship. In fact, I had only started engaging with the concept of entrepreneurship itself my junior year of high school through a project in my AP Microeconomics class where we had to design and pitch our own business plans. My team did our best to come up with a product that would be kind to the environment in addition to filling the gap in the market we had observed, but little did I know there was a whole discipline dedicated to positive outcomes both environmentally and socially through enterprise.

When I first began to research social entrepreneurship for an annotated bibliography for Coalfield, I was elated at what I found. Having only completed my first year at UVA, I was struggling to choose what I wanted to do with my life. The only thing I knew was that I wanted to make a difference in my local and global communities in some way. Lucky for me, social entrepreneurship does exactly that.

Before even beginning the internship, I perused Coalfield’s website, and I was both surprised and stimulated by what I saw. Here was a company targeting a cyclical issue in an effective way! Coalfield has come up with a way to not only elevate the condition and stimulate the economy of the Appalachian community, but also help its workers achieve what they may not have found possible to achieve before. Coalfield’s 33-6-3 model was the first thing that stood out to me, and it still amazes and inspires me. Investing in its employees and their futures, Coalfield’s 33-6-3 model has its employees on a 2.5 year plan of 33 hours of paid work per week, 6 hours of education toward an associates degree, and 3 hours of personal development with the type of development varying with what week of the program the employee is currently in. This level of care for the people in their community by an employer is rarely seen, but at Coalfield it is only a small part of the plan for excellence in Appalachia.

In addition to the 33-6-3 model, Coalfield owns a variety of employment-based social enterprises, all with a triple bottom line of people, planet, and profit. Coalfield works hard to provide their employees with usable skills for the future, create jobs, revitalize rundown places and buildings, and stimulate the economy--all while utilizing Appalachia and what it has to offer. Coalfield is a great example of facing problems head on and creating opportunity while preserving the integrity and history of a place near and dear to so many lives and hearts.

I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to work with Coalfield and be inspired by their efforts toward hope and change. Never again will I think a problem unfixable; with the right minds, outlook, and propensity for seeing the potential in the situation, even the most difficult situations can be approached, step by step, little by little, until a big and lasting change is made.

Through the research and writing I have done with Coalfield, I have developed an appreciation and passion for social entrepreneurship and the immense positive power it has. I am forever thankful for this opportunity and I really hope to continue pursuing this incredibly impactful discipline in whatever direction it takes me.