Parkersburg Engagement Project hosts community celebration, shares survey results
Lisa Doyle-Parsons, co-chair of the Parkersburg Engagement Project Steering Committee, reveals the proposed solutions the committee selected during Thursday evening’s presentation. (Photo by Gwen Sour)
Steering committee member Jason Earl helps reveal proposed solutions during Thursday evening’s Parkersburg Engagement Project’s community celebration at St. Joseph’s Landing. (Photo by Gwen Sour)
Lisa Doyle-Parsons, co-chair of the Parkersburg Engagement Project Steering Committee, reveals the proposed solutions the committee selected during Thursday evening’s presentation. (Photo by Gwen Sour)
Steering committee member Jason Earl helps reveal proposed solutions during Thursday evening’s Parkersburg Engagement Project’s community celebration at St. Joseph’s Landing. (Photo by Gwen Sour)
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PARKERSBURG -- Organizers of the Parkersburg Engagement Project used a community celebration and "solution reveal" event at St. Joseph's Landing Thursday to present what steering committee members described as a proposed response to substance use in Parkersburg following a yearlong pilot project.
Steering committee members said the proposed approach includes four components: creating a council of recovery professionals - offering those individuals opportunities for professional development; forming a peer-led council of people with lived experience; hosting an Americorps volunteer at the Circles Campaign of the Mid-Ohio Valley to help support the councils, and a marketing campaign focused on resource awareness and public perceptions of recovery.
Project leaders said the pilot centered on public input, with a community-wide survey conducted from February through April 2025. Organizers received 622 responses from the more than 29,000 residents who received the survey.
According to Lisa Doyle-Parsons, co-chair of the project and the executive director of Circles Campaign of the Mid-Ohio Valley, substance use ranked as the top issue identified by respondents - closely followed by housing and employment/living wage.
Brittany Derberger, an external evaluator for the project, said the number of respondents was statistically significant and exceeded the threshold for the project.
"Substance use came out as the top concern people felt impacted the community," Dernberger said.
Organizers said the project then held a series of community conversations or "solution sessions" focused on substance use. The sessions included individuals from varied walks of life according to Doyle-Parsons: those in recovery, medical providers, legal professionals and city officials.
Doyle-Parsons said hundreds of ideas were generated during those sessions and later reviewed by the steering committee.
Steering committee member Jason Earl said his participation was rooted in lived experience with addiction.
"I spent a lot of years in addiction and had no voice, and now that I got one, I want to use it," Earl said.
Earl said the committee used consent-based decision making to narrow ideas into four components presented at the event.
Co-chair and City Councilwoman Wendy Tuck emphasized the components represented a selection from the committee and that this wasn't simply the end of the project.
"This is the start of the next thing," Tuck said.
Doyle-Parsons thanked residents who participated in surveys, forums and solutions sessions.
"For whatever reason that you're here tonight, I'm thankful that you're here," she said.
Organizers said the steering committee's presentation marked the end of the pilot phase and the beginning of an implementation period for the selected components
Gwen Sour can be reached at gsour@newsandsentinel.com.