The Create Your State Tour is a multimedia educational presentation and workshop that inspires and empowers creative community revitalization and development. It provides a full program of immersive experiential learning and strategic planning for leaders, entrepreneurs, artists, students and other involved citizens.

The presentation tells the inspiring story of arts-driven community transformation in Princeton, West Virginia through the eyes of artists and cultural entrepreneurs Lori McKinney and Robert Blankenship. The workshop features the original music of Option 22, visual projections and a compelling exchange about how the arts, creativity and an out-of-the-box approach can establish a creative scene that redefines and reinvigorates a community.

Participants will leave with skills, tools and on-the-ground contacts to ignite positive change in their communities. They will have access to a web portal with step-by-step instructional toolkits, video shorts, webinars and more. And they will receive ongoing guidance from the Create Your State (CYS) founders to execute community projects and plant new creative capital in their communities.

This year, infused with funding from The Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation, Ten West Virginia towns will be given the opportunity in 2016 to host the tour, explore forward-thinking possibilities, and plan meaningful creative projects that will become the catalyst for social and economic change.