MEET OUR AMERICORPS MEMBER ~ SAMI

Hi! My name is Sami Rose, and I am Main Street Morgantown’s new PreserveWV AmeriCorps member. I am a Southern Californian, born and bred—I was raised in Laguna Niguel, a small suburb in Southern Orange County, and graduated from UCLA with an undergraduate degree in Anthropology—so West Virginia is my big Mid-Atlantic adventure.

I moved to Morgantown in September with my dog Mo, and, so far, the two of us have explored the Mon River Rail Trail, Coopers Rock, and Quebec Run with our new AmeriCorps hiking buddies. I’ve also enjoyed watching the leaves change for the first time in my life, and I’m excited (and slightly terrified) to see what other seasons West Virginia is going to introduce me to.

Sami and Mo at Coopers Rock

I have experience in digital marketing, event planning, archaeology, volunteer management, copy editing, and web content development. Ultimately, my goal is to pursue a master’s degree in cultural resource management.
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I am thrilled to be serving at Main Street Morgantown (MSM), the most decorated Main Street in West Virginia. MSM won the Great American Main Street Award in 1998 and has won over 80 individual, committee and project State awards in the past 23 years. In addition to helping with Small Business Day, Chocolate Lovers’ Day, MedExpress Kids’ Day, Art is Food, Arts Walk, and the many other events MSM hosts in Downtown Morgantown and the Historic Wharf District, I will be dedicating a lot of my time to revamping and marketing the Historic Downtown Morgantown Audio Walking Tour and establishing the Downtown and Historic Wharf Districts as a cultural district. Overall, I can’t wait to learn more about wild and wonderful West Virginia and the beautifully historic town of Morgantown.

This service initiative is administered by the Preservation Alliance of West Virginia, the statewide grassroots nonprofit dedicated to the support and promotion of historic preservation in the Mountain State.  The PreserveWV AmeriCorps members develop and participate in a variety of community projects related to historic resource improvement, historic preservation, heritage tourism development, and nonprofit organizational capacity building.  For more information, visit www.pawv.org.  Preserve WV AmeriCorps is funded in part by Volunteer West Virginia, the state’s Commission for National and Community Service, and by the Commission for National and Community Service.