Marie Cirillo, Appalachia community development pioneer, dies

The East Tennessee Catholic

Marie Cirillo, an almost larger-than-life figure in community development initiatives in rural Appalachia and a friend and mentor to the family of President John F. Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy, died peacefully in her home in Clairfield, Tenn., on July 4.

Ms. Cirillo, who was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., on Nov. 16, 1929, spent summers in Kentucky with her grandparents. At age 19, she joined the Home Mission Sisters of America, better known as the Glenmary Sisters. In 1966, she left Glenmary and joined the Federation of Communities in Service (FOCIS).

Ms. Cirillo had worked in Chicago in an area where many people from the Appalachian Mountains had migrated when coal mining could not support making a living. In 1967, she went to Clairfield to perform community development work with a $3,000-a-year stipend and a car from Bishop Joseph A. Durick of the Diocese of Nashville.

In the Clearfork Valley, residents were trying to overcome hardships created by coal mining, where the land was owned by absentee corporate owners and stripped of resources. Ms. Cirillo was drawn to live and work in this picturesque land with its people.

For Ms. Cirillo, community development was never about imposing answers on people, but rather listening to the needs and desires of the people who lived there. It was about acknowledging the communities’ strengths for developing economic self-sufficiency and restoring the land and people’s livelihoods.

Ms. Cirillo listened and discovered that one of the first things the local people hoped for was health-care services. At that time, the obvious place to look for funds was from the government’s war on poverty. Ms. Cirillo organized a group of locals to travel to Nashville and meet their senator. There they were told the state had developed a plan for “Model Cities,” so therefore there were no funds for the rural areas.

On the way home, the group was quiet and discouraged. When one of the women shouted, “Oh heck, if they can have a model city, we can have a model valley!” So, the Model Valley Development Corp. was born.

Ms. Cirillo and the residents formed the Model Valley Development Corp., which developed into a town center. First, there was a building that housed health services with nursing students and medical volunteers from Vanderbilt University. Then came a thrift shop, including craft groups, and classes in typing and bookkeeping.

One resident built a general store with a gas pump. The post office relocated across the street. The community also wanted to address the water problem, since water was contaminated from coal mining. Churches from Knoxville partnered in providing money to dig a well with a spigot for locals to fill their jugs with clean water. Eventually, they formed the Clearfork Utility District, which to this day supplies clean water to more than 500 homes.

Ms. Cirillo knew that one way for individuals to gain economic security was to own their own home, which was a great difficulty in the mountains because so much of the land was owned by corporations run by absentee landlords. Providentially, some land came up for sale, and Ms. Cirillo and residents cobbled together finances to purchase a tract, and the Woodland Community Land Trust was founded.

Gradually as mining companies let go of the depleted land, more land was for sale, purchased, and added to the Land Trust. Local people were able to build and own a home in the community they loved. Currently, the Land Trust is being managed to build a sustainable community of homes, businesses, and projects with a permaculture approach.

Seeing young people as the hope of the future, college students and youth groups from urban areas were invited to visit and interact with local young people. Not only would the local youth broaden their experiences, but Ms. Cirillo stressed to them that they could share experiences that would enrich the volunteers. This interchange between rural and urban young people brought understanding and connectedness.

One volunteer who received special attention was President and Mrs. Kennedy’s daughter, Caroline, who was 15 at the time. Reflecting on her experience, she said, “Outside my family, Marie is one of the most powerful inspirations to me. She made my faith real … and people’s lives better.”

Ms. Cirillo attended Caroline’s wedding and the baptism of her first child.

Ms. Cirillo believed that a rural-urban association was very important and also that the women in Appalachia were strong and capable. She knew women had a vital role to play in the growth and development of the community. This led to their involvement in the National Congress of Neighborhood Women.

Then in 1995, Ms. Cirillo and women from the mountain community attended the Fourth World Women’s Conference in Beijing, China. Later, she was asked to be a government representative for rural women at a United Nations meeting in Kenya.

After Ms. Cirillo retired, the Clearfork Institute, which had been in an abandoned school building, continued to operate with an all-local staff. Jobs, computer classes, homework space and support, community activities, and a regularly published newsletter are important resources provided by the institute. The people have created a community that has been shaped by their values and will continue to be a good place to live.

“What Marie did is beyond what most of us will ever do! For over 50 years, Marie gave her life to the people of this community. They became her family and friends. Marie loved the people in her mountain community home and was proud of them. She shared their joys and sorrows and saw their strengths and goodness. She said, ‘These are my people. This is where I belong. This is where I will stay,’” friends of Ms. Cirillo shared.

Ms. Cirillo is preceded in death by her parents, Frank and Nancy Rapier Cirillo, sister Margaret Carroll, brothers-in-law Hugh Carroll and Matthew Ruggiero. She is survived by sisters Nancy Cirillo Ruggiero, Francesca Cirillo Smith, and brother-in-law Geddeth Smith, 12 nieces and nephews, 23 great-nieces and great-nephews, and 13 great-great nieces and great-great nephews.

Family and friends of Ms. Cirillo gave a special thanks to Ginny and Charlie Pittman for their faithful, loving care of Ms. Cirillo for the past four years.

A simple burial service was held at the cemetery near Roses Creek, Tenn., on July 27, with Rev. Adam Gulley officiating.

A Celebration of Life for Ms. Cirillo was held in Abingdon, Va., at the Jubilee Retreat Center on Aug. 31.

Donations in Ms. Cirillo’s memory can be made to the Model Valley Economic Development Corp., P.O. Box 6, Clairfield, TN 37715 or the Woodland Community Land Trust, 469 Roses Creek Road, Clairfield, TN 37715.