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Community leaders pitch the Make Muskingum Home program to young adults as way to grow the community and get your loans paid
By: David Forster
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ZANESVILLE, Ohio (WOUB) — Gerald Hall was in a room with a group of his students when the principal unlocked the door and poked her head in.
This, he thought, was a little odd.
Hall works with students who need extra help with their coursework or have behavioral issues.
“I thought, uh oh, one of my students may be in trouble, because the principal never comes to this room with me,” Hall said.
What he couldn’t see were all the people quietly packed into the hallway behind the principal.
“And then they burst through the door and come in,” Hall said. “And I see everyone from my central office downtown, from the superintendent down to the secretaries, and they’re all there smiling. And I see this check in their hand and it just — excitement rushed my body, excitement rushed my body.”
The cause of all this excitement: $50,000 to help pay down Hall’s student loan debt.
Muskingum, like many smaller and predominantly rural counties in Ohio, loses many of its young adults after high school. Some go off to college and don’t return after. Others leave for more promising job opportunities elsewhere.
The Make Muskingum Home program is looking to both encourage existing residents to stay and to recruit others to move in and give the county a try. And the hope is that during the initial five-year commitment, these people will start putting down roots in the community and decide to stay longer.
“It’s a way to sort of offset a little bit of the brain drain, if you will,” said Brian Wagner, chief executive officer of the Muskingum County Community Foundation, which runs the program. “This is an opportunity for us to try to attract individuals back, and we feel over those five years, by having the requirement that they need to get active in the community, they begin to build those roots.”
Hall, who is just a few months into the first year of his commitment, said he has no plans to leave.
“I can’t think of going anywhere else,” he said. “I do have family back home and they ask me almost every year, when you coming back? And I tell ’em, no time soon. I just love it that much out here.”
He grew up in Washington, D.C., and started college in West Virginia on a football scholarship. He wanted more playing time, and a friend told him about Muskingum University.
He switched schools and soon fell in love with Muskingum County. He liked the rural feel and easy access to the outdoors but also the proximity to bigger cities.
“And one thing I feel like, coming from a big city to a small town, is that it’s almost that ‘Cheers’ effect — you want to go where everyone knows your name,” he said.
Hall majored in education and thought about becoming a physical education teacher. He volunteered at the local community center working with students who were struggling in school for one reason or another. One day he was talking to one of the organizers and realized he had found his calling.
“I said, ‘What’s that called where we can take kids that are struggling and progress them?’” Hall said. “And he said intervention specialists or special education. And I just smiled and I said, ‘Yeah, that. I want to do that.’”
“When you see a student that is trying their best, trying their best, but still struggling, and then out of nowhere it just clicks and it just goes off, and it just warms your heart and puts a smile on your face, and so you chase it,” he said.
Hall loves his job at Zanesville High School, where he is also an assistant football coach. But his $86,000 in student loan debt weighed on him. He and his wife figured they might never be able to buy a house.
The $50,000 in debt relief has given them hope.
“So to now take that step and have this program to help me in reaching that goal, words can’t explain it — it is fantastic,” Hall said.
Besides the five-year commitment to living in the county, the award also requires getting involved in the community. Hall was already doing that. He’s active in Muskingum County Emerging Leaders, a group of young professionals who work to attract and retain others like them in the community.
He also coaches for a local pee-wee football summer camp and attends games during the school year to cheer the team on. These are kids who need extra help and attention because of issues at home or school, and just showing up for them means a great deal.
“You’ll see it when they come to the game,” he said. “They’ll scream your name from the stands.”
‘We are opening the door’ in Muskingum County
Make Muskingum Home is modeled after a similar program in Michigan but on a bigger scale, Wagner said. The program makes 13 awards a year, a potential commitment of more than half a million dollars. The funds come primarily from the Muskingum County Community Foundation and the J.W. and M.H. Straker Charitable Foundation.
The program received about 46 applications for the first year of awards in 2023. More than 70 people applied in just the first week after the application period for the 2024 awards opened, said Beth Fox, the Muskingum Foundation’s program director. The deadline for the next round, which will be awarded next year, is Oct. 22.
Among other things, applicants must submit a two-minute video explaining why they want to work and live in Muskingum County.
“It really gives the selection committee a great insight into the passion and desire around these individuals and their commitment to want to be here,” Wagner said. “And frankly, it’s a lot of fun to watch the work that these individuals have put into these videos.”
But the best part of the process is presenting the awards.
“We do it Publishers Clearing House style,” Wagner said. “We show up and surprise the recipients. They don’t get just a letter, but we show up with a giant check and balloons and make a big deal out of it.”
This is usually done at the recipient’s workplace, which can lead to some unexpected reactions.
Wagner said the first person who received an award worked at a bank and was told she needed to see the bank president first thing on a Friday morning. She thought she was going to be fired.
“In hindsight … we probably should have framed that a little differently,” Wagner said.
“We had timed it up so poorly you could see her when she walked in, just a ball of nerves,” Fox said. “And then to realize why she was there, and the instant tears and the screaming and the crying and the laughing. And it was at that moment in that very first presentation where I realized we are making generational change. We are not only affecting this individual’s life, but she’s going to be able to pay it forward.”
The money invested in these young adults is already paying dividends, Wagner said. Easing their debt burden frees them up to spend more money on homes and cars and other things that create more tax revenue for the county. And if they decide to stick around after the five-year commitment and raise families and advance in their careers, their contributions to the tax base will expand.
The program is open to anyone regardless of their profession. And the loan debt doesn’t have to be for college. It could be for vocational training for those pursuing a career in the trades. There are time restrictions: Those already living in the county must apply within three years of receiving a degree or completing a training program; those outside the county have seven years.
“We are not focused on a singular profession. We are not looking for this exact person. We are opening the door,” Fox said. “Come see what we have to offer. Come see what we can do for you. And then come be a fabric of our community, because that’s ultimately what we want. … And so by giving back to the younger generation, we have faith that they’ll give back to us.”
‘It’s the best feeling ever’
One of the first things Emilee Mulhall did after learning her student loans would be paid off was buy a new car.
The old Chevy Malibu she’d been driving had been handed down from her parents to her two older sisters before it got to her.
It’s a two-and-a-half-hour drive to Youngstown, where she grew up, and trips back home to visit her parents could be a little nerve wracking.
“When I’m driving and I hear a little sound, I’m like, please just keep going, don’t die,” she said. “So yeah, that anxiety was a huge factor for me.”
“After you graduate, you’re like, Oh my gosh, this is real. I have to pay it,” she said.
Buying a new car seemed way out of reach.
“I literally never thought I’d be able to do that because I didn’t want to take on additional debt,” she said. “It scared me a lot.”
Mulhall landed a job in the marketing department at Muskingum University, and while there she heard about the Make Muskingum Home program.
She applied last fall. In January she showed up to a meeting at work. Her boss was there.
“And she’s like, ‘Oh, the president wants us to go down and talk to her about this campaign we’re working on.’ And I was like, ‘Me, you want me to go?’ She’s like, ‘Yeah, she wants to speak to both of us.’ So I’m like, oh my gosh. So that’s what I was thinking of. It might be a big project or something.
“So I’m walking down the hallway towards the president’s office and across is a conference room, and we walk in the conference room and that’s when I saw the big check and I was like, this is for me? I think I cried a little and just immediately was like, I need to call my parents right now and tell them.”
The award will wipe out Mulhall’s student loan debt.
This not only made possible the new car, but Mulhall and her boyfriend can now do some of the traveling they’ve been dreaming about. This includes visiting every national park. They started with Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado earlier this year, and up next is a trip to Yellowstone.
“I just felt like I was stuck for a really long time, and I felt like I couldn’t do anything for myself,” Mulhall said. “And so, to be able to have that money to get experiences is really — honestly, it’s the best feeling ever.”
Mulhall volunteers for PAWS of Muskingum County, which provides low-cost spaying and neutering services. A cat lover, she spends her Thursday evenings playing with and cleaning up after cats up for adoption. She’s also putting her professional skills to use doing marketing for the group.
And she’s looking for more ways to get involved.
“I just want to be a very active member in my community,” she said. “And so I feel like that’s my way of putting in my roots because I’m kind of not ready to talk about starting a family or anything like that. …
“And that is something that makes me happy is giving back. And because the county has given me so much and the people in the county have been awesome to me, and to know that I’m valued makes me want to give more.”