Owning Our Future: A New Documentary Shows How One West Virginia Neighborhood Is Redefining Community Power

By Mavery Davis

On Sunday, December 14, neighbors, community leaders, faith leaders, and organizers gathered at New Life Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church on Charleston’s West Side for a community screening of Owning Our Future, a new documentary that lifts up the people and partnerships shaping the neighborhood’s future. Presented by the West Virginia Community Development Hub, the event was intentionally designed as more than a film showing—it was a space for conversation, reflection, and relationship-building.

From the moment people arrived, it was clear this was not a traditional premiere. Long tables replaced rows of chairs. A shared meal set the tone. Multiple screenings were paired with facilitated discussions that invited residents to talk with one another, the filmmaking team, and community leaders featured in the film. The structure reflected the documentary’s central idea: progress on the West Side is not driven by a single organization or initiative, but by people choosing to work together.

Owning Our Future centers the voices of West Side residents leading grassroots efforts in food access, small business development, youth programming, faith-based organizing, and neighborhood revitalization. Rather than telling isolated success stories, the documentary shows how these efforts are interconnected. Viewers see business owners supporting food access, faith leaders opening doors for civic dialogue, and organizers building bridges across sectors. Together, these relationships form a growing network that is redefining what community power looks like in practice.

The photos from the screening reveal just as much as the film itself. Neighbors leaned into conversations. Leadership was present, but not elevated above the room. Residents were not positioned as an audience; they were active participants in an ongoing process of ownership and shared responsibility. Throughout the afternoon, candid discussions surfaced about both challenges and opportunities, reinforcing a shared understanding that sustainable change depends on trust, coordination, and long-term commitment—not competition for resources or recognition.

This story matters far beyond Charleston’s West Side. Across West Virginia, communities are often framed through deficit-based narratives focused on decline, loss, or scarcity. Owning Our Future offers a powerful counter-narrative. It shows that progress is not imported or imposed, but cultivated locally through relationships and shared values. At a time when many communities across the state are navigating economic transition, population shifts, and disinvestment, the West Side’s approach offers a model rooted in dignity, collaboration, and lived experience.

Organizers emphasized that the screening marked a milestone, not a conclusion. The documentary will be made available online through the Hub’s website and the Westside Together website at a later date, expanding access beyond those who gathered in the room. Black By God – The West Virginian has also been invited to collaborate on a future online screening, creating an opportunity to extend the conversation statewide and continue amplifying the lessons emerging from the West Side.

In this way, Owning Our Future functions as both mirror and invitation. It reflects the work already happening on Charleston’s West Side while inviting West Virginians everywhere to reconsider how community power is built and sustained. The message is clear: the strongest futures are not created in isolation. They are shaped through collaboration, rooted in community, and owned together.