Takeaways from the 3-year Wilds Are Working: A Remote Lifestyle Experience program
Takeaways from the 3-year Wilds Are Working: A Remote Lifestyle Experience program
The third year of the three-year, grant-funded program known as the Wilds Are Working: A Remote Lifestyle Experience took place in 2024. Here is the big picture overview and some of the key takeaways and early outcomes from the program.
From 2022 to 2024, a total of 27 people had the chance to test out living in the rural Pennsylvania Wilds, and tens of thousands of dollars were invested into six participating host communities and the surrounding region.
These remote workers competitively applied for a chance to live in a host community for up to four weeks, with lodging covered and a local spending stipend provided. The host communities select up to five remote workers each for the experience.
“I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed this experience,” said one of the 2024 participants. “Everything I loved came from the people we worked with – from people within the host community to the welcome committee. The way I was able to work with and connect with people through this program has had a direct impact on my life and my business. There’s so many good things I want to say about this program, but mostly I am just beyond grateful for the experience.”
The program encompassed several components, all of which were designed to help the region’s communities position themselves as destinations for the modern workforce. In addition to marketing the communities and creating a way for the selected remote workers to live in the region rent free for a month, the program helped the communities look at their systems for welcoming new residents, identify the amenities that they found important, and develop new marketing tools for highlighting the benefits of living within walking distance of some of the most spectacular outdoor recreation opportunities in the Commonwealth. In fact, a window wrap project that was implemented as part of the program literally filled downtown storefront windows with images of nearby outdoor recreation assets as part of a “Picture Yourself Here” campaign.

A window wrap installed in a vacant storefront window in Kane as part of the Picture Yourself Here portion of the Wilds Are Working program.
“This program looks at the problem of outmigration holistically, encouraging the participants and the current residents of host communities to think about what makes living in the rural PA Wilds so special,” explained Abbi Peters, COO of the nonprofit PA Wilds Center for Entrepreneurship (PA Wilds Center), which implemented the program with local community lead organizations. The program was made possible thanks to a partnership with the Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Central and Northern PA and funding from the Appalachian Regional Commission.
“This is not a paid relocation program,” she explained. “Sure, some participants have chosen to relocate, and we’re thrilled about that! However, it’s not the only goal. The Wilds Are Working is an opportunity for participating communities and remote workers to evaluate their goals and needs, and ultimately it helps the communities identify what can help them to retain and attract new residents long term.”
The program looks at helping to address some of the long-standing trends in the rural region, including decades of population decline, industry contraction, outmigration of young people, and workforce development challenges. It highlighted the possibilities associated with remote workers being able to live anywhere with an internet connection and modern amenities. The program also tapped into the growing demand for better work-life balance and more outdoor recreation opportunities, which are abundant in the PA Wilds.
Survey findings have now been collected for all three years of Wilds Are Working (WAW) participants, as well as community members involved in the program. The survey results show that this unique experience has made a true impact and began to change minds about rural living.
Participant survey results
A standardized survey was used to evaluate the remote workers’ overall satisfaction with the experience and specific aspects of it, including the stipend gift card, the coworking options, and more. The participants were also asked if they would consider moving to the host community or another PA Wilds community. For some questions, the survey used a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the best response. Other questions used a scale to gauge satisfaction overall, ranging from very satisfied to very unsatisfied.
The survey results are not only beneficial to the PA Wilds Center, but host communities also benefited from knowing their strengths and weaknesses.
“PA Wilds Center has developed tools that leverage the region’s place-based brand, and the communities receive support and investments throughout the program’s implementation so that they can best position themselves as a location for these prospective residents. Listening to the remote workers’ feedback and developing additional amenities based on their experiences will position the communities well for the future, while creating additional opportunities to grow their populations, tax bases and local skill sets as new residents engage with community affairs,” Peters noted.
Twenty-four of the 27 participants (or 88%) responded, including ten of the 11 participants who stayed in Bellefonte and Kane in 2022, all nine participants who stayed in Emporium and Warren in 2023, and five of the seven 2024 participants who stayed in either Saint Marys or Williamsport.
The results were overwhelmingly positive on all marks, with 90% of survey respondents saying they gave the overall experience a 5 out of 5 and about 86% saying they may consider relocating in the future. In addition, 23 out of 24 respondents indicated they were satisfied or very satisfied with lodging, welcoming events and guide materials, and the application process. All of the participants indicated that they now are more familiar with the PA Wilds region than they were previously.“One of the things I liked the most was the connection with the people, both within the cohort and program and just in the town itself,” said one of the 2022 participants. “I was concerned that residents would not be welcoming to ‘outsiders,’ but it was quite the opposite. People were genuinely friendly and interested in getting to know us, which was huge for me. The town, restaurants, shops, and outdoor amenities were all amazing, but having people to experience those things with was important to me as well.”
Two areas that the participants felt had room for improvement include the digital gift card system that was used to distribute stipends and coworking facilities. Many also expressed a desire to have had more exposure to volunteer opportunities.
The Shop the PA Wilds Gift Cards are distributed digitally through a software that helped ensure that stipends were spent with small businesses in the region. Overall, 80% of survey respondents gave the system at least a 4 out of 5. Of the 2022 participants, 40% gave it a 4 out of 5, whereas 50% of the 2023 participants gave it a 4 out of 5, and 42% gave it a 4 out of 5 in 2024.
“The gift card motivated us to travel all around the Wilds to explore the participating businesses, which we might not have found otherwise. One of my favorite experiences was renting canoes from Allegheny Outfitters in Warren for an overnight canoe camping trip with friends from Philly (who had also never been to the Wilds before!). After we returned the next day, we stopped at another participating business, Bent Run Brewing, for lunch,” said one of the 2023 remote workers. “In general, I appreciated the opportunity to get to know the Wilds. We’ve fallen in love with the region and have already been back for a backpacking trip at Pine Creek Gorge and overnight in Wellsboro during Labor Day weekend.”
During program implementation, it became clear that additional training for merchants accepting the digital gift cards would be needed to make the system flow more smoothly for participants. For example, staff turnover and other factors played into some merchant locations not realizing that they accepted the cards or knowing how to process the digital gift cards. In addition, if a merchant changed their point of sale system and did not reactivate with the software or notify PA Wilds Center’s team, their listing would remain in the directory of participating merchants despite not being able to accept the cards in real time.
In all three years, a majority of survey respondents said they were at least somewhat satisfied with their coworking spaces. However, respondents in communities without designated coworking spaces indicated that they were either unsatisfied or they felt the question was not applicable to them.

PA Wilds Center staff members LaKeshia Knarr and Britt Madera met inside one of the conference rooms in the new, larger Springboard location in Bellefonte.
“This demonstrated to program managers and the host communities how important coworking facilities are to remote workers,” said Peters. “Not every community in the region has designated a de facto space for workers to come together to work. Sometimes that happens in libraries or coffee shops, but that is not the specific purpose of those establishments. This feedback demonstrated a true need for those kinds of facilities if the communities want to continue to grow a local tax base that is comprised of remote workers.”
When asked if they would consider moving to their host community in the future, a majority of respondents indicated it may be a possibility in the future, with one out of each annual cohort saying it wasn’t a fit for them. In 2022, 30% answered “Definitely,” 50% said “Maybe in a few years,” 10% said they were “Kind of thinking about it,” and 10% said they were not considering it. In 2023, 44.4% said “Definitely,” 33.3% said “Maybe in a few years,” 11.1% said “Kind of thinking about it,” and 11.1% said no. In 2024, 41% said “Maybe in a few years,” 33% said “Definitely,” 13% said they were “Kind of thinking about it.”
Participants were also asked if they were considering moving to another part of the PA Wilds region that is not their host community, and the responses mirrored those provided when asked if they would consider moving to their host community.
Several of the remote workers expressed gratitude for the opportunity to test out living in rural Pennsylvania. Some said that looking back, they wished they had more time off of work to explore the region even further and several indicated they would have liked to have more group activities with the other participants as well as more volunteer opportunities.
How participant stipends were used
Participants are given stipends to spend while in the region via Shop the PA Wilds Digital Gift Cards. Powered by software known as Yiftee, these gift cards are distributed via email and can only be used at participating businesses, or merchants. This ensured that the funds were spent with small businesses throughout the region. To be eligible, these businesses had to be members of the Wilds Cooperative of Pennsylvania, which is free and helps the businesses get promoted as part of the regional experience beyond this program.
The first year of the program entailed living stipends of $1,500 per participant, but most participants did not expend all of the funding, so the amount was lowered to $1,200 per participant for the second year. To help offset costs associated with transportation for the third year, as several remote workers did not have vehicles, stipends were increased to $2,000 per participant.
In addition to ensuring the funding is spent locally, the Yiftee software enabled program managers to see where funds were used, which helped provide additional meaningful feedback to the participating communities about the types of amenities that were popular and other amenities that may still need to be developed.
In total, the remote workers spent more than $37,000 in stipends at local establishments during the program. Combining all three years, participants spent 65% of their stipends on food and beverages, 30% on retail, 4% on outfitter experiences, and 1% on other services.
For the Bellefonte cohort, 44% of the stipends were spent on food and beverage items, while 39% was spent on retail, 12% was spent on outfitter experiences, and 5% was spent on other services. Meanwhile, for the Kane cohort that same year, 62% of the stipends were spent on food and beverage, 31% was spent on retail, 1% was spent on outfitter experiences, and 6% was spent on other services. In comparison, the 2023 stipend spend showed no expenditures on general services. The Emporium cohort spent 47% of stipends on food and beverage, 39% on retail purchases, and 14% on outfitter experiences, and the Warren cohort spent 71% on food and beverage, 19% on retail, and 10% on outfitter experiences. The Williamsport cohort spent 72% on food and beverage, 23% on retail, 1.5% on outfitter experiences, and 3% on other services. Saint Marys participants spent 56% on food and beverages, 42% on retail, and 2% on outfitter experiences.
Early program outcomes

Jared, Cici and daughter Esther stand in front of their new home in Emporium. They moved to the area shortly after their experience in the Wilds Are Working program in 2023.
One of the families who participated in the 2023 Wilds Are Working program in Emporium, Cameron County, ended up buying a home in their host town. The Brackbills (Jared and Cici, with their daughter Esther) bought a home in the heart of the PA Wilds, in downtown Emporium. Another family who participated in the program in Saint Marys in 2024 – Alexis, her husband Jeffrey and six children – are actively looking to move to a home in the PA Wilds region that will give them more land to explore and room to roam.
While this relocation to the region is one of the most visible successes seen from the program, it is just a part of the holistic approach of the Wilds Are Working.
Residents benefit just as much as the participants of the Wilds Are Working program. The feedback from the program allowed the communities to gain valuable insights on how to better support remote workers who are already residents, build stronger connections within the community, and enhance life for the families who have already rooted themselves in the PA Wilds.
One excellent example is Springboard in Bellefonte, a coworking facility that relocated to a larger space to offer more privacy, based on feedback from the remote workers. Another example is how Kane now uses the Welcome Guide developed as part of the Wilds Are Working program for their new residents, something they learned was appreciated by the remote workers. In addition, Warren intends to install more window wraps because of the positive feedback they’ve received from their residents about how the images of the natural assets around the community make downtown feel more vibrant, inviting and inspiring. And Emporium is looking to create its own dedicated coworking facility for remote workers and community members to leverage.
“Seeing this program evolve over the past three years has been so rewarding,” said Peters. “A monetary investment in a rural region can go a long way, and we saw that with the funding that happened through the Wilds Are Working program. In addition to the financial investment, the investment of time and energy helped these communities reflect on how they can continue to inspire folks to relocate and current residents to be reinvigorated with a sense of pride in their town.”
The future of Wilds Are Working
The Wilds Are Working: A Remote Lifestyle Experience was grant-funded for three years. Now at the end of that time period, the PA Wilds Center is pausing to distill what was learned throughout the six host communities and consider what the future of the program looks like going forward.
The PA Wilds Center will release a guide to The Wilds Are Working: A Lifestyle Experience for Remote Workers in early 2025. The guide will share successes and challenges, as well as technical processes for how other communities and organizations could implement programs of the same nature.
ABOUT THE PA WILDS
The Pennsylvania Wilds is a 13-county region that includes the counties of Cameron, Clarion, Clearfield, Clinton, Elk, Forest, Jefferson, Lycoming, McKean, Potter, Tioga, Warren, and northern Centre. The PA Wilds Center for Entrepreneurship, Inc., is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization whose mission is to integrate conservation and economic development in a way that inspires the communities of the Pennsylvania Wilds. The PA Wilds Center promotes the region and its 2+ million acres of public lands as a premier outdoor recreation destination as a way to diversify local economies, inspire stewardship, attract investment, retain population and improve quality of life. The PA Wilds Center’s core programs seek to help businesses leverage the PA Wilds brand and connect with new market opportunities, including: the Wilds Cooperative of PA, a network of more than 575 place-based businesses and organizations, and the PA Wilds Conservation Shop, a retail outlet primarily featuring products sourced from the WCO. For more information on the PA Wilds Center, visit www.PAWildsCenter.org. To learn more about the WCO, visit www.WildsCoPA.org. Explore the PA Wilds at www.PAWilds.com. Find regionally made products at www.ShopThePAWilds.com.
Media Contact
Britt Madera | Communications Manager
PA Wilds Center for Entrepreneurship, Inc.
[email protected] | 570-948-1051