In the original grant application the authors for jackweb explained how different the situation was in this impoverished part of Ohio. "Some of the people are not only ignorant of the technology, they have a fear of it. For example, some families would not allow the Internet into their home even if they could afford the equipment." The applicants saw the project as a way of bringing the benefits of the Internet to those in need of jobs, children using a homework center, after-school activities, and local businesses promoting their products on the Web. This cluster wanted to solve their own problems with their own resources:

"Instead of seeking external or 'professional' help, MIRA offers the opportunity to work with a different set of players, develop our own goals, and use our experience and background to take care of our own. For decades solutions to Appalachian problems have come from the outside. In some things this is fine. In others, our backgrounds, our traditions, and our ways of working with each other are so radically different that their solutions, to use a local euphemism, 'just won't hunt.' We feel we have adequate expertise among the participants to break the traditional 'we'll fix it with a program from outside' approach."

Yet, like all the other teams they did hire outside trainers to learn about asset mapping (though Rural Action had already introduced that concept locally), ICT, living with change, as well as other mandated topics. In retrospect they found great value in most of the sessions. Anderson, who served on the jackweb team and as fiscal agent commented, "One hell of a lot of people got exposed to a lot of ideas and got good insights about their community and how people work together. We still talk about what we got out of the training."