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WALES - Local volunteers to keep community going

Published:Wednesday | December 22, 2010 | 12:00 AM
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A good Samaritan tries to help free a woman's car from the snow on University Avenue as a winter storm continues in St Paul, Minnesota, on Saturday, December 11. The storm formed in the Rocky Mountains and then swept into northern Nebraska and Iowa overnight. By last Saturday morning, heavy snow and strong winds had created blizzard conditions across eastern South Dakota, northwest Iowa and southwest Minnesota, and the storm was moving east into Minnesota's Twin Cities and western Wisconsin. - AP
A snowplow pulls up to the site during a snowstorm where an Albert Lea school bus slid off the shoulder and into the ditch on Monday in Albert Lea, Minnesota. According to the National Weather Service, a period of very heavy snow was expected to begin late Monday morning in west central and south central Minnesota, move across the rest of the state into the afternoon and then travel into west central Wisconsin.
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Llanarmon-Yn-ll, Wales (AP):

Bundled up against the cold, Dave Willis and wife Sue shovel snow from the pathway to The Raven Inn. Wendy Holifield carries out the sandwich board and plants it by the pub's stone wall. Inside, Jim Pilkington stokes the fire and checks if the beer taps are in order.

Britain may be in the grip of a nasty cold snap, but it's business as usual at The Raven Inn. The workers have a big stake in keeping the pub going come rain, shine, sleet, or snow: They're among a group of local volunteers who took over the inn after it closed at the height of Britain's credit crunch.

The 290-year-old Raven Inn is the only watering hole in this tiny Welsh village nestled in the Clwydian Hills. Villagers were aghast when the owner put the property on sale for redevelopment, a cool-headed calculation that rising costs and a dwindling population of just 600 made it viable as a pub no longer.

pounds and pence

For the property tycoon it was all about pounds and pence. For the villagers it was about the very fabric of their community.

So they did what's increasingly being seen across Britain in these times of stark austerity: they came together in the bulldog spirit the nation has shown time and again when the chips are down, through wartime, natural disaster, and economic upheaval.

Across the country, volunteer groups have reopened local libraries shuttered by budget cuts. Parents have banded together to create new independent schools. In the town of Faringdon in Oxfordshire, volunteers operate the local bus service.

As pubs shut down around Britain at an alarming rate, almost 900 closed last year, a handful have followed The Raven Inn model to varying degrees. There are now around a half-dozen community-run village pubs across the country, most opened since Britain was plunged into economic crisis. It makes sense that the pub should be the focus of such community bonding: they're the heart-and-soul of village life, the place where news is shared, weddings celebrated, deaths mourned.