In the expansive, often overlooked landscape of Eastern Washington, a small but fiercely dedicated group known as “Prosperity Eastern Washington” is sounding an alarm. Founded by individuals like Shirley Grossman, the nonprofit was born from a deep sense of heartbreak over the information vacuum plaguing rural communities. Far from the bustling urban centers, residents in these towns are increasingly disconnected from the realities of how federal policy decisions directly impact their daily survival—specifically regarding their healthcare and economic stability. The group’s mission is simple yet profound: to cut through the noise, provide transparency, and ensure that rural citizens are armed with the facts they need to navigate a rapidly shifting political and economic landscape.
The group first gained public attention through an audacious billboard campaign that stretched from Colville to Walla Walla. With stark, provocative messages like “Congress forcing painful choices: medicine or food?” and “Inputs up – profits down. Who’s representing us?”, they sought to force a conversation in places where traditional media outlets often fall silent. Their predictive power was proven when a billboard near Ritzville warned of impending healthcare instability; just three weeks later, news broke that over 100 employees at the local hospital were being laid off. Because their team includes a former healthcare auditor, Prosperity Eastern Washington saw the writing on the wall long before the rest of the town, highlighting a dangerous lack of transparency that they are determined to challenge.
As fiscal constraints shift their strategy, the organization is evolving beyond physical billboards. Dr. Pam Kohlmeier, a physician and attorney who serves on the team, is helping lead the transition toward a digital front, utilizing social media, radio, and streaming services to reach an even broader audience. Their website serves as a grounding hub, offering deep dives into how federal policies—such as proposed cuts to Medicaid and food assistance—threaten the fabric of small-town life. By sending out informative postcards and seeking local ambassadors, the group hopes to empower community members to become the messengers themselves, transforming passive recipients of policy into informed, active participants in their own future.
The urgency of this work is underscored by the looming specter of the 2025 federal budget proposals. Experts warn that these policies, often touted as fiscal necessities, could effectively cripple rural healthcare systems, putting hospitals at immediate risk of closure and leaving vulnerable families with nowhere to turn. To Grossman, the tragedy isn’t just the policy itself; it is the fact that many of the people who will be devastated by these cuts are completely unaware of the threat. She describes a profound, heartbreaking disconnect where the very people who would be hardest hit by policy shifts are left in the dark, vulnerable to misinformation and the consequences of changes they never saw coming.
Beyond the numbers and policies, Grossman harbored a deeper, perhaps more idealistic hope: that she could heal the cultural and political chasm separating urban and rural faith communities. By proposing “sister-church” partnerships, she hoped to foster genuine human connections that would bypass the toxic, polarized rhetoric that saturates modern politics. She believed that if a city church and a remote, rural congregation could be tethered together, they might find that their shared values far outweigh their geographic and ideological differences. She envisioned a future where people from different worlds stepped out of their silos, realized they shared the same anxieties, and stopped viewing one another with suspicion or judgment.
Ultimately, this chapter of their journey stands as a lesson in the difficulty of bridge-building during turbulent times. Despite earnest attempts, many churches—stretched thin and struggling to maintain their own foundations—simply didn’t have the capacity for outreach. While Grossman acknowledges the project as a failure in the short term, those involved remain undeterred by the reality that seeds of change take time to germinate. Both she and Dr. Kohlmeier believe that once the dust settles and the current climate of hostility wanes, the core necessity of human connection remains. They remain convinced that beneath the resentment and the “othering,” we are all searching for the same stability and dignity, and that eventually, these quiet connections will be the only thing strong enough to hold a divided nation together.