A new initiative is attempting to capitalize on the massive shift to remote work during the pandemic and help solve the issue of sustained population decline in rural Pennsylvania, writes Samantha Spengler for Philadelphia Magazine.

The “Wilds Are Working” program offers city dwellers in the Keystone State who are currently working remotely the chance to spend an expenses-paid month living­ and working in rural communities. The effort’s organizers hope the transplants like it enough to stick around.

The goal of the initiative, overseen by the Pa. Wilds Center for Entrepreneurship, is to highlight to workers (and, in turn, their networks of friends and family) the charms and virtues small-town life.

The whole program is tailor-made for the new digital age, in which an employee’s physical location is no longer a key element to a career.

The initiative offers free housing in the Pennsylvania Wilds — a rural region that represents a quarter of the state’s land area but only has four percent of its population, and a stipend.

Participants’ families and pets are welcome, too.

Read more about the Wilds Are Working initiative in the Philadelphia Magazine.

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Curious about the Pennsylvania Wilds but unfamiliar with its details? Here’s a video that highlights its numerous assets.