The tiny hilltop village of Trevinano (a hamlet of around 100 residents in central Italy, in the border region between Umbria, Lazio, and Tuscany) is nearing the end of a four-year, €20 million EU-funded revival programme that brought construction crews, new businesses, and fresh hope to a community that had dwindled from 600 inhabitants two decades ago. Under Italy's national recovery plan tied to the EU's post-pandemic reconstruction fund, the programme renovated abandoned homes, established a cooperative to run a new bar, restaurant, and grocery shop, and created five local jobs — modest gains that nonetheless represent a lifeline for a village that had lost its school, its inn, and its last local landowner in quick succession. With EU disbursements set to end this summer, the cooperative must now sustain itself independently, and whether the investment translates into lasting revival or merely delays Trevinano's decline remains an open question.