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The Brushy Fork Watershed
Issue 16 | February 11, 2015
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Inside this Issue
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Growing Communities from Within: Arts as an Alternative Development Model
Helen Matthews Lewis, a distinguished Appalachian sociologist, scholar, community organizer, educator, and activist, emphasized the important role of local history in sustainable community development. In an article titled “ Rebuilding Communities: A Twelve-Step Recovery Program†(2007), Lewis acknowledged that all community work is relational. In Lewis’s framework, conversation – including the examination of history through the sharing of memories – promotes bonding among community members, which then matures into wise and committed action. The result is an increased sense of interconnectedness that produces a spirit of belonging, purpose, commitment, and cooperation.
Our experience partnering with more than 30 communities on community art and performance projects since 2008 confirms Lewis’s claims: good things result from inclusive community processes that value sharing, caring, learning, and creativity. Communities engaging in the collection and performance of oral histories have also discovered that there’s no shortage of source material upon which to build. After all, everyone has a story to tell.
Such approaches to local development are by no means quick fixes to Appalachia’s economic issues, and they don’t pretend to be. To judge these efforts by the economic outcomes they generate in the short-term is too shortsighted. The more immediate value lies in the relationships this type of development fosters and the sense of agency it helps engender. Reconnection with history, heritage, and identity contributes to community empowerment. Individually, participants also benefit from improved language skills, social skills, observation skills, and increased understanding of how to collaborate and be part of an ensemble. All may be viewed as signs of increased leadership capacity or elements contributing to individual empowerment, which ultimately correlates with community change.
Joni Pugh, a Lewis County resident, collaborated with Dr. Richard Geer of Community Performance International last year to produce a community performance in Vanceburg, Kentucky. Pugh said that storytelling provides an alternate way for communities to not only preserve their history but also address local issues. “Stories help cast problems in a different light, and can be an effective way to help communities mend and heal,†Pugh said.
Vanda Rice, a Manchester, Kentucky resident, met Geer in Colquitt, Georgia, at a Creative Communities Conference hosted by the Swamp Gravy Institute. Rice attended the training as part of a Clay County team sponsored by a 2012 Flex-E-Grant. In retrospect, she says the training was transformative. “Our group came home ready to work. We launched a storytelling endeavor that resulted in a community performance that demonstrated the pride, strength, talent, and worth of our people. Three performances later, we are 52 members strong and growing.†The group, who call themselves Monkey Dumplins, has a fourth production planned for May 2015.
Recent projects in Carter, Johnson, and Letcher counties have reported similar positive results. These community success stories lend support to a strategy for regional development suggested by the SOAR working group focused on the area of Tourism, Arts, and Heritage.
In a September 2014 report to the SOAR Executive Board, this working group recommended supporting and creating programs and activities that promote arts and heritage and reinforce regional identity. In short, the group identified the need to build, rebuild, preserve and create community, and suggested one way of doing so may be mining community history as sources of local pride. Once reclaimed, this history could serve as a tool by which to reframe outside perceptions and promote regional tourism.
In the recovery program Lewis (2007) outlines, such projects not only serve to build local pride but are also effective at counteracting losses of local distinctiveness and sense of place through the creation of unifying events. Cataloguing the many benefits and binding nature of stories, Lewis wrote, "Stories build connections between people, provide ways to share knowledge, strengthen civic networks, provide the tools to rebuild communities, and provide the infrastructure, the social capital, which is essential in democratic-based development. You need to get people talking, planning, dreaming."
"As people begin telling stories of individuals and local places, they share work histories. Listen to stories from the elders who recall the good old days and the bad old days. On these stories, community is rebuilt, pride develops, a sense of identity and roots are established."
Lewis also stated that "as communities regain their histories, they also develop an understanding of the community’s role in the larger history of the region, state, and nation," and how they can influence the future narrative of each.
In the next issue of the Watershed, we'll share a number of creative approaches our community partners have recently used to tell and share their stories. We'll also highlight how communities are using the arts as a historical recovery tool and as a way to craft new narratives for their towns.
Questions and comments about this article may be submitted to Rodney Wolfenbarger, Associate Director of Brushy Fork Institute.
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Now Accepting ARC Grant Proposals
Brushy Fork Institute and The Center for Rural Development are accepting grant proposals for the 2015 KY Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) Flex-E-Grant program.
The Flex-E-Grant (FEG) program, designed by the ARC, provides small investments in short-term projects that build community capacity to mobilize local resources, gain leadership experience, and strengthen community institutions and networks.
Grants are subject to approval for up to $10,000, require a 20 percent match of total project costs, and are to be completed within a six-month timeframe. Funds are made available on a reimbursement basis only.
The FEG program was generated from the ARC initiative to enhance assistance to distressed counties, and each approved project must demonstrate beneficiaries in a distressed county. Although the primary intent is to support efforts that help develop local capacity, eligible activities may also include collaboration among communities in support of existing and emerging regional development efforts, such as SOAR, Promise Zone, and other regional capacity building initiatives.
Competitive grants are available to nonprofit entities or units of goverment in 40 Kentucky counties designated by ARC as distressed counties for fiscal years 2013-2014.
Eligible counties include: Bath, Bell, Breathitt, Carter, Casey, Clay, Clinton, Cumberland, Elliott, Estill, Fleming, Floyd, Harlan, Hart, Jackson, Knott, Knox, Lawrence, Lee, Leslie, Letcher, Lewis, Lincoln, Magoffin, Martin, McCreary, Menifee, Metcalfe, Monroe, Morgan, Owsley, Perry, Powell, Robertson, Rockcastle, Rowan, Russell, Wayne, Whitley, and Wolfe.
Proposals are due by 5 p.m. (EST) on Feb. 23. Digital files are preferred and may be emailed to arc@centertech.com.
The Center for Rural Development, a nonprofit organization based in Somerset, Kentucky, and Brushy Fork Institute, a community outreach program of Berea College, administer program funds in partnership with the Kentucky Department for Local Government and the ARC.
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Growing Local Resources:
Philanthropy and Regional Development
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
11 am • 3 pm
Cumberland Valley Area Development District • London, KY
Please join us for learning and conversation with Dr. Bob Long, the 2015 Duvall Leader in Residence at the University of Kentucky's Center for Leadership Development. Dr. Long is a nationally recognized leader in philanthropy and nonprofit innovation, and he will explore principles and examples for developing local philanthropy as a resource in community development. Participants will also examine how we can work together on local and regional levels to strengthen philanthropy in Appalachian Kentucky.
Lunch will be served with this meeting. The Duvall Leader in Residence Program is sponsored by the W. Norris Duvall Leadership Endowment Fund. This meeting has been planned in collaboration with the Kentucky Promise Zone and members of the Appalachian Rural Development Philanthropy Initiative. There is no fee to attend, and the meeting is open to anyone interested in learning more about philanthropy and community development.
We hope you can join us for this important conversation about developing local resources for community and economic development.
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Dr. Richard Geer to Deliver Keynote Address
As a region, Appalachia’s rich cultural history and artistic heritage are often listed among its greatest assets. Southern Appalachian storytellers such as Ray Hicks, Sheila Kay Adams, and Jo Carson have served as important figures in keeping our oral traditions alive and preserving regional stories. Regional communities have also proven successful in building on this legacy as a foundation for inclusive and sustainable development.
Throughout the coming year we plan to explore how such cultural wealth may be leveraged during this period of economic transition to create an alternative economy that also has the potential to empower communities from within. This focus on arts-based development will also be reflected in our programming, through events such as the Annual Institute.
The 2015 Annual Institute is scheduled for September 22-25 and we’re glad to announce that Dr. Richard Owen Geer will be delivering our keynote address. Geer is the founder and artistic director of Community Performance International, an organization that works with communities across the nation to find, craft, and tell their stories.
In addition to serving as keynote speaker, Geer will lead a track session related to arts-based community development with Dr. Qinghong Wei of Florida State University. Dr. Wei’s research recognizes the intrinsic value of arts-based developmental models in promoting social change in communities. This change is guided by conversations that appreciate the past and present and engage groups in taking action toward the future.
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The 2015 Brushy Fork Annual Institute is scheduled for September 22 • 25 at Berea College.
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Our Mission:
Committed to the attainment, for all, of lives that are worthy of equal dignity, we work with both existing and emerging leaders to help communities build for tomorrow. By working to grow local leadership, promote civic engagement, and support the development and articulation of community-driven visions, we seek to improve the life—and quality of life—of communities throughout Appalachia, with a specific emphasis on those designated as economically distressed.
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