When Will Bright passed away in 2014 from an overdose, his mother, Lisa Bright, knew she had to turn her pain into purpose. She and her husband, Bill, started the Will Bright Foundation to both honor their son and provide others with a safe, supportive environment for their recovery…
UK Landscape Architecture rendering of River Fog Park (Image courtesy of Why Whitley Facebook) In 2018 in Whitley County, Kentucky, a group of passionate citizens held a dinner to discuss ways to change the narrative surrounding the community. There were so many things to be proud of within the county,…
“Revolutionary Unique” was one of the many businesses pitched at the Dare to DreamCompetition for high school students in Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia. Creating a brighter economic future for Appalachia means investing in leadership skills and capacity of young doers, thinkers and leaders today. That’s why ARC…
In October 2019, North Carolina State University (NCSU) received a $1.1 million grant from ARC’s POWER Initiative to launch EmPOWERing Mountain Food Systems. The project initially intended to strengthen a seven-county “foodshed” in Western North Carolina by helping current producers become more profitable and training new farmers…
Behind the scenes as SOAR prepares for its online conference with partner at Coalfields Industrial Park in Perry County, Kentucky. In 2013, with ARC support, SOAR (Shaping our Appalachian Region) was established as a community based collaborative effort to embrace new ideas, leverage resources, and build capacity in eastern Kentucky. Headquartered…
BRIGHT Kentucky is a free training program building developed by the Leadership Kentucky Foundation to expand capacity of next-generation economic development leaders in the state’s 54 Appalachian counties. Made possible through support from ARC, The Kentucky Department of Local Government, the Whitaker Foundation, Shaping Our Appalachian Region (SOAR), and others,…
Funding from all types of private foundations is examined in this report, which shows how the Appalachian Region compares with the rest of the nation in obtaining foundation grants.
