Appalshop

Appalshop is a media, arts, and cultural organization in Whitesburg, KY, in the heart of central Appalachia. It was founded in 1969 as a project of the U.S. government's War on Poverty, and it has grown to become an important amplifier of the voices of the Appalachian region. Its mission is to develop effective ways of using media and cultural expression to address the complex issues facing the region. In July 2022, Whitesburg was devested by flooding, and two Appalshop buildings that housed decades worth of archival media as well as most of the organization’s broadcasting and production equipment was submerged in water for hours and sustained significant damage. This grant provides general support to Appalshop as it works to rebuild its facility and re-launch programming in the aftermath of the flooding. This includes salvaging and reconstituting Appalshop’s vast archives about life and history in Appalachia; equipping a temporary facility to get its community radio station, WMMT 88.7, back on air as soon as possible; and recovering, relaunching, and expanding Appalshop’s Appalachian Media Institute (AMI), a media training program for central Appalachian youth.

Appalshop is a media, arts, and cultural organization in Whitesburg, KY, in the heart of the central Appalachia. It was founded in 1969 as a project of the U.S. government's War on Poverty, and it has grown to become an important amplifier of the voices of the Appalachian region. Its mission is to develop effective ways of using media and cultural expression to address the complex issues facing the region: a declining coal economy, a legacy of environmental damage, high unemployment rates, and poor educational opportunities and attainment. In 1988, Appalshop founded the Appalachian Media Institute (AMI) as a media training program for central Appalachian youth. This project grant supports AMI to expand the media literacies and civic engagement of young people in Appalachia through in-school, after-school and summer youth media making programming. It also will engage Appalachian youth in conversations on issues relevant to them through local and regional screenings of youth-made media and other virtual and in-person community gatherings. Over the next two years, AMI is also expanding its scope of work to include efforts to connect recent AMI graduates with freelance media work in an effort to build a workforce pipeline for youth in Appalachia interested in careers in the media and related fields.

Appalshop enables cultural organizing and place-based media, arts and education to document the life and concerns of people living in Appalachia and rural America by bringing forth new and often unheard voices to demonstrate the power of arts and culture to create meaningful social and economic change. This grant supports Appalshop to participate in a national convening of participatory civic media organizations supported through MacArthur’s Journalism and Media program. The meeting is designed to help coalesce the emerging field of participatory civic media, of which Appalshop is part, by facilitating new connections and collaborations and building a shared sense of identity among a new breed of media and culture organizations using participatory media to amplify historically marginalized voices and strengthen American democracy.

Appalshop is a media, arts, and cultural organization in Whitesburg, KY, in the heart of the central Appalachia. It was founded in 1969 as a project of the U.S. government's War on Poverty and has grown to become an important amplifier for the voices of the Appalachian region. Its mission is to develop effective ways of using media and cultural expression to address the complex issues facing the region. It launched its Appalachian Media Institute in 1988 to provide opportunities for young people from across Central Appalachia to explore their home communities, address local issues, and become thoughtful, engaged citizens through the process of media production. This grant supports the Appalachian Media Institute to implement a summer internship program and workshops throughout the school year for youth in the region to produce media as a means of engaging in civic and political life, exploring issues that affect their region, and connecting their voices and viewpoints to national debate.

To support a project with the Kentucky Economic Justice Alliance to increase participation in discussions about economic justice and welfare reform.