STAY Project creates full-time position for Appalachian youth; hopes others will do the same...

The Stay Together Appalachian Youth (STAY) Project has created a full time position for Appalachian youth, to be stationed in the Central Appalachian region. This decision comes eight years after the formation of STAY, and just eight months after the part-time STAY Coordinator position was created. This change will shift current STAY coordinator Kendall Bilbrey into the full-time salaried post with benefits. This position will expand STAY’s capacity to coordinate trainings, leadership development opportunities, and resources to build community for Appalachian youth. Jobs that are fulfilling, stable, come with a benefits package, and that are specifically aimed at youth are hard to come by in Central Appalachia. This is why the full-time STAY coordinator position is so important. Its creation demonstrates what is possible for youth in the region when opportunities are made available to them. “Though creating replacements for coal mining jobs is important, we want to recognize that these aren’t the only kinds of jobs that need to be created,” Kendall said. “We need all kinds of things for people to stay here and work here.” STAY members conducted the majority of fundraising for this new position, which includes generous support from individual donors and foundations who believe in STAY’s work and in a bright future for Appalachian youth. STAY hosted their first ever fundraising week in February, and raised almost $300 from its members alone. Kendall said STAY members wanted to invest this money into a full time position because they saw the need for increased...

Bill and Melinda Gates paid a visit to EKY

Making our eastern Kentucky youth feel like they can do anything is a very crucial part of transitioning the regional economy. It doesn’t hurt when Bill and Melinda Gates are telling them that, too, when they come to visit. The pair – who co-chair the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which is “guided by the belief that every life has equal value” – stopped in on Betsy Layne High School in Floyd County a few months ago to see what administrators, teachers and students were doing that made them all so successful. From Melinda Gates: Floyd County schools have made significant gains in student achievement over the past 10 years. In 2005, the district was ranked 145th among Kentucky’s 173 public school districts in terms of student achievement. By the 2014–2015 school year, it had skyrocketed to 12th. More than 91 percent of the district’s students graduated from high school in 2014, beating the state’s graduation rate of 88 percent. And their college readiness rates are on the rise, too. We visited Betsy Layne because we wanted to see firsthand how teachers and administrators have helped drive such meteoric progress. It was quickly apparent that, like all of the most successful schools we’ve visited, Betsy Layne’s teachers and administrators use a combination of compassion and sky-high expectations to drive its young people to succeed. Bill and Melinda talked with students over pizza, and visited their classrooms to see how teachers were teaching. They were pleasantly surprised by the innovative techniques, and...

KSEC wants you for its Just Transition Working Group

Editor’s Note: The following is a guest blog post from a guest blogger. The views and opinions expressed in this guest blog do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Renew Appalachia or of the Mountain Association for Community Economic Development (MACED). Over the past year, I’ve had the privilege of working with the Kentucky Student Environmental Coalition’s Just Transition Working Group. The working group is made up of students and non-student youth from across the state who wish to promote a transition to local-based economies in which workers, citizens and the environment are protected. This fall semester, we laid the groundwork to launch a fair coal severance campaign. Through this campaign, we’ll be working to assure that taxes collected from coal companies for mining coal are used in coal producing and coal impacted counties in a way that enhances sustainable economic development. Growing up in a former coal town in Eastern Kentucky, I had little hope for the region. The coal industry that once thrived in my town left the land, water and economy in ruin. For several years, I vowed to leave Kentucky as soon as I possibly could, and saw escaping the area as the only course to success. Finding a community of environmentalists and other progressive-minded people, however, made me feel differently. The skills I learned from KSEC led me to discover my power as an activist and feel that I have the power to change the broken systems that allow Appalachia’s problems to persist. This drive to create a...

IG2BYITM Conference reaffirms one Appalachian’s hope for the future...

It’s been nearly two weeks since the It’s Good 2 Be Young in the Mountains conference in Harlan, Ky., and still it’s ripples are growing outward. (Photo courtesy of IG2BYITM Facebook) The “festival that breaks out into a conference,” as it was billed, was quite unlike any other conference about or for young people that’s I’ve been to in the region to date, for a few key reasons: It was wholly organized and carried out by young people; It’s social media presence was pervasive and effective in the weeks prior to the conference; And of the couple hundred or so people that attended, there may have been 10 people over 40. What’s also significant about IG2BYITM is the level of commitment and dedication flowing throughout all aspects of the conference. Commitment and dedication to place, that is – Central Appalachia, to be exact. This commitment and dedication is not to be confused as a love-fest for our mountain home. While much adoration and appreciation for our place was shared and talked about and embraced, much talk was had about the challenges we face as a region – challenges that are not small or insignificant by any measure. But while those challenges were in everyone’s minds as the conference chugged along, they were not necessarily the focus. The spotlight was reserved for what’s next – the collective future we are all building together and how we don’t want to be mired in or by the past – past mistakes, past failures, past romanticized –...

Young eastern Kentucky entrepreneur creates his own opportunity...

By: Ivy Brashear Many people like to have a purpose behind the work they do – a reason why they do that work and what keeps them doing it. For Garrett, Ky., native Shane Hamilton, having purpose behind the work he does is more like a life mantra. “I have goals. I have a ‘why:’ ‘Why do I want to do this?’” Hamilton said “Other people’s ‘why’ is they want to make money. You have to have something that overpowers money. What do you want to do with it? I like to help people who need it. I like to see other people make money. It’s the ‘why’ factor.” At 22, Hamilton, the owner and CEO of Service Maids LLC, is not the type to wait for opportunity to come his way; he creates it for himself. Hamilton has considered himself an entrepreneur since high school, when he sold trendy bracelets at local flea markets and festivals. When the bracelet fad started to decline, he decided to move on to a more sustainable business: professional house cleaning. He had researched what businesses required small amounts of investment to start, and cleaning companies were at the top of the list. And since there were no professional house-cleaning companies in eastern Kentucky, there would be little competition for his business. Hamilton started Service Maids in 2011 at age 19. He didn’t always want to start his own company from scratch. In fact, he tried to convince large, multi-million-dollar house cleaning companies...

Kentucky students are joining the Just Economic Transition movement...

Editor’s Note: The following is a guest blog post from a guest blogger. The views and opinions expressed in this guest blog do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Renew Appalachia or of the Mountain Association for Community Economic Development (MACED). Six proud, young Kentuckians kicked off the Kentucky Student Environmental Coalition’s Just Transition Working Group with a spirited discussion about supporting the movement toward a better future for our state! The group talked about how we could share the values of the Just Transition movement in our own regions and create opportunities for prosperity in our state. We discussed the kinds of jobs we’d like to see: those that put to use our individual experiences as Kentuckians and the unique, rich, cultural heritage of our state, and jobs that we can be proud of without having to put our environmental health at risk. There was also discussion about how unfair it’s been that communities in Kentucky haven’t been given the money or resources they’ve been owed – and desperately need – to succeed in their own right. We talked at length about why these inequities exist and reached the conclusion that a viable solution for our state would be a permanent revolving coal severance fund. We would expect our legislators and the industries that operate in our state to hold each other accountable for getting the money that is owed to our communities where it rightfully belongs. When you invest in communities, help them succeed from the inside out, true prosperity can flourish. Young Kentuckians...

Appalachian Love Story: The Radio Series

Search the hashtag for Appalachian Love Story on any social media site, and you’ll find images of fracking protest signs, mountain vistas, heavy metal shows, videos of Loretta Lynn singing about being a Blue Kentucky Girl, and pancakes in the shape of Kentucky. This is the result of The STAY Project’s (Stay Together Appalachian Youth) call to action for Appalachian youth: Show us your complicated relationship with your home. Tell us why you love it in spite of itself, but mostly because of itself. Now, this call to action has developed into a radio series produced by WMMT-FM out of Whitesburg, Ky. The first episode in the series is all about Carmen Davis, a STAY Project steering committee member and southeast Virginia native. She speaks about experiences growing up in southwest Virginia, the sense of community she feels through her work, and why she has decided to stay in southwest Virginia: I love the people. I love small-town life, and I love all the tight-knit communities, and all the passion for the area. There’s so much history and culture, and there’s also so much work that needs to be done, and it’s really important for to me to stay and make sure – especially because we have so many youth who feel like they have to leave. It’s important for us to stay and build communities and prove that there’s reasons to be here. Listen to Davis’ full Appalachian Love Story...

Who runs the Kentucky economy? Small businesses and entrepreneurs....

Kentucky is powered by small businesses. And when I say small, I mean small. Ninety-four percent of small businesses in the state have less than 50 employees, and 74 percent have less than 10. This is part of the reason why increased investment in and support for entrepreneurs in eastern Kentucky can be a major boon for the region’s economy. In fact, it could become a very strong foundation upon which the region’s entire economy stands. If only much of our leaders saw it that same way. Economic development in eastern Kentucky to this point has been almost exclusively about attracting and enticing large, industrial companies into the region with the promise of providing hundreds of jobs in one fell swoop. But the truth about the region’s economy is much more complex than that, and as Kentucky Center for Economic Policy Director Jason Bailey points out in this piece about supports for local entrepreneurs from Making Connections News, this strategy hasn’t really been that successful for the region, and the state’s time, effort and money could be better spent by investing more in small businesses: The approach to economic development and the resources for economic development are really focussed on landing the big fish – on trying to lure companies into Kentucky that would potentially employ a lot of people. And that’s gotten harder and harder for the state. There are fewer and fewer of the big fish out there, and it’s always been difficult for eastern Kentucky. If we put more money and...