People with disabilities represent the largest and most diverse minority group in the United States. In Kentucky, approximately 15.5% of the population reports having a disability. In Eastern Kentucky, the rate is even higher at about 21%, with some counties, such as Clay, Breathitt, and Owsley, reporting disability rates of up to 30%. Individuals with disabilities in Kentucky are twice as likely to live below the poverty line compared to those without disabilities, with around 25% of people with disabilities experiencing poverty compared to 11% of those without disabilities. The employment rate for people with disabilities in Kentucky is about 32%, significantly lower than the 78% employment rate for those without disabilities.  

These economic disparities are largely due to limited access to education, healthcare, and financial services in our region and beyond.  

Historically, disabled business owners have faced significant exclusion from the financial system due to a range of prejudices and perceived risks. Financial institutions often label disabled individuals as high-risk borrowers based on unfounded misconceptions about their capacity to manage a business or repay loans. This systemic bias has resulted in a critical lack of access to funding essential for launching and sustaining a business. Moreover, physical barriers and the absence of accessible financial services have further marginalized disabled entrepreneurs from mainstream financial systems. 

Community Development Financial Institutions, or CDFIs, like Mountain Association play a crucial role in addressing these barriers and supporting disabled entrepreneurs. By offering tailored financial products and services based on ability to repay rather than credit scores, CDFIs can bridge the gap and provide the necessary capital for disabled business owners to thrive. 

Mountain Association is committed to serving people with disabilities with deliberate intention and care. This year, through discussions and meetings with advocates from the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation, we refined a loan offering specifically for equipment purchases available to those working with the Office of Self-Employment. This product is designed to address the unique needs of disabled entrepreneurs, providing them with the financial tools necessary to succeed in their business ventures.  

As an organization, we have also looked for other ways to improve our accessibility. For example, Mountain Association is planning architectural modifications to make our Berea office fully ADA accessible. Our new staff go through learning series on a variety of topics, and in March, we focused on ADA legislation and its equalizing impact across the country.   

As an employee with disabilities, I am appreciative of accessibility being truly prioritized. When most people see me, they have no idea that I am disabled. Appearing young and healthy is both a privilege and challenge. I don’t experience the daily discrimination and stigma that my friends with visible disabilities do. On the other hand, I have to fight to be believed for my health conditions and have been verbally assaulted by strangers when I do use accommodations. Around 33 million Americans live with an invisible or non-apparent disability. A 2023 study found that 47% of employees with invisible disabilities have not disclosed their conditions to their employees for fear that they will be treated or perceived differently by their coworkers. However, when an organization encourages employees to ask for needed accommodations and demonstrates equitable practices, it makes it easier as an employee to take that brave step. Mountain Association has created a space where I no longer feel ashamed of my physical limitations.

My disabilities are invisible, but my support is on full display. My coworkers are empathetic and understanding, and even when my severe and debilitating chronic pain takes me out of commission for a few days, no one questions my dedication, which is all I’ve ever wanted from a workplace. From a supervisor who chauffeurs me to client visits as needed, to coworkers like Jimmy and Cam who fetched my cane after I dropped it off the side of a mountain, it feels like Mountain Association celebrates Disability Pride year-round, not just in July.  

For other employers there are easy ways to create more inclusive workspaces! Educate your staff about the different ways disabilities manifest, use inclusive language, implement assistive technologies, and, most importantly, create a culture of trust.  

That being said, even though we’ve made great strides at Mountain Association, we’re continually looking to improve our services in order to better serve all people. Please let us know if you have any ideas for us! 

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The manner in which NPR reported this story today, however, was a bit off-putting. The reporters are overwhelmingly shocked and surprised by these findings. On the outlet’s new morning podcast, “Up First,” reporter Alison Kodjak discusses the survey findings with hosts Steve Inskeep and Rachel Martin. Inskeep is surprised to report that despite rural American’s facing real challenges where they live, they “also have optimism for their future.” Kodjak also expresses surprise that the survey found optimism, most especially in the result showing that rural adults expect their children to be better off economically and financially than they are now. Martin interjects at this, incredulously asking, “Why do they think that?”

In other words, if you read between the lines, they are baffled that any rural Americans could possibly think their children will have a future that will be better than the present. Of course, Appalachia gets singled out as a “really distressed” area with very little hope.

I’m not necessarily surprised that national reporters have had their preconceived notion that rural America is a monolithic depressed place full of depressed people blown apart only after conducting a survey to prove to them that rural America is a diverse place with a diverse set of challenges inhabited by hopeful people.

But that’s because I know better.

In my work, I see hope every single day. I see it in Gwen Johnson, manager of Hemphill Community Center in Letcher County. Not only is Johnson keeping the community center open and providing activities in which her community can participate, but she is also providing jobs to people who are recovering from drug addiction at Black Sheep Brick Oven Bakery and Catering.

I see hope in the students at Hazard High School who opened a coffee shop, The 606, on Main Street in Hazard so they could provide a place for their community to gather, while learning entrepreneurial skills.

I see hope in the artists of Appalachia, who are painting murals to beautify their Main Streets, performing in community-produced productions with Higher Ground in Harlan County, and opening galleries like the Moonbow Gallery in Corbin, where other artists can display and sell their work.

I see hope in local farmers and chefs and other people surrounding the local food industry in eastern Kentucky. People like Kristin Smith, owner and chef at The Wrigley Taproom & Eatery in Corbin, and those who make up the Appalachian Food Summit, which preserves and promotes Appalachian food culture through annual gatherings, events and writing.

I see hope in the people living and working in the region who are becoming politically motivated and engaged, some to the point of running for state office themselves. They want better leaders who will fight for their communities and help them build a brighter future.

Yes, we face serious challenges in eastern Kentucky – drug epidemics, health crises, lack of job opportunities handed to us. But to assume we are hopeless people in a hopeless place is irresponsible, and just plain wrong. I see hope all around me in this place, and it is a hope that reaches far back into our history of community support and mutual survival.

We know what it means to thrive in this place because we have had to survive and thrive and build our future for ourselves from the very beginning. What often gets lost in national media about our place, though, is that we will be here long after it is trendy to talk about rural America in the national news as a monolith. We will keep surviving, thriving and building, because contrary to what mystified national reporters might think, we don’t need a survey to tell us that we will always have hope that tomorrow will be brighter.

The post In my work, I see hope every single day. appeared first on Mountain Association.

F!nal Fr!days, the monthly art show, features work from artists representing over 23 cities and 5 states, and gives both professional and amateur artists in central Appalachia a venue to display and sell their work. Second Saturday Shindigs is a music show for regional bands, provide low barrier opportunities for the community to gather, engage with the arts, partake in a free meal, build community, and be part of a positive movement toward the future in a place that has seen its share of hardships in recent years. Grayson has a poverty rate of 24% and is in Carter County, designated by the Appalachian Regional Commission, as an economically distressed county.

The Gallery works hard to provide opportunities to under-resourced youth and community members. An annual art camp offers a tuition-free arts experience for children and approximately 50% of participants come from under-resourced families. Dan Click, co-founder and director, said, “In the seven years we’ve been doing the camp we’ve seen many kids develop an interest in art that might not otherwise have had any interest. We’ve seen kids go on to major in art in college and now we have an art camp alumni who is teaching an art class for us!” The Gallery also started a “Pay It Forward” bike giveaway program to provide bikes for under-resourced individuals and collaborated with the Rotary Club to provide bike racks around town to encourage ridership.

The GGAC does all of this, and more, with a very small budget. They receive a small amount each year from the City of Grayson and have a 10 year agreement with the Tourism Commission for free use of the building. All other income is from donations and a few small grants. The staffing is all volunteer, except for one very part-time administrative position. Dan Click and Mindy Woods-Click, founders of the Grayson Gallery, have been recognized for their community service and as community change agents. It’s clear that the labor of love in planting seeds of change through art in Grayson is yielding a bumper crop of benefits for artists, the community, and the region.

MACED is happy to be able to partner with GGAC through a new network of communities and community groups called What’s Next EKY!?. MACED is supporting the incubation of What’s Next as a strategy to connect communities with the aims of mutual learning, regional collaboration, and economic development. Dan and Mindy serve on the steering committee for What’s Next and have brought the same enthusiasm that they brought to the GGAC.

Learn more about GGAC on their Facebook page. For more about What’s Next EKY!?, please email info@mtassociation.org.

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From a very early age, I just knew inherently that where I was from – the Left Fork of Maces Creek in Viper – was better than the Right or Middle Forks of Maces Creek. We were different than those folks, and so, our Fork was better. I also knew that living out in the county was way better than living in the city of Hazard. What did the city have to offer that the county didn’t make up for in so many ways?

My parents, alumnus of Dilce Combs High School circa 1971, still harbor deep-seeded disdain of Hazard High School because they were cross-county rivals. And when the consolidated high school opened in 1996, hatred of Hazard High carried over. The two school boards had to cancel the annual Perry Central-Hazard football game – the Black Gold Bowl – for a few years because the rivalry had become too intense.

We Eastern Kentuckians love the UK Wildcats, but hate the Duke Blue Devils (this one is, of course, justified; there are few reasons to like Duke). We know the grudges of our grandparents, and we hold true to those grudges, remembering every slight we were ever told, and are able to recount them if ever the aggressors’ names are mentioned. Though the stories of the now-infamous feuds have been exaggerated in order to turn a profit, it is largely true that Eastern Kentuckians stick together and stick to their own. It’s just – for lack of a better phrase – in our blood.

However, despite the friendly culture of rivalry present in the region, competition is not necessarily how we should live our lives if we are to build a better and brighter future for ourselves. We need to work together across artificial lines of division that have been created to keep us separate.

The Kentucky Rural-Urban Exchange (RUX), a 5-year-old program of Art of the Rural and Appalshop, is working to dismantle those dividing lines. RUX – of which I am a Steering Committee member – seeks to foster connection among Kentuckians from all corners of the state across lines of geography, ideology, identity, race, class, sector and other barriers. Through this connection, an increased understanding and appreciation of Kentucky as a whole – rural to urban, north to south, east to west – is fostered. The hope is that by connecting a group of about 60 Kentuckians each summer, big ideas about improving communities for all Kentuckians will coalesce and eventually come to fruition.

RUX believes that we are stronger and more resilient together than we are divided, and in order to move forward and build the Kentucky we want to see, we must come together in real and meaningful ways. To that end, RUX offers three weekend-long Community Intensives each summer. During the Community Intensives, participants are guided through leadership development activities and community learning that includes cultural exchange, history lessons, deep discussions of place, people and community, and facilitated time to think deeply about how the relationships being formed could develop into community change.

RUX has served more than 200 Kentuckians from 42 counties over its five years, and it intends to keep growing. We continue to search for new areas of growth – both in terms of which communities we’ll travel to next, but also, who we have yet to reach with this work. We are constantly keeping our vision aimed at growing the circle and further breaking down divisions that have kept us apart. Though friendly rivalries will remain, RUX will keep stepping over dividing lines to facilitate building the future together, with all Kentuckians, for all Kentuckians.

The post Kentucky Rural-Urban Exchange Seeks to Foster Connections across the Commonwealth appeared first on Mountain Association.

The report also includes the SOAR Regional Blueprint Goals, which include: Increase broadband access, develop a competitive digital workforce, improving public health and further establishing Eastern Kentucky as a tourism destination.

Read the full report here.

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Our mission is straightforward:

Building relationships and connecting communities to support a thriving Appalachian Kentucky.

Our vision:

To create a network of communities and resource providers that can work together to foster thriving rural communities in Appalachian Kentucky and create a greater impact on the economic development of our region. By sharing ideas, encouraging mutual learning, collaborating on regional projects and initiatives, and bringing greater resources to our communities, we will establish a stronger and more diverse economy in these mountains we call home.

As a network, we value:

• Inclusion
• Letting the communities lead, especially when determining what works best for their particular place.
• Mutual respect
• Accountability

 With the support of regional nonprofit partners including MACED, the Community Farm Alliance, Berea College’s Brushy Fork Institute & AIR Institute, Appalshop, CEDIK, and the Foundation for Appalachian Kentucky, What’s Next EKY!? is working to bring more resources to communities in the form of technical assistance, funding, leadership development, business development, training for entrepreneurs, and the development of local food systems, arts, and tourism. We believe there are many opportunities for regional collaboration on joint projects and learning from one another about what is working in our communities. Together, we believe that we can help determine what’s next and move together to create a new economy in East Kentucky.

What’s Next EKY!? will be presenting at the East Kentucky Leadership Conference on April 26^th &27^th. https://eklf.org/agenda/. Contact Betsy Whaley, betsy@mtassociation.org for more information.

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