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Donald was 6' 6", a big 6' 6" at that, with large hands, an open-mouth menacing look, acne scarred and a baseball cap mostly worn backwards, not that the rest of us were that damn handsome. Donald had some handicaps. Nobody said anything about it. Who would? Still you just noticed even if you were trying not to.

Advocacy | Health | Policy

Support the Healthy Food Financing Initiative

07/01/2010

The Center for Rural Strategies is part of a nation coalition that supports the President’s FY 2011 budget proposal to invest $345 million in a national Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI).

grants | National Rural Assembly | Philanthropy

Grant supports Rural Assembly and related activities

04/29/2010

A major grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation will ensure continuation of the National Rural Assembly and a range of related rural organizing and development activities.

The three-year, $7 million grant will go to a national partnership of nonprofits to build public support for policies that benefit rural children and families. The Center for Rural Strategies will manage the partnership and serve as fiscal agent for the initiative.

Advocacy | youth assembly

National Rural Youth Assembly

04/26/2010

Rural young people from across the width and breadth of the United States gathered April 22-25, 2010, to discuss the challenges and opportunities in rural America. Videos, blog posts, photo essays, and "digital postcards" are among the many online resources generated through the first National Rural Youth Assembly.

basketball | Daily Yonder | Dee Davis | Final Four | Media

Basketball isn't just a sport, it's mythological in much of rural America. By Dee Davis

04/06/2010

Dee Davis, Center for Rural Strategies president, writes in our Daily Yonder:

"In my part of rural Kentucky, the best day of the year is the Thursday that starts the NCAA basketball tournament. What a day. There are ten hours of games on the television, 64 teams full of possibility, and you don’t have to wrap any presents. But then there comes the inevitable, the day your team loses, your bracket goes bust, and the team you hate keeps winning. There, in that despair our relationship to the thing we love is tested."

agriculture | Daily Yonder | Richard Oswald

Writer for Rural Strategies' Daily Yonder part of national panel on poverty and genetically modified crops

03/09/2010

Richard Oswald, author of the "Letter from Langdon" feature on the Center for Rural Strategies' Daily Yonder, was part of a panel discussion in Washington D.C. examining whether biotechnology is helpful to poor farmers.

diversity | FCC | media reform | Broadband

Rural groups support media diversity in comments to the FCC

03/09/2010

The Center for Rural Strategies has joined organizations and individuals from around the country asking the Federal Communications Commission to make increased diversity in broadcast and broadband media a higher priority.

In a letter to the FCC, the organizations stated:

Collaborating with the Central Appalachian Network

02/10/2010

Center for Rural Strategies' resident photographer Shawn Poynter has been working with the Central Appalachian Network to produce multimedia profile pieces about their seven member organizations. Shawn photographed, recorded audio, and wrote stories about the impact these organizations are having in their communities. One of CAN's area of emphasis is increasing the availability and reach of thriving local food systems.

Philanthropy

Public interest can encourage private donations

01/28/2010

Government can play a role in encouraging private donations to support community development work in rural areas.

Gerry Roll, executive director of the Community Foundation of Hazard and Perry County Inc., made this case in an op/ed in the Lexington (Kentucky) Herald Leader on January 28, 2010.

For more on Rural Strategies’ efforts to encourage new approaches to rural philanthropy, visit our philanthropy page.

FCC | Broadband

Rural Strategies Part of FCC Workshop

12/15/2009

The promise of broadband to decrease the economic and social gap between rural and metropolitan areas is going unfulfilled, said Tim Marema, vice president of the Center for Rural Strategies, in a presentation at a Federal Communications Commissioner workshop.