KFTC members host successful Growing Appalachia Conference

This past weekend, more than 100 people attended the Growing Appalachia conference at the Jenny Wiley State Park in Prestonsburg. More than a dozen counties were represented among the presenters and attendees, with the majority of folks coming from eastern Kentucky. Growing Appalachia was a full day of workshops and conversations about small-scale farming, sustainable forestry, and clean energy solutions that can benefit the land and people in eastern Kentucky. Workshops ranged from home weatherization, to horse-drawn logging, to growing your own edible mushrooms, to how to get your farm certified organic. 

The workshop was hosted by the Floyd County Chapter of KFTC and many members participated in the planning and staffing of the event. Members were excited that this year's attendance had doubled from the first conference last year.

Throughout the day, several people shared their experience of local success. "Solar works here.  We're living proof of it," Elijah Collett from Leslie County shared during the workshop about solar energy solutions. Leading up to the conference, Elijah and his wife Guylaine were featured in the Lexington Herald Leader. You can read the article on how they power their mobile home in Leslie County with solar energy here.

People had a lot of great ideas about moving this work forward including more workshops and ways to work together to make some of these ideas happen.

Watch a slideshow of the day below: