Monuments Across Appalachian places invites participants to commemorate workshop (copy)
Monuments Across Appalachian Places (MAAP) in partnership with the Southwest Virginia Conservation Initiative Inc. and Appalachian Voices seeks individuals and groups from Southwest Virginia to participate in a free Commemorate Workshops in Cleveland, Russell County, on June 27. The workshop is designed to help community members refine and develop ideas for new public memory projects that honor histories more than 50 years old while amplifying stories often overlooked or under told in public memorials.
The June 27 Commemorate Workshop will be held at the Cleveland Community Recreation Center at 6 Minor Street, Cleveland, and will be the third in a series of workshops across Central Appalachia and online between April and September. The goal of the workshop is to help community leaders, organizations, and communities in Appalachia learn how to use physical, verbal, auditory, and other imaginative arts and community collaborations to tell their stories. The goal is to bring people together to organize, share, and create social change.
The workshops provide training and support in: writing grants for community monuments / projects; developing projects that are shaped by regional communities; planning digital archive and oral history collections and their preservation; setting realistic project goals; and creativity re-thinking what a monument can be.
“These workshops are about giving communities the tools to tell their own stories,” said MAAP Co-Director Dr. Emily Satterwhite. “Appalachia holds powerful histories of organizing, migration, environmental stewardship, and cultural creativity. By supporting community-led monument projects, we’re helping ensure those histories are shared in ways that center the experiences of the people who lived them.”
"The Monuments Across Appalachian Places grant program has provided a chance for overlooked and underserved communities to take pride in their history and to look to their futures. The ability to organize and engage folks through art and shared culture is part of what keeps Appalachian places alive. It’s so exciting to think about the joy that future MAAP projects will spark,” said Appalachian Voices’s New Economy Program Manager Emma Kelly.
Space is limited to 30 participants, and prospective attendees should submit an application to attend. To apply please visit https://www.moremountainstories.org/commemorate-workshops#how-to-apply.
During the workshop, small-group sessions will also provide attendees with direct support preparing and refining their grant proposals ahead of the Oct. 13 deadline for MAAP monument projects. Successful proposals will be eligible for grants ranging from $50,000 to $350,000 to support the creation of new monuments during 2027-2028. Individuals do not need to attend a workshop to be eligible to apply for MAAP monument funding.
