Advancing Southern vitality through the arts.

Cowan Community Center
Letcher County, KY

Through In These Mountains (ITM) support, Cowan Community Center’s Pick’n Bow program expands access to traditional Appalachian music education across Letcher County. Serving children, teens, adults, and elders, the program offers instruction in fiddle, banjo, dobro, and piano while creating intergenerational spaces for learning, connection, and belonging. Weekly classes and community meals bring together longtime residents and new participants alike, strengthening cultural continuity and community well-being.

“This program gave me a place to belong.”
— Participant, Pick’n Bow Program

Carolina Mountains Literary Festival
Burnsville, North Carolina 

Cornbread & Tortillas is a seven-member multicultural performance collective bringing together Appalachian and Latin American traditions through bilingual spoken word, music, and dance. Drawing from personal stories and cultural heritage spanning Appalachia, Central America, and beyond, the group builds cultural bridges through joyful, immersive performances that center connection, shared humanity, and community dialogue, particularly in rural and under-resourced communities.

Bilingual performance as a blueprint for cultural connection and community building.

Asian Culture Center of Tennessee (ACCTN)
Knoxville, TN

The Asian Culture Center of Tennessee fosters cross-cultural understanding by sharing the diverse arts, cultures, and traditions of Asia. Through year-round programs, education, and community engagement, ACCTN creates welcoming spaces that connect communities, strengthen a sense of belonging, and bridge cultural divides across East Tennessee.

Serving as a bridge between Asian and non-Asian communities through arts, culture, and education.

Catawba Cultural Center
Rock Hill, South Carolina

The Catawba Cultural Center preserves and advances the living culture of the Catawba Indian Nation through education, traditional arts, language preservation, and intergenerational learning. Programs support Catawba artists, youth, and elders while sharing Indigenous history and cultural knowledge with the broader public through exhibitions, apprenticeships, and community-based arts education.

From youth apprenticeships to elder-led cultural teaching, the Center creates pathways for cultural knowledge to thrive.

African Diaspora Art Museum of Atlanta (ADAMA)
Atlanta, GA

The African Diaspora Art Museum of Atlanta (ADAMA) is a contemporary art institution rooted in Southwest Atlanta that centers global Black experiences through exhibitions, artist residencies, public programs, and community dialogue. Through immersive, culturally affirming work, ADAMA connects local and international artists with audiences across the Southeast, expanding access to narratives, histories, and creative practices often underrepresented in mainstream institutions.

We amplify the diverse voices of our global family through the creation of immersive experiences, cultivating shared learning, and facilitating meaningful points of connection.

Huntsville Hospital Foundation 
Huntsville, Alabama

Arts in Medicine documents the healing relationship between humans and animals through workshops, a public artist talk, and a hospital-based exhibition centered on a facility dog, highlighting how art and animal companionship support emotional well-being for patients, caregivers, and healthcare staff.

Bringing arts into a scary, unpredictable setting is important to our mission to create an environment of whole healing.

Starkville Area Arts Council (SAAC)
Starkville & Oktibbeha County, MS

The Starkville Area Arts Council connects artists and community members through year-round, accessible arts programming rooted in education and civic life. From festivals and public art exhibitions to after-school programs and workshops, SAAC creates opportunities for people of all ages to engage with the arts as a tool for creative development, community connection, and local economic vitality.

SAAC connects artists with the community through accessible, year-round arts programming.

The Walls Project
Baton Rouge, Louisiana

ReActivate transforms underinvested public spaces into vibrant, sustainable places through large-scale public art, environmental stewardship, and strategic community engagement.

Transforming blighted public spaces into vibrant community assets through art and local leadership.

The Way of Water Miami
Miami Dade County, FL

This project brought artists, musicians, and civic workers together to highlight the essential role of the Everglades and the people who steward Miami’s water systems. Through performance, movement, and multimedia storytelling, participants shared the often unseen labor that supports daily life in the region. The work engaged more than 1,300 community members and offered civic workers a rare opportunity for creative expression and recognition. 

The project provided an opportunity for personal expression and recognition, which is often not part of civic workers’ daily experience.

— Civic worker, The Way of Water 

Walton Correctional Institution
De Funiak Springs, Florida

A quarterly songwriting residency brought teaching artists into Walton Correctional Institution, where participants engaged in twenty-one days of instruction, wrote more than thirty original songs, and shared their work in two culminating performances. Songs from the January residency were later featured at the 30A Songwriters Festival, offering a wider audience a window into the voices and stories shaped inside the program. 

“... I am so grateful programs like this are available in a correctional setting. It’s a little taste of freedom.” 

— Participant, Beyond Bars Songwriting Residency