RUX announces continued support from the National Endowment for the Arts!

Louisville, Kentucky—   Art of the Rural and The Kentucky Rural-Urban Exchange have been awarded a grant of $10,000 from The National Endowment of the Arts via their Grants for Arts Projects category. The award will go to support the new Intercultural Microgrant Program and the 2023 RUX Cohort as we travel to Louisville, Owensboro, and Estill County.

“The National Endowment for the Arts is pleased to support a wide range of projects, demonstrating the many ways the arts enrich our lives and contribute to healthy and thriving communities,” said NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD. “These organizations play an important role in advancing the creative vitality of our nation and helping to ensure that all people can benefit from arts, culture, and design.”

The Kentucky Rural-Urban Exchange is a creative leadership program designed to build confidence, grow social capital, and bridge divides to unite Kentuckians.  RUX replicated the program to form Minnesota RUX in 2020, and now includes 260 Kentuckians from 49 counties and 32 Minnesotans from 16 counties. RUX alumni are artists, educators, farmers, attorneys, factory workers, bankers, nurses, elected officials, small business owners, retirees, and more.  The Kentucky Rural-Urban Exchange is among 1,129 projects across America totaling nearly $31 million that were selected for funding in the Grants for Arts Projects funding category. 

“The Rural-Urban Exchange offers our Kentuckians the opportunity to hone skills, expand their networks, explore the distinctive culture and amenities of Kentucky’s regions, engage in proactive conversations about our most complex challenges, and begin to collaborate on solutions” said Savannah Barrett, Exchange Director of Art of the Rural. “We’re grateful to the NEA for recognizing and supporting this important work.”

Now in its ninth year, this partnership between Art of the Rural and Appalshop has earned national acclaim in the Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal, the Christian Science Monitor, and national conferences such as Grantmakers in the Arts and the Kennedy Center Arts Summit. To learn more about the Kentucky Rural-Urban Exchange, visit www.kyrux.org. For more information on this National Endowment for the Arts grant announcement, visit arts.gov/news.