Meet our 2025 Intercultural Microgrant recipients!

The Kentucky Rural-Urban Exchange (RUX) is excited to announce 16 recipients in our 2025 Intercultural Microgrant Program.

This third-annual cycle of RUX microgrants issued $23,200 in seed grants supporting teams of two or more individuals or organizations collaborating across distance, difference, or sector on projects that celebrate and connect Kentucky's people and places. Grantees and their respective funds include:

 

Josh May Memorial Fund

In memory of RUX Co-Founder Josh May, this grant fund supports diverse Kentuckians to collaborate on a musical project.

  • Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum and City of Morgantown (Morgantown) - Festival planning celebrating the life and memory of Arnold Shultz, a Black musician and influence on bluegrass music.

Kentucky Waterways Alliance

In partnership with the Kentucky Waterways Alliance (KWA), this fund seeks to support projects that clean up, improve access to, offer education about, or celebration of Kentucky’s waterways. 

  • Brittiney Griffin (Junior Black Campers) & Taylor Ryan (Louisville) - Renewing a canoe for youth outdoor recreation.

  • Lauren Kallmeyer (Kentucky Watershed Watch) & Ron Eskerden Photography (Statewide) - Online training video about water monitoring.

Kentucky Foundation for Women

In partnership with the Kentucky Foundation for Women (KFW), this fund supports small, women-led projects that use arts, culture, or creativity to bridge geographic, racial, and economic divides, or reduce political polarization in Kentucky.

  • Maria Clark Photography & Greater Owensboro Leadership Institute (Owensboro) - Community portrait project & artist mixer.

  • Mary Breckinridge's Wendover & Southeast Kentucky African American Museum and Cultural Center (Hyden) - Community dialogue & art project centering African American quilting traditions.

  • Shana Goggins & Angelika Weaver (Morehead / Bowling Green / Statewide) - Creating "Tapestry Volume 2: Expanding Kentucky Literary Activism Through Rural-Urban Story Collection.”

  • Christa Iwu & Jackie Pallesen (Louisville) - Immersive visual experience of Iwu’s first collection of poetry, ADOLESCENCE: edges first.

  • Four Hills Farm & Dova's Research (South Woodford County / Lexington) - Creating Unexpected Stories, a project about the historic African-American community of Elm Bend in South Woodford County and its relationship to the adjacent Johnston Farm.

Civic Health Microgrants

With support from Kentucky Arts Council, this fund supports teams of two or more artists, culture bearers, or arts organizations to design projects that enhance the capacity of their communities to solve problems.

  • Trinity Walsh, Elise Carter, & Northern Kentucky Inclusive Students in Education (Campbell & Kenton Counties) - Hosting an intercultural civic engagement workshop for high school & college students.

  • Maria Eskerden, Amber Belt, & EKY Secular Homeschool Collective (Eastern KY) - Creation of localized, inclusive, secular cooperatives for families & local caregivers.

  • Shauntrice Martin (Okike) & Iniejah Allen (Louisville) - Developing a prototype for a solar powered, environmentally friendly outdoor cleaning system.

  • K.A. Simpson (SparkLight Creative Group) & Adrian Wallace (Bishop & Chase) (Covington) - Recording music & spoken word that draws from both Black rural and urban Kentucky origins.

Artist-led projects generating economic impact in Eastern KY

This fund invests in projects that engage Eastern Kentucky artists with individuals or organizations from the Kentucky RUX Network to collaborate across distance, difference, or sector on projects that celebrate and connect Kentucky's people and places and promote economic impact.

  • Amy Le Ann Richardson & Waylan Coffey (Rowan County Arts Center) (Morehead) - Launching the Bloodroot Writers Collective, a youth-led literary arts program.

  • Belle Townsend (Backwoods Literary Press) & Stacie Fugate (Appalachians for Appalachia) (Hindman / Hazard / Morehead / Whitesburg) - Series of readings, panels, and workshops celebrating Backwoods’ Testament anthology.

  • Beckie Rose-Bowman (Appalshop) & John Bowman (Dream.Org) (Whitesburg) - Continuing & amplifying the legacy of the Calls From Home program on WMMT.

Agriculture and Food Systems Resiliency Microgrants

In partnership with EarthTools, this fund invests in projects that bolster food resiliency across the state of Kentucky through support to teams of Kentucky farmers, food workers, or organizations working to promote sustainable food systems in our commonwealth.

  • Change Today, Change Tomorrow & Community Farm Alliance (Louisville) - Transforming two vacant West End lots into a demonstration hub for urban food production and land stewardship.

This year’s Intercultural Microgrant Program was launched with support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Kentucky Foundation for Women, Kentucky Waterways Alliance, Fund for the Arts, EarthTools, the Josh May Memorial Fund, and individual donors.

About RUX

The Kentucky Rural-Urban Exchange (RUX) is a creative leadership program with over 325 alumni from 65 Kentucky counties and an expansive, cross-sector member and partner network across the state. RUX was founded in 2014 as a program of Art of the Rural and Appalshop. 

This funding provides RUX’s experienced, capable alumni and member network with the support they need to try new ideas and solve old problems through short-term projects that foster dialogue, connection, or collaboration among Kentuckians from disparate backgrounds, identities, or experiences.

Want to get involved?

Join us at The Golden Thread on November 2 at the Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts in Louisville to celebrate our Commonwealth’s visionary, cross-sector leaders!

KYRUX