#APPALACHIANLOVESTORIES
Tell your story, your way.
Appalachian Loves Stories is a storytelling project that started at the Stay Summer Institute in 2014 and has expanded into a campaign focused on making space for the stories of young people in Appalachia who may have no other space to tell their story.
So what does STAY mean when we talk about our Appalachian Love Story?
Well we’re not talking about a storybook romance. We’re talking about "love" as a verb, as an action, as a process we continue to change and shift. We are talking about love as a choice, like how we choose to love Appalachia and how we choose to stay even when it might be easier to leave.
We are talking about love as …
an intersectional movement for and by youth that for ten years has been building towards regenerative and inclusive communities in Appalachia; communities where all young people are able to thrive and grow.
We are talking about love as …
physical space where young Appalachian folks are allowed to exist in community as their whole selves; like how each summer the STAY Project holds the STAY Summer Institute, an autonomous youth space where young folks around the region are able to gather, connect, and share knowledge together.
We are talking about how love is …
celebrating and honoring our culture and traditions but also how love is a commitment to dismantle the parts of our culture that uphold white-supremacy and the narratives that erase queer, indigenous, black, and brown histories and current realities from Appalachia.
We are talking about how love is …
recognizing that our struggle in Appalachia is not a microcosm and we are stronger when we are in alignment with movements across the South, like how a delegation of young people from Appalachia have been at all seven Southern Movement Assemblies to connect with folks across the South and be a part of developing a Southern plan of action to build new social economies, practice people’s democracy, and protect and defend our people.
We are talking about love as …
a vision of an Appalachian economy where prisons do not replace coal mines. We are talking about how love is recognizing our value is greater than the resources, the people, and the stories that have been extracted from us. Love is demanding that we deserve clean water, affordable and reliable internet access, and livelihoods that do not break our bodies or our spirits.
We are talking about love being hard work sometimes, and about how love comes with both joys and heartache.
