Celebrating 2024: Our 10th Year in Review
During our 10th year, RUX united Kentuckians at Community Intensives & special programs across the state and deepened our impact. Join us in celebrating the 2024 cohort and host communities.
People
For our 2024 RUX cohort, RUX hosted 50 Kentuckians in Campbellsville (Taylor Co.) & Owensboro (Daviess Co.). These leaders in the arts, agriculture, community development, education, government, health, and business represent all regions of Kentucky,including Allen, Barren, Bell, Breckinridge, Campbell, Casey, Daviess, Fayette, Franklin, Graves, Jefferson, Kenton, Laurel, Madison, McCracken, Ohio, Perry, Rockcastle, Rowan, Taylor, and Warren counties. We partnered with 65 organizations, networks, foundations, and businesses. 49 speakers led conversations and trainings, and we paid 53 artists, chefs, facilitators, and organizers to help produce these events.
“You grow together being in RUX intensive weekends...Finding differences and commonalities, while debunking misconceptions about each other. These are people I will carry with me forever.”
-Azucena (Susie) Trejo (RUX 2019 Cohort Member, 2023-2024 Steering Committee Member; Interdisciplinary Artist & Educator)
Place
We created common ground through our Community Intensives. In Campbellsville & Taylor County, we learned about ecotourism, recreation, and conservation along Green River, the culture of local agriculture & land stewardship, the relationship between the university & local community, and some amazing new efforts to uplift local music, literature, and African American history, including the Enslaved Persons of Clay Hill (EPoCH) Legacy Project, a 2023 RUX-funded Intercultural Microgrant Project.
In Owensboro & Daviess County, we focused on local arts, culture, & cuisine, and faith & identity in the local community, among other topics, through a Community Conversation at the Owensboro Museum of Science & History and a Narrative Stage at the Daviess County Public Library. We also celebrated Juneteenth with the Black Expo at English Park.
Across both Community Intensive weekends, 100% of RUX cohort members agreed that they learned something new about each Community Intensive region. This year, RUX Community Intensives contributed $37,058 to local economies.
“Since [getting involved with RUX], I have cherished the unique way the program celebrates the Commonwealth and its citizens. Life-changing conversations have taken place around bonfires, in churches, museums, and on the street...I look so forward to celebrating and elevating Kentucky with a diverse collection of loud, proud, and talented Kentuckians.”
-Chad Benefield (2023-24 RUX Owensboro Host Committee Member; WBKR)
Partnership
Cross-sector partnerships are the foundation of RUX. 2024 Program Partners: Art of the Rural, Appalshop, KY Arts Council, KY Folklife Program, and regional partners including KY Performing Arts, Louisville Public Media, Campbellsville University, Primrose on Main, Taylor County Tourism, Taylor County Public Library, Homeplace on Green River, Campbellsville Mainstreet, East First Brewery, Kentucky Wesleyan College, Owensboro Museum of Science and History, Theater Workshop of Owensboro, Daviess County Public Library, Black Expo, Brian and Janice Smith, WBKR, the Owensboro Convention and Visitors Bureau, Kentucky Civic Seal Program, Office of Secretary of State.
2024 Funding Partners: National Endowment for the Arts, the W. L. Lyons Brown Foundation, the Greater Clark Foundation, Owensboro Health, the Marilyn & William Young Foundation, Kentucky Foundation for Women, Kentucky Waterways Alliance, Fund for the Arts, The Monument Workshop at UK, Creative Change Coalition, and individual donors like you!
“It is often easy to feel like work is siloed or meaningless due to the state of our world, but RUX is a disruptor of these feelings and I'm very grateful.”
-2024 RUX Cohort Member
Civic Health
We invested over $65,000 in place-based projects through our Artists Respond and Intercultural Microgrant programs. These projects have strengthened community collaboration across 32 counties. Thanks to the National Endowment for the Arts, Creative Change Coalition, Fund for the Arts, Kentucky Foundation for Women, Kentucky Waterways Alliance, The Monuments Workshop at UK, and individual donors.In partnership with Kentucky Performing Arts, we also closed out our 10th year at The Golden Thread with visionary artists & thought leaders from all over Kentucky.
“RUX was a safe space to engage, and my relationship to the state and my community was transformed in the process. The RUX experience exposed me to a bigger Kentucky community, one that made me feel more connected to my Kentucky identity.”
-LaToya Drake (2023-24 Cohort Member)
RUX cohort, alumni, and their loved ones square dance at Third Weekend 2024. Photo by Chris Clair.
Capacity Building
We welcomed 10 new Steering Committee members. We hosted leadership retreat and trainings in Louisville and Campbellsville, and traveled to Carter Caves State Resort Park & Morehead for Third Weekend, an annual alumni-led gathering for RUX alumni, members, partners, and their loved ones, which attracted 89 attendees from across the RUX network. We also launched the RUX Membership Program to make our network more accessible and to build sustainable support, welcoming 29 members while growing earned revenue.
Thank you for supporting a more connected and collaborative Kentucky!
Your contributions make another decade of RUX possible.
Please donate what you can today!