Opening Plenary: A New Rural Vision
Keynote Speaker: Charles W. Fluharty, Director, Rural Policy Research Institute

Panel of Experts: What Constitutes Rural?
Moderator: Joe Brooks, PolicyLink

Experts with different perspectives on challenges and issues will share what it means to be “rural” and how policies and programs are impacting social and economic systems:

• Minority Farmers and Landowners – Ben Burkett, Federation of Southern Cooperatives
• Economic Development – Justin Maxson, Mountain Association of Community Economic Development
• Immigration – Ilana Dubester, Hispanics in Philanthropy
• Sustainable Agriculture – Betty T. Bailey, Executive Director, Rural Advancement Foundation International – USA (RAFI-USA)

Concurrent Workshops

Multicultural Organizing in Rural North Carolina
Rural Western North Carolina’s traditional diversity, combined with the many new communities calling NC home, have made the region a flashpoint for multicultural organizing. For six years, the Center for Participatory Change (CPC) has been supporting a diverse community of Latino, African American, Appalachian, Cherokee, and multiracial grassroots leaders, community groups, networks and coalitions working for racial, economic, and social justice. CPC staff along with a sample of Grassroots Partners will describe this work, including how CPC’s micro-grants program has been a tool for increasing wealth and building community and power. Story telling and conversation will highlight the successes and challenges of community organizing as told by leaders from mountains and foothills communities.
Moderators: Jeannette Butterworth, Molly Hemstreet, and Grassroots Leaders, Center for Participatory Change
Speakers: TBD

Resourceful Communities: A Model
The gap between North Carolina's rural and urban communities is widening daily. Global economic trends are disproportionately impacting distressed communities, and the resulting poverty in rural areas has set the stage for increased environmental exploitation. Joining with communities throughout the Southeast, The Conservation Fund is integrating conservation, sustainable economic development, and social justice principles through its Resourceful Communities Program. Working in poor and minority communities, they are helping to engage rural organizations and leaders in creating new economies that protect, enhance and restore the significant natural, cultural, and historic resources. This partnership between conservation and environmental groups and rural community-based grassroots organization represents an emerging trend that links environmental protection to community development efforts while advancing African-American leadership in sustainable and strategic land conservation practices and leveraging environmental resources for broader purposes.
Moderators: Athan Lindsay, Rural Funders Collaborative, Mikki Sager, The Conservation Fund
Speakers: Gary Grant, Concerned Citizens of Tillery; Ammie Jenkins, Sandhills Family Heritage Association

Rural Housing: Effective Solutions Meeting Demand Among rural households in poverty, nearly 70 percent are cost-burdened and almost 30 percent live in substandard homes. Household needs include a range of decent and safe rental units, more homeownership and asset-building opportunities, preservation of existing homes, avoidance of “money traps”, homebuyer education and counseling, and new approaches in manufactured housing. Panelists in this session will describe their award-winning and successful initiatives to house two of the nation’s most impoverished populations. A grass-roots nonprofit allied with the United Farmworkers union, Texas-based Proyecto Azteca promotes homeownership for very low-income families in border colonias neighborhoods. Families build their own sweat-equity, very low-cost homes at Proyecto’s open-air factory and move them to the families’ sites. Delmarva Rural Ministries has overcome “NIMBYism” to build and manage migrant farm worker rental units on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay. DRM also is a major provider of health services to farm workers. Many of their tenants are single male migrants, the most difficult population to house.
Moderator: Joe Belden, Housing Assistance Council
Speakers: David Arizmendi, Proyecto Azteca/Azteca Community Loan Fund; Debra Singletary, Delmarva Rural Ministries

Experts Roundtable: Networking Dinner
Tables will be arranged with each of the experts from the day’s sessions to continue an information discussion around particular topics: Housing, Sustainable Agriculture, Economic Development, Immigrants, Multicultural Organizing, Resourceful Communities, etc.