Small, poor county in Eastern Kentucky to create marketplace for local artisans

"Buy local" programs are one strategy for economic development for rural communities. In Eastern Kentucky's small, poor Elliott County, the Cooperative Extension Service and the county tourism council are pushing to open a local products outlet that would serve as a showcase for local artisans, Aimee Nelson of the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture reports.  "If we can put all this together and have a collective place for artists and producers in the county to display their products, we’d have somewhere to direct people to go to actually take that 'buy local' advice," Elliott County Cooperative Extension Agent for Family and Consumer Sciences Gwenda Adkins said. (Rooster, by Minnie Adkins)

Adkins and friend Gayle Clevenger, the director of the tourism council, got a grant from the Brushy Fork Institute in Berea and the Appalachian Regional Commission for the program. A recent partnership between the tourism council and the Elliott County Fiscal Court, the county's governing body, has provided a prime location for the outlet: the Laurel Gorge Cultural Heritage Center, which had been closed due to budget problems. "I think it will really help local artisans think of what they do as a business, rather than just something they do," Adkins told Nelson. "We have a lot of tourism in our county because we have a beautiful county. This facility will just enhance our appeal. It’s also hard for artists to market the way they might like to individually, but as a collective group, we can do a lot more." (Read more)